Web Design Trends for 2013

Although no one knows exactly what lies ahead in the area of web design and development, it’s a safe bet to assume 2013 will continue to be a year of  rapid change. I’ve compiled several predictions in the following post. Agree or disagree with any of these thoughts? Add your input and ideas to the comment thread!

User Interface and Visual Design

“In the coming year, minimalism will be king. Many texture-heavy designs will give way to simpler sites. The skeuomorphism trend will die out, and the cleaner metro look will take its place. 2013 will be full of tall footers, bold colors, rich and subtle gradients, and sharp edges. Fewer sites will be inspired by Apple’s web design, and more by Google’s.”
Bridget Farrell

“Another trend I foresee in 2013 is the decline of both Web 2.0 and skeumorphic styles and the rise of the “authentically digital”style that Windows has recently adopted. This style, which proponents laud as being more direct, more genuine and a better match to the device that the design is seen on, breaks away from the textures, glassy surfaces and realistic 3-D designs that Apple has long been known for.”
Hannah Kokjohn

“As Retina-quality images rise, browser font-smoothing improves, and CSS filter effects allow us to skip Photoshop altogether, the web will start to resemble print.”
Jordan Sheckman

“Parallax scrolling and infinite scrolling: traditional vertical scrolling and the more recent horizontal scrolling are things of the past. Scrolling through a website will be taken to whole new dimensions.”
Dana Edmonds

“Nowadays, a lot of websites offer both, vertical and horizontal scrolling as far as mobile devices are concerned. However, vertical scrolling will lead the trend in 2013. Vertical scrolling is easy, convenient for all the mobile users.

“2013 will see a lot of increase in the usage of parallax scrolling effects. This thing has been in the industry for sometime but earlier it was associated with video games only. This feature will basically allow designers to control the depth of design objects on the website being designed.”
Ali Qayyum

“For web developers, retina displays cause issues with some image-heavy websites, where some images can appear “grainy.” To address this problem, web designers and developers everywhere snapped into action and served up a variety of solutions. These include retina.js, along with HTML/CSS and pixel query solutions, as detailed in the article “Towards a Retina Web.”
Brian Casel

“We are seeing more and more websites using large images as visuals on their home pages, and I don’t see this slowing down any time soon.”
Amber Leigh Turner

“We’ve seen a move towards designing in the browser, but vendors like Adobe aiming to introduce offerings such as Edge Reflow will impact on existing wireframe and design methodologies.”
Sally Jenkinson

Mobile and Responsive

“As far as mobile design goes, we will see a continuing increase in responsive and adaptive sites. Separate mobile sites will most likely become more and more obsolete, and designers will be encouraged to adopt a mobile-first philosophy. ”
Bridget Farrell

“Responsive and adaptive design: amid the constant search for future-friendly products, responsive design is the most reliable tool used nowadays.”

“Mobile first: I don’t need to say how important it is for a website to be accessible on mobile devices. The most respected approach so far is the mobile-first approach.”
David Sachs

“I predict we will see more companies using responsive design to make sure their user experience is consistent with access across all forms of hardware—PC, tablet, phone and smart TV. Until now, what we saw was more adaptation than a holistic approach…

RWD (BH: Responsive Web Design) will be a key element for a company’s mobile strategy, baked in from the start… This will reduce the number of mobile apps that are website clones, and force companies to design unique mobile experiences targeted towards specific customers and behaviours.”
Andy Budd

“It’s “not just desktop vs mobile any more”, but “desktop and mobile and couch and TV and more”
Eric Meyer

“CMS vendors are already seeing the need to provide mobile support when creating and managing content, and the next step is to optimise CMS software interfaces, empowering content editors with true flexibility and location-independent content management capabilities”.
Wayne Rowley

Typography

“Fonts are going to play a huge role in web design in 2013 and beyond. Thanks to Google Fonts and the use of the @Font-Face rule, designers have a limitless amount of custom fonts at their fingertips. Expect to see wide open sites with beautiful fonts replacing custom graphics. ”
Laine Griffin

“Our prediction is that 2013 is going to be the year of typography as it will be given much, much importance.”
Ali Qayyum

“The year 2012 saw the rapid rise of icon fonts, as well as explosive growth of web font services. The purchase of Typekit by Adobe and its implementation in Creative Suite means that in 2013 we will see more of these services added to the designer’s repertoire.”
David Sutoyo

Video

“Integration of videos on websites will continue to change the way websites communicate important messages. Website visitors in 2013 will expect to get the information they need by watching videos instead of reading text.”
Andrew Kucheriavy

HTML5/CSS3

“HTML5 and CSS3: no return point here. This is the future, and it still needs to be mastered by a majority of web designers.”
David Sachs

“HTML5 and CSS3 will become the bottom-line standard rather than some useful tools for the right application.”

Tizen… “It’s an HTML5-based mobile OS created by Samsung and Intel, and initial devices are expected in Q2 2013. If Samsung pushes Tizen devices, you’ll know it’s going to be a big deal.”
Peter-Paul Koch

“I predict that we could see the end of Flash in 2013. It’s already on life-support as companies who did support Flash before start to dump it. With so much negative attention surrounding Flash, fewer designers and developers are going to use it which will make those who want the technology less and less able to hire someone to do it.”
Amber Leigh Turner

Training and Learning

“For too long, higher education programs failed to provide a solid foundation for the professional web design career field. All of the coursework seemed to be five or more years behind the industry… Today, we’re seeing new ways for newbies and experienced professionals alike to rapidly advance their skills and gear up for professional-level work as web designers.”
Craig Grannell

Check out TreeHouse, The Starter League

Also, Code Club…

(BH: These models dovetail with the rise of MOOC’s (massive open online courses) and education systems like Khan Academy. I see these playing a big role in how we’re educating ourselves and future web designers/developers moving forward…)

“Take a brief that requires a responsive design. Give it to a designer who knows how to code and then to one who doesn’t. You’ll get a more effective, fluently designed site from the former. Throw in frameworks, new standards, and massive improvements in capabilities for designing in-browser and the latter will fall further behind. Those who already code have an astonishing playground to create with. Those who don’t need to learn — fast.”
Andy Budd