New Trends in Web Development

By Tunde Asaju

The advent of new media is changing the way we see and perceive web development. When the internet first started, it was working in a whole room filled with junk machines dubbed computers. Times have changed and we seem to have forgotten those bad old days. Today, we have internet on the go and that is a great but interesting challenge for any web developer.

For one, we have moved from big screens located on our desktops to the smaller monitors. Our telephone lines are no longer just for making and receiving calls and text messages, they are now an all-purpose secretariat for all our web needs. Of course we still make those boring calls and our telephones ring in odd places from crowded elevators to conference rooms and political rallies. Not to talk about going off when we are invites to a radio or television show. If you still go to church or mosque, you should be forgiven for having your quiet time with God disturbed by the annoying decibels of a phone from your neighbour’s pocket.

But by and large, our phones and devices (androids, ipads and iphones) are our secretariat from where we send and receive mails; they have calendars that help us keep tab of our appointments and of course, have apps that helps us check the proper spelling of words. But most of all, if we need to do research on the go, we must use the browser. This is why there is a challenge for the web developer.

The devices we use range from really small to really big. Things we design display differently on different monitors. Thus, the first challenge is to make our designs responsive – viewable on all devices – from monitors to LCD screens.

Our pictures must be sized or positioned in such a way that they are also viewable across platforms. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then it must be visible to convey its needed message.

Just Google social media and click on images and you are bound to be impressed or confounded by the array of buttons which take us to the social media. Looks like we are nothing without them. So, we have to take the appropriate design that would convey the message and retain its cool techy feeling.

You wouldn't want to keep scrolling as you are reading this brief work. That is another challenge – to make sure that the layout is short and simple and navigable. That also means that navigation has to be friendly both to the eyes and to the user.

Heh, what about fonts? We have to be conscious that the people we are designing for don’t want to usually put on their binoculars to read what we have posted or designed. So, we have to find user-friendly fonts that appeals to the eye of all.

There are more challenges, but then, this is not meant to be a Bible of web design, just for us to ruminate on few of the challenges that confront us as we work.

See you at the next blog and thanks for showing up here.