The Future of Web Design – CMS, Flash, Graphics

The web has seen vast improvements in the past few years in terms of delivering visually rich and engaging content, search engine optimization, and the overall management of websites.  In this article, RezStream identifies some of the major shifts the web has taken in the past and what the future of web design holds.

Typography: Throughout the history of the web, web designers had to work with an extremely limited set of fonts that would function in the various browsers. With this lack of font variety, designers had little choice but to either use basic fonts on websites, which appeared boring and plain, or instead employ graphics to display fonts that would achieve branding a certain look and feel to the site.  But this method of using graphics is not ideal for many reasons:

• Graphics do not contain the same value as text in the search engines.
• Users are not able to copy and paste the text embedded inside a graphic.
• If a client wants to update the text, it is more time consuming for the designer to make the adjustments to the graphic, which costs the website owner more money, as opposed to the simpler task of just changing text.

Web typography remains today in a transitional stage, with most fonts cleared for use legally, but some font usage still comes with warnings such as a reliability on Adobe Flash, slow render times, and not being search engine friendly.  There are other technologies that fill the gaps in terms of the above-mentioned caveats, but are being held back due to licensing.  Bottom line is that we will need to wait a little while longer for the technologies and the licensing to come to an agreement, but once that happens, it will allow the doors that are already cracked open to open wide.

Search Engine Friendly Interactivity: Most of us have heard of Adobe Flash.  Even if you haven’t heard of it, you’ve probably seen it used on many websites.  Until recently, Adobe Flash has been at the forefront of the cool, interactivity on the web.  Adobe Flash has been the vehicle to use so far to deliver a rich interactive experience to website users, but this medium hasn’t come without some downsides.  Adding Flash to a site can be very time consuming, which incurs increased costs to the development and maintenance of the site.  In addition, some Flash elements are slow to load (even with a fast bandwidth connection) and are not considered search engine friendly.  While there have been proactive measures taken by some of the search engines to crawl flash, those measures are far from perfect. 

Now there is a new sheriff in town; actually there are a few.  JavaScript libraries such as jQuery, MooTools, and script.aculo.us have brought a whole new tool set to the web.  The adoption of these JavaScript libraries is changing the way designers and developers deliver rich, engaging content to users, while being search engine friendly and easy to manage.  Most things that can be done in Flash can now be done with one of the above-mentioned libraries, but without the added cost, time spent in another software program, and lack of search engine friendliness.  Sorry, Adobe.

Content Management System Websites:Traditionally, if a website owner needed to change a photo or text content on their website, it usually needed the involvement of a web designer or developer.  To have to rely on a web professional to make easy modifications to a website has been a source of frustration for almost all website owners.  Associated costs with employing a professional and slow turnaround time in making content changes has long been a problem with static websites.

On the other hand, content management systems are database driven websites that make it easy for anyone to create, edit, manage, and publish website content without having knowledge of complicated code or reliance of a web developer to make those changes. While content management systems do cost more upfront as they take a little more time to develop, the rewards in the long run often out weigh their initial, additional cost outlay.

If you have a current website and are considering a redesign, or if you are a new business looking to build your online presence, it would be wise to consider having your site developed with a content management system.

Contact RezStream for more information. 303.872.0220