Interactivity and Internet Communication

7 Important Interactive Design Trends for 2015

Here is a list of what Michael Meder  thinks are the emerging trends for interactive website designs in 2015.

1. Mobile First Responsive Design

While this isn't a new trend, it is important to recognize the strength in the mobile audience. They mobile audience is about to outnumber the desktop audience, so websites must learn to cater to them. This presents difficulties with one code that will work perfectly across many devices.

2. Flat Design

Have you noticed the slight change in the look of your apps on your iPhone as you upgrade to the new one each year? The design is called flat design and gained momentum over the last couple year. This trend is catered to the mobile audience, since icons now have clean typography, are easily scalable, and a small memory footprint.

3. Responsive Interactive Infographics (aka Webgraphics)

This trend has taken infographics and made them interactive. The new infographic style, or webgraphic, creates a memorable and fun experience by adding interactive elements and animations.

4. Focus on Typography

As previously mentioned, in the past year responsive design and flat design have become increasingly popular as to make sure that sites are consistent across all platforms.

5. Long Pages, Shallow Websites

Websites are starting to include only a single-page long-scrolling experience. This again caters to the mobile user, who wants to scroll rather than click to experience a webpage. Websites like Tumblr and Pinterest come to mind, that you can endlessly scroll without ever have to click on something to gain more information.

6. Bigger Images

Over the past couple years more designers are using full screen images, and is now showing up on mobile platforms as well.

7. Video Backgrounds

This trend is not seen on mobile because of certain restraints. Websites like Square Space and Take Your Pulse use engaging video backgrounds to add personality to a layout.  

I think it is important to note that most of these trends are focused on the mobile user and making sure that websites are consistent among all platforms. This shows the extent that the internet is in our life. Many of us cannot stand to leave our phones at home, or to not look at our phone multiple times within an hour. The internet is connected to us almost every second of every day. You no longer need to startup a bulky desktop computer to access it. So it makes sense that interactivity would shift to encompass the shift from desktop to mobile users, while still ensuring that you get the same experience on your phone or your desktop. The way we communicate with and on the internet is still evolving as we move towards a more mobile internet.

Measuring interactivity with these new trends may be a bit more difficult. One way to measure interactivity would be to have viewers fill out surveys after a couple seconds on the website to see how much they have enjoyed it. This could be tricky because you don't want to annoy the user with a pop up or discourage interactivity, but you would want to see want features they like or didn't like and if they had fun with it. You can also measure how long a user was on the site and with a heatmap for where the mouse was, or finger in the case of mobile phones, to see how much they interacted with the website.