Table of Contents

Introduction:................................................................................................................................. 2
Trends:........................................................................................................................................ 2
1.

Storytelling and interaction:...............................................................................................2

2.

The Navicon:..................................................................................................................... 3

3.

Ghost buttons:...................................................................................................................4

4.

Very large typography:......................................................................................................4

5.

Longer scrolling sites:.......................................................................................................5

Conclusion:.................................................................................................................................. 6
References:................................................................................................................................. 7

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Introduction:
A web design is the planning and creation of websites. This includes the information
architecture, user interface, site structure, navigation, layout, colours, fonts, and imagery. All of
these are combined with the principles of design to create a website that meets the goals of the
owner and the designer (about tech, 2015).These designs can be incorporated into company
websites to provide them with a competitive edge as well as making the website easily
accessible and attractive to its viewers.
The five trends that our group will be presenting in this assignment is as follows: storytelling and
interaction, side out, fly out application like menus, hidden main menus, large typography and
longer scrolling sites.

Trends:
1. Storytelling and interaction:
A website not only consists of the content but through the content it needs to be able to tell the
viewers a story in order to catch their attention whether it is through having a picture of the good
or service being offered with some writing on the side; or even with the information given has
pictures in between. In accordance to Zorzini (2012) storytelling can be defined as a strategy
that aims to capture attention and then guide it towards a customizable and interactive
information flow that will convey narrative in a highly unique way. In 2015 web design will
concentrate on being able to tell the users a story. Therefore, the site grabs the attention of the
viewer through its different design which gives the viewer the information they want.
An example would be the website of the Space Needle which tells the facts of the Space Needle
very well by using storytelling and a design that helps it.
Companies like Yahoo! have used stories to sell their service on dating subscriptions.
Web design has become more interactive and animated in order to help present the information
in a different and attractive way. When using the interaction and animation together on your
website it is a big advantage to the company.
The Space Needle website uses this new trend as well. The website of Impossible Bureaus is
highly interactive in the sense that it responds to the scrolling and hovering over the different
elements (instead of the normal clicking).

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2. The Navicon:
Navicon is a type of hidden menu trend which hides the navigation options off screen, and will
only appear when the user selects the icon. This was a unique solution which makes the life of
the designer and developer easier. For mobile apps and websites this trend became the go-to
trend. Birch (2015) described this trend as, Navicons vary depending on the project, though the
majority gives preferences to the more stylish, simple, mobile-inspired three-line icon that looks
sleek and subtle in almost every environment. The small icon can be used to hide both small
and complex, content-heavy menus. Navicon has therefore become an easy solution for
websites. This trend has recently come into trouble, due to that the mobile industry has been
slowly moving away from using this trend and into the direction of on screen options. A small
site can have a lot of links within the navigation. However, Navicons and off screen menus will
stay in the market, as even though both have limitations and advantages each one will be used
depending where they are most suited.
The web site for Long Story Short, a design agency, is a good example of how to use the
Navicon in a meaningful and useful way. This site uses the trend to hide the full set of navigation
options. The reason why this site is such an excellent example of the Navicon is that the most
important elements of navigation appear outside the menu. The home page is a portal to the
three most important parts of the web site. That way the trend is only a secondary navigation
(which fills in the empty spaces) and not the primary.
Facebook is the website that popularized Navicons (which hides navigation options off screen)
(McNeil, 2015).
Another good example is the Squarespace site. This site has the tour and login options are
visible all the time; there are, however, roughly a total of 23 menu options in the slide out menu.
The trend allows for the most critical options to take the front and be placed in the same space.

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3. Ghost buttons:
Ghost buttons are rectangular buttons with text inside which tells the viewer what their purpose
is, and they also do not have a background color. The word ghost comes from the fact that the
button does not look like its suppose to yet it still fulfills the function of a normal button. This
design is used very limited, as they take up a fair amount of space, on for example the home
page or the About sections.
The best advantage is that they are excellent at receiving the attention of visitors and have a
high call to action response (Anamaria, 2014). Some of the other advantages Ghost Buttons
have is that they do not block the content behind them; the total file size is not big as they are
an outline; they are useful to mobile apps as they do not take up important screen space; they
are excellent at getting the attention of the viewers and directing them to the area one wants
them to concentrate on; and they are unique as they can fit into various designs.
The Imagine, create, enjoy website uses the Ghost buttons on the home page. There are three
Ghost Buttons on the home page namely: Mission, Play and Touch; and when clicked on they
will take the viewer to their respective pages.
The site of Grid Style Sheets uses three of these buttons as well. These buttons perform the
following: Menu, Install and Source.
The web site of The Distance has taken their homepage into different direction with a unique
background. As mentioned before that ghost buttons can fit into a variety of designs, they have
been added to give a bit more color to the content.

