The first item, long single page designs, has always been a favorite of skilled marketers. It goes back even to pre-web snailmail marketing.
In comparison tests, longer copy almost always wins. You keep offering more and more reasons to buy, and you keep converting more and more readers.
This relates to one of the basic observations about selling: people don't like to change their minds. They won't spontaneously go from "no" to "yes". But if you offer a new piece of information, they can change their mind without admitting they were "wrong" before. Every new piece of information, or new story, is another opportunity for them to get to "yes".
Seriously -- I am dying to get some kind of good, nuanced study on this.
On the one side, defending long-form copy ads are David Ogilvy (probably popularly considered to be the greatest advertising genius ever, and who rigorously statistically tested all his methods), and today, companies like Apple.
On the other side, are lots of Web 2.0 A/B testing results that basically say, shorter is better.
Now, I'm sure there are times when each are right. But I've never heard anyone explain when long-form is better vs when short-form is better, and when each performs worse.
Is it high-end products (long copy) vs low-end products (short copy)? Is it "experience" products vs "utility" products? Is it left-brain vs right-brain consumers? Is it impulse buys vs researched buys? I could invent a million ideas, but I want proof, not hypotheses.
I am positively desperate for some kind of researched and statistically backed-up explanation that figures out the factors on both sides!
> In comparison tests, longer copy almost always wins.
Really? I'd love to see A/B results somewhere of this, as it doesn't agree with my experience. Maybe it depends on industry. Or, maybe sufficiently good copy beats out shorter designs, but most people just can't generate that kind of copy. (Though it sounds like we're getting to a New True Scotsman a bit.)
When my start-up did an A/B test of our homepage, we found less content won out. Also 37 signals did their series on optimization, and had strong results[1] that shorter beat out long form, too.
I notice this too, but it seems to fly in the face of a lot of people who say "make the page short , people don't want to read".
Case in point a lot of startup websites that have one sentence of huge text saying "X let's you do Y with Z" and then a gigantic "SIGN UP" button and nothing else on the page.
For varying values of 'good'. I think I remember Eben Pagan (aka "David DeAngelo") saying that he split-tested copy with some mistakes and sloppy writing vs copy that was more polished, and got more conversions from the sloppy version. Maybe it gave readers less of a 'slick marketing' vibe?
I'm not sure I would call this "Flat Design" a new design style. You see minimalism and a perfect balance between content and form in most mature design fields, and I think this is more of a sign that web design is not being dictated by trends anymore. If you want "Flat Design", take a look at the 1981 Xerox Star.
The last item cited, typography, could hardly be seen as a design 'trend' itself. That's like saying a designer's use of colour or negative space are regarded as stylistically in vogue today but may have been less prevalent or even nonexistent in use at points in the past. Typography is a core element of design. Period. It's not something that falls in and out of favor as a trend.
While this is true, I think you're missing the point. Typography as a primary graphic (al-la-street art / grafitti) is actually a distinct notion. Seperate from idea from notion of typography as a digital variant of calligrophy, etc. The latter has always been an element of publishing/desktop publishing and design (steve jobs, etc). The former has not.
The first thing to remember is not to change the entire design at once.unless it's totally horrible.
The prototype should never be better than than the final version because what we try to give is awesome design which work awesome as a static version but when it come to dynamic view developers keep changing things.that will completely change everything you need to change accordingly
sometimes people think that single page apps are better.it's true in some cases but not in all the cases
trello is the best example it can be a single page app but they dint.pjax is what you can really use for dynamic design but still when it comes to micro-blog or blog the ajax will just fine. but you should really try pjax technic for mega apps.
i work on django so thats what i suggest for others using pjax is awesome
How did "2012" get in the post title? I noticed some of these trends are carry-overs from past years (focus on simplicity, the use of large photo backgrounds, the emphasis on typography, for example).
But in re-checking the site I didn't see any claim that these are somehow trends of 2012; in fact, they say, "Let’s take a moment to look around some trends we witnessed in last couple years."
Yes, every design trend can be traced straight back to Apple. Nobody who doesn't work for Apple is capable of innovating new design trends. And after they leave Apple they lose the Apple magic and are just non-innovative designers again.
(/s)
On a more serious note, IMO Apple's wild ride into skeuomorphism is already starting to look dated, IMO. Their web designs don't suffer from this as much as their native apps do, but whenever I see a new app with a background that's brushed chrome or leather or some form of wood grain, it looks a bit stale in terms of design. Of course YMMV, this is a mostly subjective thing, but in terms of overall software visual design, I'll take what MS is doing with Metro or what Google has been doing with Android from ICS+ over the Apple texture-everything approach any day.
