Australian websites becoming more user-friendly with occasional “outbreaks of style”
Australian websites are moving away from heavy load times to more user-friendly slide-show formats, according preliminary trends from sites entered into the Australia Web Industry Association’ annual awards.
The announcement:
Modern Australian web sites are trending towards a single big-image slide-show, according to the Web Industry Association.
The Association runs the Australian Web Awards and the Crowdies; a crowd-sourced award where ratings of web site are done ‘by the man on the street and the woman on the laptop’.
Although the awards are still open, the Association has identified nine trends in the design of sites already nominated.
Simplicity. Even ‘portal’ sites like newspapers have less crowded home pages now.
Length. Sites are featuring longer home pages, encouraging users to scroll down for more content, rather than clicking to new pages. This is a reaction to users’ impatience with load times.
Usability. Sites are becoming easier to navigate. Complex, multi-level menus are out of vogue; single line menus are back.
Size. Big images are in. Many new sites are using images that occupy the whole page. Changes in browser technology have encouraged developers to use the full width of the screen when designing sites.
Pictures. New sites have noticeably less text than two years ago.
Restrained. The fad of completely animated pages is almost passed, as Flash is replaced by more search-engine friendly and iPad-friendly alternatives
Diversity. There’s a wider spectrum of palettes. Primaries, pastels, tints and black and white all have their share, though big orange buttons on predominantly blue web sites are still very common for corporates. Recent moves are towards modern colours but only a few of them.
Movement. Home pages are less static than they were. The sliding panel and the slide show with the fading transition are very common in new sites, though great use of video is still rare.
Originality. While most corporate sites continue to present homogenous facades full of banal stock photos, there are outbreaks of style, even on Facebook.
Judge of the awards, Helen Burgess, says the difference between a good 2012 site and a good 2010 site is that it is easier on the eye, has more movement and is easier to find your way around.
About the Australian Web Awards
The Australian Web Awards are judged by well-regarded industry professionals and cover web and mobile versions in Personal, Ecommerce, Commercial, Government, Education, Culture & Events, Not for Profit and Innovation categories. They’re serious awards that look at the build quality of the site and adherence to technical standards as well as content and design.
www.webawards.com.au
