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With a new year on the horizon, it’s time to pack away the old, worn web designs and prepare for the brave, new face of tomorrow. Although trends don’t start and stop on January 1st, there is a definite shift from what we craved at the beginning of the year to what we are seeking tutorials for at the end of the year. Most of the time, this shift is subtle. It’s a perfection or re-interpretation of a currently hot trend. Trends help us evolve as designers. As we master the skills of design aesthetic, we continue to push forward to what’s next or what needs to be fully discovered.

Make no mistake about it, you will recognize the ideas behind these trends. Although this list isn’t a drastic departure from what was popular in 2009, it marks different trends that will be expanded upon and made better as a result. As you think of how you will incorporate new trends into your designs, focus on the main idea of each trend. Be encouraged to dabble into these trends so that you become part of the movement.

1. Oversized Logos/ Headers

Splash pages are so yesterday. To make an unforgettable impression on the visitor, the trend for 2010 will be oversized logos on an equally oversized header. These types of headers can take up the entire screen, but with one important note. Visitors will not need to click anything, just scroll down. Visitors often having a clicking phobia (due to years of poor navigation), so big headers do the job of a splash page without forcing your visitors to click anything.

Main Idea: Huge headers that make your visitors remember you.

2. Sketch/ Hand-drawn Design

Hand-drawn design is not exactly new on the horizon, but we all know that it is still on the fringes of web design. Many designers admire the style but are afraid to create their own sketches because of the “I can’t really draw” attitude. If you look at the most popular hand-drawn websites (and relative to other types of trends, there are only a few), you will notice that most of your fellow designers can’t draw. These designs are not exactly headed to an art museum, but they do convey a sense of whimsy, and blur the line between cold web and personal interaction– the ultimate goal of the internet. If you can doodle, you can sketch for web design.

Sketch in 2010 will become more elemental, and not as much the main focus of a web design. It will be used to personalize standard web copy in new and exciting ways.

Main Idea: Sketch becomes an elemental part of corporate design.

3. Slab Typefaces

Slab typefaces are relatively new, although they’ve been around for over 200 years in traditional media. To get a good visual definition of slab typefaces, think of the old Wild West “Wanted” posters. Those bold letters are slab typefaces. Slab typeface is commonly all capital letters and are bold and imposing. Many designers have shied away from slab typefaces in the past because logos and headers were smaller and more understated. However, combined with the trend toward larger headers, slab typefaces demand the reader to take notice.

Main Idea: Slab typefaces is used to bravely express who you are.

4. Typography

Typography is one of the most difficult trends to tackle which is why it will remain fresh in 2010. With all the cries for usability, web designers are afraid of using new and different fonts. The idea of mixing varying font sizes together is completely unthinkable. Fonts are meant to be explored, twisted, and molded to fit your purposes. With the correct placement, a website that utilizes Typography as its main design element will be more interesting to a reader than overloading the same site with tons of photos.

Main Idea: Typography is young, but will continue to be a part of web design.

5. One Page Layouts

One pay layouts challenge you to edit away what’s unnecessary. In 2010, this trend will move away from the quirky navigation and become more minimal in its approach. Think of these websites as business cards. These websites will be more of a one-stop-shop for how to locate you and your work on various other sites– your blog and your social media hangouts.

Main Idea: One page layouts will be more about personal profiles and less corporate.

6. Huge Images

A close relative to the oversized logo/ header, the huge image does much the same thing. It creates an visual impact that the visitor won’t soon forget. Unlike the oversized header from above, huge images are not part of the site’s branding. Instead, these images draw the visitor into your site, if not for their content then for their humongous size. In 2010, web designers will find themselves more comfortable using these big statements in their design to convey the site’s tone.

Main Idea: Huge images will be used to invite visitors in.

7. Change of Perspective

by aaronpost on November 19, 2009 http://www.theonetogoto.com/

What will 2010 bring for Web Design, who knows?  This list together based on what kind of work I am doing with both my startups and from my clients I am doing work for.  No research, no case studies, just my gut and what I have on my to-do list for the next 3-5 months.

PLEASE NOTE: While some of these trends are not new, small to mid-sized businesses are just now starting notice.

1. One Page Layouts – I hope this trend will continue, I really do.  Its nice to hear clients ask “do I need that page anymore” and the real driving force, ROI and economy.  No business wants to spend money updating, changing or thinking about pages that receive no attention.

2. Social Elements – Facebook, twitter, etc.  While this was huge in 2009, I expect to see this trend grow.  I do see a shift from the basic connecting from twitter to book recommendations, more events, links to forums, etc.  It appears to me that businesses are starting to really grasp the social scene but many are looking to take it up a notch or two.  I am excited to see how some of these experiments will work.

3. More Dynamic Actions – Less flash and more AJAX for websites.  Sorry but I have a hard time understanding why I am going to wait for a site to load on my phone only to have usability issues.  Not sure if technology is catching up or its getting easier to implement, but I am starting to see more dynamic pieces being added to a site.

