It’s time to turn down the suck, the noise, the jargon, the corporate speak and industry terminology. Many make the mistake of spearheading design with a corporate brain, saying all you can and think you need to, so your customer really “gets it”. Instead, it’s advantageous to design with your ideal customers’ brain. What frame of reference do they use? Often times, your visitors speak in terms of end result or feeling, and the proprietor gets caught up in features and benefits and technical listings. Ensure what they are looking for is how you are delivering it. They want simplicity that depicts a solution to their want/desire/need/problem.

With the decline in flash and the rise of HTML5 and CSS3, the nuts and bolts get better, but a few things remain constant – the value of great user friendly and effective design.

We’re now in 2012. Where classical design meets modern functionality. Vital messaging with lazer clarity. A quick conveyance of value in a “right now” society. Oh, and today’s consumer knows an outdated site when they see one…

In today’s design world, simplicity and cleanliness are what really aid in the conversion of interest to potential customers. A clean purposeful layout encourages interaction, if there is a solid call to action, and value from the visitors standpoint. If you’re trying to shout your message louder than your competition, then you’ve got more problems than just design. The same thing applies in the social media arena. Shout, and get shut out. The adoption of a simplistic design strategy is backed by a strong informational backbone and engagement strategy.

So, here are a few design trends to keep top of mind in 2012:

Make your calls to action specific and clear. In order to cut through the overabundance of “noise” online, you need to attractively convey a concise message and call to action. Online, perception is reality – and you’re simply as good as you look, or as big as you look. Take that one step further, you only have one-tenth of a second to convey the perception that you desire to your audience. How are you going to say it? What are you going to say? What are you going to make sure you do not “say”… Hint: if you have such a short amount of time before a perception is formed, keep in mind how long it takes to read a block of text.

You’re not a Skittle or rainbow. Keep colour simple and clean. Ignore the contrast and trying to select the most effective plethora of colour combinations. Ofen times an effective layout can be complimented best with structure, lines, shading and gradients as opposed to colour variances by sections. The subtle differences of a designers eye. Shouting with colours won’t get you far. There is a psychology behind colour selections. Leverage one that is the most consistent with your brand. Use contrast in selective moderation, and use those that have proven best for conversion in things such as “learn more” or “submit” buttons.

And they will come…via mobile devices. Are you aware of the traffic stats of your site? Your industry? In general? You should be. Chances are, you’d be quite surprised at the mobile device stats, the stats of which are only going to continue to grow this year and every year following. It’s vital to truly understand the habits and patterns of your site visitors, so that you don’t miss out on the great opportunity when they visit your site. It’s a costly mistake if you don’t. You can’t afford to miss the ever-increasing percentage of visitors that arrive via mobile devices. Show them you are here for them – by designing a page that you know works for them and their surfing habits. Take into account the screen sizes and abilities of different devices when it comes to navigation, scrolling horizontally and vertically, and presenting the most pertinent info first in effective navigation methods. If possible, sometimes it is advantageous to plan and design a landing page for mobile, prior to designing for desktop, so you don’t miss out, and you add features and design accordingly.

High quality images, simple typography, more video and interaction. Combining text and images have been around since the inception of the Gutenberg press, but the combination of such has grown increasingly important, and delicate. Less can very often be more. Invest in high quality images. Use them well, even broadly. Leverage the emotion the images provoke with your text. Eliminate distractions for the sake of streamlining your results. Take your “message”, and cut it in half. Use concentrate, but don’t add water. Condense navigation and clickable options to main objectives. Leave the detailed further information to your qualified clickers that are looking for it.

Social integration and widgets, registration forms and buttons. Social integration is vital and widgets are great – but only if you are heavily invested in social media, the campaigns, information and interaction you host on those social platforms. If you’re not doing much, then act accordingly on your website. You wouldn’t set up a party as a host and not show up in real life would you? Just keep in mind, in your flow and plan, that you OWN your website platform, you don’t own your Facebook page. Use them for different levels of interaction and action, and design accordingly. Know what different properties serve purpose wise. Send users there to engage them in contextual conversations and join your brand party, but bring them from social platforms to your site when you want them to act on something specific, or to retain their information. Plan for this. When you have someone land on your page – you know what you want them to do. In order to encourage your visitors in that flow plan and direction, you have to make the path clear, simple and concise. Again, eliminate distractions. Speaking of simple and concise, keep your registration forms non-intrusive. Only place an asterisk next to a couple valuable items you need, like email and name. Don’t ask for their grandma’s name, blood line, favourite fruit and phone number, you’ll guarantee abandonment of the form. Asking for more will result in losing out on submissions. Your strategy of follow up and email integration should be sufficient with just that information and enable you to obtain more.

Keep it simple. For the sake of reiteration, less is more. Simple is sexy. Live in the mind of your customer and their needs, and be aware of the perception and desire for cleanliness and usability. Know there habits, where they’re coming from and how they will be interacting with you.

Have fun with it. Always test it, analyze and revise it.