Top 10 Popular Design Trends That You Should Never Use Again

If you have ever experienced what moving from one home to another feels like, then you already know just how difficult it can be to get rid of things that you have owned for years. While digging through your stuff, you stumbled upon an old t-shirt that you used to wear all the time despite the fact that it didn’t smell that good anymore. But then you decide that you don’t actually want to throw that t-shirt away. Instead, you decide to keep it for another year or two. And of course, then you realize that keeping that old t-shirt of yours wasn’t as good of an idea as you had originally thought that it would be. Well, the same thing can be said about both web design and web development as well.

Just because you have been using the same keyword meta tag for the past two years, it doesn’t mean that you should continue using it for every single one of your future projects. You see, similar to how your clothes may become outdated over time, the exact same thing can and does happen to both design and development trends. Rather than holding onto techniques that can no longer do you any good, it is a much better idea to get rid of them and make way for better trends that will have a greater impact on your career. That being said, here are 10 of the most popular design trends that you should never use again!

Unrealistic Stock Photos

There is nothing wrong with using stock photos. Many people don’t have enough wherewithal to create their own photos, and because of that, stock photos are a great alternative. However, there was a time when super cheesy stock photos caused so much rage among the public. And even today, there are some websites that still use these kinds of photos. That being said, if you are still planning on using stock photos for your future projects, make sure to use the ones that look professional.

READ: How to Improve your Google Image Search Ranking

Autoplay Feature

Finding websites with background audio is not that hard of a thing to do these days. This is especially the case with websites that have an autoplay feature integrated into them. What this means is that there are many websites out there that automatically play video or audio files as soon as you visit them. With this in mind, if your website doesn’t allow your visitors to take full control of when they want a certain video clip or audio file to pop up, make sure to change that up as soon as possible.

Links That Open in the Same Browser Tab

There are many different reasons why people might want to add links to their content. But when you add a hyperlink to your text, you need to ensure that it doesn’t open in the same browser tab every single time it gets clicked. In other words, a hyperlink should always open in a new, separate browser tab.

Non-Traditional Scrolling

Horizontal (or just about any other sort of non-traditional scrolling) doesn’t work that well with websites. While it is true that non-traditional scrolling has helped many businesses set themselves apart from the rest of the competition a few years back, it just doesn’t work that well anymore. Simply put, any sort of non-traditional scrolling is both impractical and unnecessary.

READ: Tips for Designers who Adore Scrolling

Hero Sliders

There is absolutely no doubt that the image slider technology was pretty cool a couple of years ago. It allowed its users to conserve space while displaying two, three or more promotional offers at once. However, using hero sliders can slow down page load speeds. Hero sliders are also known to slow users down as they distract them from moving onto other parts of a website.

The 3-Click Rule

The 3-click rule was meant to be one of many ways to decrease friction in the user experience. However, there has never been any data to back up this claim. In fact, it is pretty safe to say that the 3-click rule is nothing but a myth.

Keyword Meta Tags

For years, meta tags have not been supported by popular search engines. And despite the fact that keyword meta tags are pretty much useless, for some reason, some people still decide to incorporate them into their projects. But why even bother with this step when it gets you nothing in return, right?

Slow-Loading Websites

When it comes to using the Internet, there are a few things worse than waiting for a slow-loading website to load. Mobile websites are notoriously difficult to optimize for speed. That being said, using Progressive Web Apps is a great way to give your mobile site an instant speed boost. Also, by designing a Progressive Web App instead of a mobile-responsive website, you would be able to cater to users with poor or no wi-fi connectivity.

Bad Pop-Ups

Bad pop-ups are pop-ups that show up too early on a website, appear too many times during a single visit or contain two or more buttons. That being said, if there are any such pop-ups on your websites, you should totally get rid of them. This way, your website visitors will have a much better time browsing through your website.

Adobe Flash Player

Believe it or not, there are still some websites out there that use Adobe Flash Player to display some of their features. Why would anyone want to use Adobe Flash Player when Adobe has already stated that it is going to cut support for Flash in 2020. Simply put, if the creator of Flash is cutting support for their own invention, you should probably do the exact same thing for any of your websites that still use it.

READ: The Most Important Web Design Trends that You should Pay More Attention to in 2020

Getting wrapped up in the world of web design is quite an easy thing to do these days. But rather than using outdated strategies that would only hinder your progress as a professional web designer, make sure to start shedding these obsolete practices right now.