Over the course of 2009 and 2010, Web 2.0 designs slowly but surely started to dominate the online landscape. It is safe to say that this trend is going to continue well into 2011 – but the question is: Will it change or evolve in any way?
For now, it is safe to say that Flash is slowly but surely dying. Gone are the days when most websites used to have an ‘introduction’ page that featured incredibly flashy Flash presentations.
Gone too are the days when Flash was used to add various tweaks and special effects to the website itself.
Nowadays, pretty much all websites that strive for a Web 2.0 look focus on a ‘clean’ designs with matching color patterns throughout their graphics and text. In general, the idea is to have websites load faster and more efficiently.
But that doesn’t mean that new features aren’t going to crop up within Web 2.0 designs over the next year.
Increased JavaScript, CSS3 and HTML5 Functionality
As time has gone by while Flash has declined JavaScript has enjoyed a surge in popularity. With developments made over the last few years, web developers have found that they replace a lot of resource-hogging flash features with JavaScript – and so have slowly but surely migrated to it.
Also, the fact that JavaScript is far less prone to bugs, and much more stable has undoubtedly influenced this decision.
This trend is expected to continue, but with CSS3 and HTML5 also widely gaining popularity it is safe to say that 2011 will probably feature designs that use elements of all 3.
With these new array of options, it will certainly be interesting to see what web developers come up with over the next year – and some are even of the opinion that entirely new types of designs (apart from the standard column or magazine styles) may surface.
Wide Array of Design Possibilities
Speaking of designs, 2011 is probably going to be a year that really and truly showcases the wide array of design possibilities that are present within the Web 2.0 style.
Towards the latter part of 2010 it was becoming evident that the standard ‘notebook’ type designs of traditional blogs were no longer as popular as they used to be. In fact, most popular blogs begun migrating to ‘magazine’ styles instead.
Several big corporations have begun shifting to microsite designs for different areas of their services. With each site essentially acting as a ‘portfolio’ for that service which answers all the questions interested parties might have.
Whether or not this particular trend catches on remains to be seen.