Expired Web Trends That Will Date Your Website

The average person today sees so many websites daily they are unconsciously aware of what looks modern and what does not. We live in an age of sophisticated Internet users who can tell when a website looks old. When a website looks old, site visitors lose confidence in your products or services and worse looks unprofessional.

Some of these are easy to replace if you have them.

• Obvious black shadows. This is the era of flat design; those dramatic black shadows have been trending out for the last few years.
• The rounded rectangle box for the entire content area. If you need to box it all in – drop the rounded corners.
• Embossed and/or beveled buttons. Old vs. new.

(Get the orange flat button.)

• Black text. Retina screens, bright LED screens – black text on a white background is hard on the eyes. Use dark grey if you have a bright white background.
• Using desktop fonts instead of web fonts. Verdana, Arial and Georgia on a site are readable but are definitely aging. Exception – email newsletters.
• Flash video. Most mobile devices do not support this and will see a message to download Adobe Flash Player – ouch!
• Desktop only site. If you need to pinch and expand to read a website on a phone, it is not mobile friendly. Responsive designed sites are viewable on most devices. You have a smartphone right? Most likely your prospective clients do too.
• Outdated copyright date.
• Stock image photos everyone uses or the stick bubblehead guy.
• Red centered titles. The landing page fav technique of marketing gurus who didn’t bother to talk to a usability expert. Red looks closer to olive for nearly 10% of the population – all you truly need is a great contrasting color to distinguish it from the paragraph (and larger type). Ever notice how the Netflix entry red background gives you screen burn for the eyes? Causing your audience to work to focus isn’t the best result for red.

(Cool color-blindness test.)