4. Large Type – Design aside, devices are getting smaller and people are getting older?  Siting here in a coffee shop I look around and see a few older adults on their phones or net-books, their holding it closer to their face or have the screen resolution zoom in to much.  Larger type and less of it, we’re all getting older so lets make it easy on ourselves.

5. Real People – NO MORE STOCK PHOTOS!!! Well, maybe less of them, 2008 and 2009 I started to see people like Tyson Crosbie change the way people looked at their profile pic, now I am starting to see that being implemented for everything else on sites.  No more fake buildings, people or situations.  Social Media certainly helped change this attitude and so did people like Tyson.

7. Textures (or a sense of depth) – Can’t get enough, I am seeing more and more depth in web/mobile design.  This trend started a few years back but I am going to go out on a limb and say we are going to see more of this implemented in creative ways in the mobile web.  (hint hint, wink wink)

8. MOBILE, MOBILE, MOBILE – If your not planning, designing and building for it now, then your shop might be a little emptier than 2009.  Mobile web is taking off, I suggest you start thinking about how your going to take advantage of this space.  (DISCLAIMER: Both of my startups are working in the Mobile Space, so I might be a bit biased.) UPDATE: Google wants to index your mobile site, I told you its going to get HOT

9. Colors – The greens, specks of red, soft and refined pinks, and the neutrals. And while I hate to say it, the bright Neon’s are back.  Its true, get used to it.

10. Icons – All the icons we are seeing on our mobile phones, get used to it because we are going to see the shift to put more icons on our sites.  I don’t think the pure glossy icons will continue, infact the icons like used here are the ones we will be seeing more off.

BONUS
11: Video’s EVERYWHERE – This might be annoying, but I do see a lot more video on websites.  Instead of profile pics we might see short videos, instructions, tours and more.  2008 was a huge Video year, 2009 took it to the next level, 2010 we will see more and more small to mid-sized businesses really incorporate video into their web sites.  The cost has come down, so why not.

#1 – This Real-Time Search Thing is Outta Here

Microsoft initially beat Google to the punch in announcing their integration with Twitter data in their SERPs. And in response, last Monday, Google released what is, in my opinion, an early test version of Twitter integration that’s nowhere near ready for prime-time. Google has a history of jumping the gun to prevent other companies from stealing the press narrative, but in this case, I think it’s seriously damaging (and nearly everyone, consumer or search enthusiast, agrees) their usability and relevance.

As Danny Sullivan notes, it’s like we’re back to Infoseek in 1997. If you want to rank #1, don’t worry about quality content, relevance or popularity, just be the last person to Tweet about a topic and you’ll come out on top (at least, for a few seconds).

This is, in my estimation (and many others), the worst implementation of new results Google’s ever implemented. I imagine the clickthrough and abandonment stats have their usability folks up in arms already, and it’s only to preserve face from a PR perspective (as well as an increasingly prideful attitude of “Don’t like it? So what are you gonna do about it?” that Aaron Wall describes in a gutting fashion here) that this has stayed in place as long as it has (1.5 weeks).

In 2010, I think this fades away. Perhaps not entirely, but we won’t be seeing it for nearly as many queries with the prevalence we do today. Google may love real time, and it’s certainly gotten them a lot of press (though very little of it is entirely positive), but they can’t continue sacrificing quality for PR in this fashion. I think the engineers still run things over there, and the stats data is already making them balk. Although I don’t have numbers, my impression is that we’re already way down in the quantity of queries showing real time results compared to last week.

#2 – Twitter’s “Link Graph” is the Real Deal

All that real-time integration bashing aside, I’m a firm believer in my original hypothesis that Twitter is cannibalizing the web’s link graph. In fact, I think a rough history of “recommendation sources” looks something like:

Google has always strived to keep up with the latest ways that content is being recommended and suggested. It’s how they determined popularity and relevance with PageRank and I think Twitter’s data is merely the next evolution. Just yesterday, they launched their own URL shortening service (I think this was more to get data, but it’s also possible it was a pre-emptive PR strike against bit.ly, who launched their PRO service just a day later).

Google’s not going to just take raw number of tweets or re-tweets. I think we’re already seeing the relevance and reputation calculations in their decisions of which tweets and sources to show in the real-time results, and I expect that algorithms/metrics like PageRank, TrustRank, etc. will find their way into how Google uses the real-time data. Today, SEOs want to turn tweets into links so they can get SEO benefit. My feeling is that tweets are going to carry their own weight in helping pages rank in the not-too-distant future.

#3 – Personalized Search is Here to Stay

Unlike real-time’s temporal nature in the results, I think personalized search is here for the long haul. Google released their “permanent” personalization of results last week, and Bing released their own just this week. As usual, SearchEngineLand’s coverage is impeccable, though one big question remains in my mind:

What metrics impact personalization?

Is it merely clickthroughs from the organic results? Does visit history play a role? Or clicks from other vertical search services Google offers? What about clicks from paid search ads – either in the SERPs or from AdSense/DoubleClick?

