Last month we did a website redesign for our own Full Orbit Website. We choose the Epik Responsive WordPress Theme as a starting point. I’ll say more about that in a minute. Web Design in 2013 has developed in exciting directions, and will continue to in 2014.
The driving force for the 2013-2014 trends in web design are mobile devices…tablets and smart phones. In the US, Apple is the most popular mobile phone manufacturer, followed by Samsung and Nokia. However, there are approximately 7000 different mobile devices out there…So while it might be challenging to design for 7000 different devices, you can make sure your website redesign is successful on the top three devices.
WordPress has a way of making everything elegant, practical, and more affordable. Yes, we are WordPress fans / fanatics over here. I mentioned before that we selected the Epik Responsive WordPress Theme as a starting point. This speeds the process of creating a website that is “responsive” because the theme resizes to the various mobile phone platform. In other words, the website recognizes the type of device it’s on and changes to fit the screen.
When you look at our new site on a cell phone the content stacks up…so the display is more vertical but the individual elements remain quite large. That makes the main content, the buttons and phone number readable to the cell phone user.
I like everything about the new design trends. The large text and big buttons bring the “calls to action” front and center and completely integrate them into the design. The large graphics and generous white spaces make the content easy to absorb at a glance for those of us fatigued from many hours online.
Finally, the commonly accepted notion of a web page having “a fold” is finally disappearing. In the past, many designers and business owners have been preoccupied with “the fold”, the space visible on a computer monitor before scrolling down. However, these new homepages are designed for scrolling down. People who are used to reading content on a cell phone or tablet think nothing of scrolling down. It’s completely transparent to them, which is my way of saying they scroll without giving it a thought.
I hope I’ve convinced you that a responsive wordpress template is a great way to start your 2014 website redesign project. It will deliver the clean, easy-to-read look most business crave as well as making your site display optimally on a smart phone or tablet.
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Karen Nierlich of Full Orbit Web and Marketing helps small and medium organizations thrive on the web. If you are interested in discussing website redesign and responsive WordPress themes, please call her at 510-527-9920. This is a great time to increase your visibility and leads, but making your business or organization website mobile-friendly.