[+] [-] ef4|13 years ago|reply
In comparison tests, longer copy almost always wins. You keep offering more and more reasons to buy, and you keep converting more and more readers.
This relates to one of the basic observations about selling: people don't like to change their minds. They won't spontaneously go from "no" to "yes". But if you offer a new piece of information, they can change their mind without admitting they were "wrong" before. Every new piece of information, or new story, is another opportunity for them to get to "yes".
Obviously, the copy also needs to be good.
[+] [-] crazygringo|13 years ago|reply
On the one side, defending long-form copy ads are David Ogilvy (probably popularly considered to be the greatest advertising genius ever, and who rigorously statistically tested all his methods), and today, companies like Apple.
On the other side, are lots of Web 2.0 A/B testing results that basically say, shorter is better.
Now, I'm sure there are times when each are right. But I've never heard anyone explain when long-form is better vs when short-form is better, and when each performs worse.
Is it high-end products (long copy) vs low-end products (short copy)? Is it "experience" products vs "utility" products? Is it left-brain vs right-brain consumers? Is it impulse buys vs researched buys? I could invent a million ideas, but I want proof, not hypotheses.
I am positively desperate for some kind of researched and statistically backed-up explanation that figures out the factors on both sides!
[+] [-] losvedir|13 years ago|reply
Really? I'd love to see A/B results somewhere of this, as it doesn't agree with my experience. Maybe it depends on industry. Or, maybe sufficiently good copy beats out shorter designs, but most people just can't generate that kind of copy. (Though it sounds like we're getting to a New True Scotsman a bit.)
When my start-up did an A/B test of our homepage, we found less content won out. Also 37 signals did their series on optimization, and had strong results[1] that shorter beat out long form, too.
[1] http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2991-behind-the-scenes-ab-tes...
[+] [-] jiggy2011|13 years ago|reply
Case in point a lot of startup websites that have one sentence of huge text saying "X let's you do Y with Z" and then a gigantic "SIGN UP" button and nothing else on the page.
There's also a lot of pages that seem to do a halfway house and provide a lot of images for re-enforcement. Like this one: http://www.apple.com/uk/ipad-mini/overview/
[+] [-] charlieok|13 years ago|reply
For varying values of 'good'. I think I remember Eben Pagan (aka "David DeAngelo") saying that he split-tested copy with some mistakes and sloppy writing vs copy that was more polished, and got more conversions from the sloppy version. Maybe it gave readers less of a 'slick marketing' vibe?
[+] [-] anotherbadlogin|13 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] webbruce|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmix|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjmo|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] runemadsen|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eduardordm|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] navs|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aziari|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Djonckheere|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 001sky|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sachinmonga|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dilipray|13 years ago|reply
The prototype should never be better than than the final version because what we try to give is awesome design which work awesome as a static version but when it come to dynamic view developers keep changing things.that will completely change everything you need to change accordingly
sometimes people think that single page apps are better.it's true in some cases but not in all the cases
trello is the best example it can be a single page app but they dint.pjax is what you can really use for dynamic design but still when it comes to micro-blog or blog the ajax will just fine. but you should really try pjax technic for mega apps.
i work on django so thats what i suggest for others using pjax is awesome
[+] [-] jamesbritt|13 years ago|reply
But in re-checking the site I didn't see any claim that these are somehow trends of 2012; in fact, they say, "Let’s take a moment to look around some trends we witnessed in last couple years."
[+] [-] jordanmoore_|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamesbritt|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] arrowgunz|13 years ago|reply
Edit: Just correcting to help, not mocking.
[+] [-] webskyter|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ashcairo|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hkon|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] georgemcbay|13 years ago|reply
(/s)
On a more serious note, IMO Apple's wild ride into skeuomorphism is already starting to look dated, IMO. Their web designs don't suffer from this as much as their native apps do, but whenever I see a new app with a background that's brushed chrome or leather or some form of wood grain, it looks a bit stale in terms of design. Of course YMMV, this is a mostly subjective thing, but in terms of overall software visual design, I'll take what MS is doing with Metro or what Google has been doing with Android from ICS+ over the Apple texture-everything approach any day.
[+] [-] dholowiski|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] photorized|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] webskyter|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BaconJuice|13 years ago|reply