I’d love to see experimentation done on this front so marketers have a better idea what they’re dealing with. If it’s proven that you can get organic benefits by attracting PPC clickthrough, this may be the new “paid inclusion” for 2010, and could drive bid prices up massively as companies compete not only for paid listing clicks, but for the chance to earn “organic” positioning as well.

Personalization means a few things for SEOs, but it doesn’t fundamentally change the game, IMO:

• The Rich Get Richer – It’s now truer than ever. If you rank well, and earn solid traffic, you’re going to be even harder to unseat. Startups and upstarts are going to have an even greater uphill battle to climb than before.
• Branding is More Important – you want your loyal visitors and fans scouring the SERPs for your listings, and clicking them more so than anything else. I expect some clever spammers are going to be manipulating this with everything from Mechanical Turk to virus infections that make their browser search for their brand and click those results. We’ll see if Google has good protections in place to defend against this.
• There is No Normal Ranking – Or, at least, there’s no “normal” ranking that’s “average” in a personalized SERPs world. Rank tracking may still carry some value to understand how non-personalized searchers see your pages, but that data is going to be less useful in comparison to what your analytics report about search traffic and the trends. Win the “personalization” battle, and you may start to care less about the classic “rankings” battle.

Whenever we encounter these “paradigm changing” events in the SEO world, I like to go back to my philosophy about SEO fundamentals. From what I can see, it looks like things haven’t changed enough yet to warrant panic. It’s been a massively dynamic 3 months, but we’re not on the precipice of anything that’s going to shift SEO in the ways some previous “game-changers” have.

#4 – It’s Going to Be a Two-Engine, 80/20 World

The latest figures suggest that Google continues to slowly gain market share in the US, while Bing & Yahoo! compete for share that will eventually belong to them both (once the regulatory hurdles clear, which I think they will). I believe that a year from now, most webmasters will be looking at a scenario where Comscore/Hitwise reports Binghoo! has ~25-28% market share, but those engines combine to send a little under 20% of all search traffic (remember that they count searches on all Microsoft and Yahoo! properties – even internal searches – while Google tends to send the vast majority of their search traffic externally to other sites).

#5 – Site Explorer & Linkdomain will Disappear

Tragically, everything I hear out of Yahoo! and Bing is that Site Explorer is off to the great beyond. The expense of maintaining a web index isn’t something Yahoo!’s willing to invest in once they don’t have to, and Bing’s given no indication that they’re going to re-open the portal to link information. The best we can hope for is an acceleration in the functionality offered by Bing Webmaster Tools, but even that’s unlikely to offer competitive link intelligence.

I’m guessing other services will rise up to try to take Site Explorer’s place, as the service had millions of monthly queries run against it.

#6 – SEO Spending Will Rise Dramatically

Forrester put out a great report on US Interactive Marketing Spend (a little pricey at $1749, but interesting). Two graphics struck me as particularly compelling:

SEO trails only social media and online video as places where marketers (not just search marketers, but ALL marketers) will be shifting dollars.

Meanwhile, SEO continues to outpace PPC in terms of CAGR. We’ve still got a long way to go before balance is established between the share of clicks SEO commands and the fraction of spend it receives, but the gap is slowly closing.

#7 – 2010 is the Year of Conversion Rate Optimization

If I were doing another startup today, it would focus on software for conversion rate optimization. I think this is still the most under-utilized and highest ROI activities in the marketing department, but more awareness is on its way. CRO isn’t just about testing; it’s about building a process for improving conversion over time. Online businesses can generate so much revenue from this, yet few invest. I think 2010 is the year, simply because it’s an inflection point for companies to assess their spend and where they derive value. These guys are likely in for a blockbuster year; I wish I could invest :-)

This graphic comes via my post on choosing which Internet Marketing Channel to Pursue.

#8 – More Queries will Send Less Traffic

Google & Bing are both doing more to make their visitors stickier and get their queries answered without ever having to leave the engine. This is a good product practice for both companies, and I’m surprised Google’s taken so long to move away from their “get people off Google” point-of-view, but it’s definitely happening. Check out some recent examples:

Everything I need to know is right there – the last game score, the record, the opponent, their next match day and time. The only thing missing? What channel it’s playing on in my area.

I don’t even have to complete my query! Google’s got that weather report sitting in the suggest box. They wrote about this feature here which launched last week. Google O/S had another good post on the topic.

Thankfully, I’m not actually headed to Kodiak, but those results are pretty spiffy, and are likely to prevent me from needing to visit Alaskaair.com and get that flight info.

The customer service number is something Bing’s started to provide more and more (though there’s one company even they don’t have that data on). With Fedex, you don’t even need to leave Bing to track a package (Google also offers similar functionality).

My perception is that the more the engines can apply “instant answers” to search queries, the more they will, and the less any other sites will see traffic from those queries. It’s a better user experience this way, and I’m certain it’s one of the biggest things that engenders loyalty and return queries – something both engines are desperately competing for.