Partner Article

Web Design

Few things stand still for long these days, particularly where the Internet is concerned. In order to ensure that your company has the best website possible that will deliver the best possible experience to users, you need to be aware of current and future trends in web design. At the moment, the two most pressing of these are HTML5 and responsive design.

HTML5You’ve undoubtedly heard of HTML (Hypertext Mark-up Language), which in essence forms the basic building blocks for all web pages. The mark-up language consists of various elements, which together instruct web browsers what to display, how to display it and where. Over the years there have been a number of versions of this universal language of web design, with the current one being HTML 4, which first entered usage in 1997.

But HTML5 is already well into development, and in some cases is even being utilised. It’s a little way from being complete, and it will be longer still before a majority of browsers can interpret it correctly. But many web designers are excited about it, and you should be too. At a glance and in layman’s terms HTML5 will enable you to:

Seamlessly integrate video and other multimedia into your website without the need for plug-ins such as Flash to be installed.

Make your website display better and with greater usability on mobile devices

Load pages faster

Give web pages interactive ‘drag and drop’ capabilities

It’s worth remembering that HTML5 is a few years off being complete, and while the latest browsers offer support for it, users with older browsers may not be able to view all content. But it’s certainly something that anyone with a website should keep a close eye on.

Responsive DesignIn the past year there has also been a lot of talk about ‘responsive design’, and for good reason. Responsive design is effectively a solution for the problem of having web users visiting your website utilising lots of different size screens, resolutions and types of devices (desktops, tablet PCs, smartphones etc). Rather than having to resort to creating separate sites for each type of device, responsive design enables you to have one site which adapts itself according to factors such as screen resolution or device type.

It does this by using ‘media queries’, which in effect ask the user’s system about itself, and then uses ‘style sheets’ to display content in a way that is appropriate. This can prevent display problems such as tiny text or horizontal scrolling, and removes the technical problems caused by having a separate mobile website.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Jon Celeste .