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• 1 2019-05-06T22:33:06-07:00 The Basic Trends of Web Design 8 plain 873428 2019-05-10T16:08:07-07:00 Web Design has changed a lot over the years, partially due to changing ideas about what looks "good", but also because technology's capabilities have grown immensely over the last few decades. If you had told me at age five that I would live to see cameras that could augment reality and insert my favorite characters into photos and videos as they were being taken, I would never have believed you, because at the time most cameras couldn't even prevent red-eye. Now a days I'm pretty sure most kids don't even know what red-eye is.
  
  Lots of things have changed about the internet since it first started getting popular, and while with technology advancing web designers can do more now than they ever could before, there are some definitely some more popular trends out there. I don't have the time to talk about all of those trends, but here are some of the ones that have been dominating 2019 so far.
  
  

  1) Video Background

  Thanks to some serious advancements in technology, it is now possible to build a website with a video background. Where once this was either impossible or would result in your site slowing down to the point of being unusable, now video backgrounds are a piece of cake, and hundreds of websites have started using them, LINGsCARS.com actually being one of them. These backgrounds don't just look cool, they're also a good way to draw in an audience or show them something new about your products/business/organization/etc.

  2) Asymmetrical Layout

  With the rising popularity of grids and widgets in the 2000's, designers started looking for new ways to break the mold and make their website seem different. Thus, the asymmetrical layout was born, and it will probably soon become the new overused, go-to design for websites. This layout is the digital form of "messy on purpose", it's artsy and can be a good way to organize information of varying importance.

  3) Non-Traditional Scrolling

  Gone are the days of every website using the same simple scroll-bar to navigate every website. Instead, we've got parallax scrolling, horizontal scrolling, and other, admittedly cool, ideas for making websites more unique. Parallax scrolling is the practice of making your background and foreground move at different paces to create depth, and when done well, it can take a website to the next level. Horizontal scrolling can be useful for timelines or galleries, though it may not be the best option for long paragraphs. The biggest thing to remember when you decide to rework website scrolling is that it still needs to make sense to your user, and you probably shouldn't use non-traditional scrolling unless you have a purpose for it.

  4) Interactive Content

  Since the dawn of the internet, making a website an interactive experience has been a great way to make your site more interesting. It used to be that this interactiveness came from simple flash games. Now, your entire website can be designed around the idea of letting a user explore it and discover new things about what your site is capable of. The more control you give the user over what they see and when, the more engaging your site will be for them.
  

  5) Minimalism

  Once upon a time, everything you added to a website was a way to show that you knew what you were doing, and so long as it worked, it was something new and interesting that would wow users. When the internet was new, everything on it was cool, and no one had too many expectations for what a website should look like. In 2019 though, web design is all about clean lines and simplicity. When designing a website, most people will aim for modern, sleek, and minimalist. Crypton.com is a good example of this practice in action.
  
  There's nothing wrong with these design trends; they look very nice when done well, and their popularity stems from the fact that they work fairly well. They also follow the four gestalt design principals, balance, alignment, grouping, and consistency, which were derived from Kurt Koffka's work with gestalt psychology (Johnson-Sheehan, 183). These designs are pleasant to look at, they function well, and they can be fairly engaging. But they're also popular beyond all belief, like the Top 40 Hits on your favorite radio station. They're cool at first, but you can only hear a song so many times before it becomes just another set of four chords.
  
  
  
   
• 1 2019-05-06T18:58:33-07:00 The Benign Violation Theory 8 plain 873428 2019-05-10T14:27:23-07:00 You probably don't need me to tell you that one of the best ways to be remembered is to be funny. If something can make you smile, you're more likely to remember it. As such, advertisers try to be funny, and have done so for decades. However, humor tends to shift over time, and it can be difficult to determine what is or is not funny to certain audiences. If you're on the internet, for example, your primary audience is likely to be Millennials or Gen Z, and if you're not in either of those generations, figuring out what they find funny can be a challenge. 
  
  One theory of humor, and the one that I believe explains Internet humor the best, is the Benign Violation Theory, which claims that things are funny when "(1) a circumstance is appraised as a violation, (2) the circumstance is appraised as benign, and (3) both appraisals occur simultaneously" (McGraw, 75). Essentially, if you subvert expectations and be harmless, you can make people laugh. This theory explains the seemingly random memes that populate the internet, and explains why certain forms of comedy that were once acceptable have been receiving backlash from younger generations.
  
  In regards to webdesign, the theory helps with establishing where to draw the line for when experimenting with design principals goes too far. For example, you can do unexpected things, but don't inconvenience your user. For example, the Captain Marvel website does the unexpected by having some very 90's superhero music start up once you interact with the site. However, that music can easily be turned off at the top of the page, which is smart, because nothing will kill a website's traffic faster than music that can't be turned off.
• 1 2019-05-07T02:43:19-07:00 Elements of Design 5 plain 2019-05-10T16:18:53-07:00

  Rule of Thirds

  The rule of thirds refers to the composition of a photograph, and to the best way to organize the object of a photograph to make it as eye-catching as possible.The idea is to imagine 4 lines that would divide your photo into nine boxes, like a Tic-Tac-Toe board, then try to line up the focus of your photo with the places where those lines intersect. Those intersections are places where the eye will be naturally drawn, so if the objects within the photo line up with them it creates a more dynamic, eye-catching layout. Essentially, if you want to make sure that your image is the center of attention, keep in mind that "asymmetrical designs are often more engaging to viewers" (Morey 315).
  