4. Very large typography:

This trend allows for the site to have certain content to be large in order to catch the viewers
attention to not only the good or service that is being offered, but also to the content that is
important. In 2014, this trend was highly important in many site designs that will not change any
time soon. For 2015, however, there are large headings and this trend is getting even larger. It
gets bigger so that it can be seen from a distance.
Turner (2015) gave three examples of this trend, namely:
The website of Tiny Giant has large typography when one gets on to the page. This makes
statement visually that will not be missed easily. Having big typography will probably be a factor
in the year in which it is to enhance the visual hierarchy on the site by making sure the user will
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read the text that is the largest on the page first, as that is what one will see first. Tiny Giant has
done this very well.
The typography by the New Yorkers is recognized worldwide as it has a special style and
appearance.
The website for Wistia for example, there is a simple look to it that keeps the viewer focused on
the content and not on the design. The flat design makes the site look clean.

5. Longer scrolling sites:

Most new site designs which are published today have a tendency to be longer in length when
the viewer scrolls through the page; this has not gone unnoticed. As more mobile devices have
become a lot more popular, it has become more effective for a site to go for scrolling down a
page, instead of doing the means of linking sites together, as a means to the display the
content; especially when it comes to their home pages.
Clicking on different in links to gather all the information is a lot more time consuming and
harder than it would be to just have to scroll down a page to get all the information.
The homepage is not the only location where the long scrolling can be noticed. While this trend
has been popular for a while, the advantages of scrolling has multiplied and has been found in
other location besides the home page, such as product pages which is a means to display a
variety of information in a cleaner fashion.
For example, the site for the Apples iPhone 6 advertises the long scrolling trend outside of the
home page. It has been designed so that the iPhone 6 site is a long scrolling site, advertising
the products features. Including, the site has added some animations to make the scrolling
visually attractive.
On the website of UXPin one will see that the scrolling only has an effect on the content onscreen but, however, it doesnt move one further down the page. This is scrolling against a static
background.
The Free Range Designs website uses the sticky navigation which is where the navigation
controls and menus remain still while the viewer goes through the content.

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Conclusion:
Considering the information provided in the assignment it is evident that there are various types
of design trends that companies are using to make its websites more attractive and accessible
for its users. Therefore based on the vast amount of people constantly browsing the web it is
imperative that a company maintains an attractive and easily accessible website to maintain
satisfactory customer service as well as to ensure a competitive edge over their competition.

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References:
Anamaria. (2014, December 2). Ghost Buttons, the first potential trend 2015. Retrieved
September 14, 2015, from top desgin mag: http://www.topdesignmag.com/ghostbuttons-first-potential-trend-2015/
Birch, N. (2015, January 29). Examples of Hidden Menus in Website Design. Retrieved
September 15, 2015, from Designmodo: http://designmodo.com/hidden-menus/
McNeil, P. (2015, January 1). 3 Essential Navigation Trends For 2015. Retrieved September 15,
2015,

from

WebdesignerNews.com:

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2015/01/3-

essential-navigation-trends-for-2015/
Turner, A. L. (2015, January 2). 10 Web design trends you can expect to see in 2015. Retrieved
September 12, 2015, from Design & Dev: http://thenextweb.com/dd/2015/01/02/10-webdesign-trends-can-expect-see-2015/12/
Web design trends 2015-16: the long scroll. (2015, August 24). Retrieved September 16, 2015,
from Creative Bloq: http://www.creativebloq.com/web-design/web-design-trends-210516-long-scroll-81516343
What is Web Design? (2015). Retrieved September 14, 2015, from About tech.:
http://webdesign.about.com/od/webdesign/qt/what-is-web-design.htm
Zorzini, C. (2015, April 1). What is responsive storytelling and why is it a major 2015 design
trend? Retrieved September 12, 2015, from Inspired mag: http://inspiredm.com/what-isresponsive-storytelling-and-why-is-it-a-major-2015-design-trend/

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Originality report:
Group Assignment by Nicola Anja LUMPP
From Group Assignment Report (Introduction to Information Systems (IFS132), 2015 (GA))
Processed on 16-Sep-2015 12:39 GMT
ID: 571108491
Word Count: 1598
Similarity Index
8%
Similarity by Source
Internet Sources:
6%
Publications:
0%
Student Papers:
4%

sources:
1
3% match (student papers from 02-May-2013)
Submitted to International Business School on 2013-05-02

2
3% match (Internet from 14-Sep-2015)
http://designmodo.com/hidden-menus/

3
1% match (student papers from 25-Mar-2015)
Submitted to Higher Education Commission Pakistan on 2015-03-25

4
1% match (Internet from 11-Dec-2007)
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/10/07billionaires_The-Worlds-Billionaires_NameHTML_36.html

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