Just like fashion trends, the ones in Web designing are ephemeral. For example, some trends, like responsive designing, stick around because of their necessity; however, there are countless others that are the result of industry shifts such as the move from a skeuomorphism design to a flat one.

In actuality, the decision to follow a trend should depend on the needs of a business; it should never depend on what is in vogue. That is because a site is built to last long and to stand the test of time, but fads fade. This is why here is a list of web designing trends that should not be followed blindly.

Hamburger menus

These days, surfing a website on a mobile device has become common. This is why the webmasters have begun the task to simplify the navigation and to do away with the clutter. And the best way to do so is with the help of a hamburger menu.

The menu indeed removes the clutter; however, that does not fit the bill for every site. Take an example of a news website; over there, the content has to be displayed on the home page because the visitors will never be patient enough to click on the hamburger menu to explore that site.

Front-page carousels

Carousels are everywhere, nowadays, because they can add visual interest and even reduce the clutter. However, as someone correctly quoted that too much of everything is bad, it is also true with this trend. If a website uses too many carousels, these carousels will make the site heavy with cookies. There are even some other problems with excessive use of carousels:

• They are not SEO friendly.
• They can, sometimes, adversely impact the site’s loading speed.
• They hog the limelight and sometimes the content can even be put on the back burner.

Parallax scrolling

More and more sites have adopted parallax scrolling. As per this trend or technique, the content (images and text) in the background and the foreground scroll at a variety of speeds; this, further, creates an optical illusion.

However, many webmasters have keenly debated that whether this new scrolling trend has really improved the UX or not? Another thing is that it parallax scrolling is not ideal if a website should run well on both mobiles and desktops. Some other trade-offs of the parallax scrolling include:

• This trend has affected performance adversely.
• This fad does not comply with the latest SEO trends.

Excessive JavaScript

Too many of JavaScript files running on a website can easily ruin even the finest sites. Nowadays, it seems that JavaScript is operational everywhere. (Social and WordPress plugins, especially, use them a lot.) However, using JavaScript excessively can slow the site’s loading speed.

Excess of JavaScript can be found on a site’s modern libraries as well as frameworks, including Backbone.js, Angular.js, and Knockout.js. However, try to use only minimal JavaScript because it:

• Slows the load time
• Makes mobile browsing really slow and unappealing
• Hampers even security
• Disables many SEO functionalities on a site

Keep checking this space for more of such useful tips and information pertaining to website design services and other interesting elements of the digital landscape.