  

  Contrast

  Contrast is the practice of using two very different design elements together. The most common example of it is putting black text on a white background, which is a practice that spans across dozens of websites to ensure that text is readable. When using color to create contrast, the highest levels of contrast come from using complementary colors. High color contrast is important to ensure that the aspects of a design are visible, and it's especially important to consider when choosing the color of text and its background. Contrast can also be used between fonts to draw attention to certain information, to show which information is most important, or to separate multiple sections of text. This page, for example, uses headers to separate each element of design.
  
  The most important thing to remember with contrast is that while it can improve visibility and create a hierarchy of information, if a document has too much contrast the different elements will start to clash, and clashing can make a design look messy, disorganized, or turn it into an eyesore.

  Balance

  Balance refers to how well the pieces of a design work together. Symmetry is the easiest way to create balance, and is a very pleasing characteristic for a document to have. Balancing a document keeps it looking neat and intentional, and it can show what information is of equal importance. Alternatively, disrupting balance can create a focal point within a document, and can be an effective way to draw the eye when done intentionally.

  Movement

  Movement in design doesn't refer to actual movement, but implied movement. Adding lines to a design or using action shots creates a natural sense of movement within a document that draws the eye around the page.

  Rhythm/Pattern

  Rhythm and Pattern are all about creating repetition to tie in different elements of design. Using similar fonts, colors, or shapes are all simple ways to create a pattern within a document. Another good reason to create a pattern is to disrupt it, which would create a focal point. However, disrupting a pattern only works once; after that, any further disruptions will appear messy and the power of the focal point will be lost.

  Unity

  Unity is the feeling that everything in a design belongs together, and that every aspect of the design relates to another. Unity is how you can tie a design together, and it's important for creating a document that looks intentional, even when it breaks from traditional design practices. A good example of unity is the Captain Marvel Website, which uses nostalgia for the 1990's as the unifying theme for its fairly tacky website.
• 1 2019-05-07T00:15:26-07:00 Striking a Balance 4 plain 2019-05-10T16:29:17-07:00
  Design principals can be divided into two categories: what makes a site pretty, and what makes a site usable. Design trends and styles make sites look good, but they aren't always related to how a site functions, and can therefore be carefully disregarded. However, many of the basic principals of design are less about looking good and more about making sure a website is actually usable. Contrast, for example, is a critical element for ensuring that your text is actually readable, and therefore must be kept in mind when a website is being designed. Yale's School of Art website, being open for anyone to edit, had to take precautions in their website's design to ensure that everything was still readable. See, the site's background can be changed, but the text and fundamentals how how the site works cannot, and the reason for that is to ensure that no matter what the background becomes, the boxes that encase the text will stay the same color and keep contrast high. The following video talks a lot more about  some of the most important aspects of design, with my own comments in the annotations, but in general, try to think about how your design choices affect your user. If someone is likely to be inconvenienced by the choice, it's probably a bad idea.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The biggest thing to remember when experimenting with design is that before you go live, you need to test it out. Bleier offers a very thorough guide to how to ensure that experimental web designs are functional (103-105), though I admit the programming side of it is a bit above my skill set. I do know the best test that your can run, though, and that's just to get a few members of your intended audience to interact with the website. They'll tell you what works and what doesn't, and so long as you've kept them in mind while designing things, it should turn out alright.
• 1 2019-05-07T01:56:33-07:00 Usability and Accessibility 4 plain 2019-05-10T16:06:11-07:00

  Usability

  Usability is simple to master: make sure that your site is easy to navigate and understand. It doesn't matter what a site looks like so long as your average user can still navigate it and understand what's going on. Text needs to be clear and legible, content should be organized and relevant, and the site's purpose should be clear to the user. Something to keep in mind is the concept of informativeness, or “the extent to which a website provides consumers with resourceful and helpful information” (Lim and Ting 51). Don't bombard your user with useless effects or information, and don't make your site difficult to navigate, because the moment users start getting frustrated, they're going to leave.

  Accessibility

  Accessibility is often forgotten by content creators, but it simply means making sure that your site's usability extends to everyone, including those who have disabilities. For example, there are a lot of text effects that can mess up screen readers, and if you put them in your site that will make them inaccessible to anyone who needs to use a screen reader.
  
  Another thing to remember is that in this day and age, websites aren't just for computers, and all devices are different. A good rule of thumb is to use responsive web design, which allows your site to fit whatever screen it's being looked at with. The three basic components of responsive web design are "flexible layouts, flexible assets and media queries [SIC]" (Hagen 237). By making your site responsive to the device, you ensure that everyone, on any device, can use it; be it your mother on her laptop or your cousin on his 3DS.