Responsive Navigation Trends That Will Dominate the Mobile Realm This 2015

With mobile leapfrogging the desktop usage, an interesting shift can be seen with the way online players are showing keen interest to create content that will gracefully respond to different screen sizes. This desire of serving mobile audience has led to the development of “responsive design”. The concept behind responsive design is pretty simple, as to create a website design that automatically adjusts itself based on different screen sizes and orientations.

Responsive design isn’t a new trend, and in fact, the majority of websites have already implemented it and thus serving their mobile audience. It’s an evolving concept, and bringing more and more changes to its structure with each passing year.

Navigation is one of the most complex elements of a responsive design. Designers often find it difficult to create a navigation design that works seamlessly on both desktop and mobile. There are several things need to be taken care of while constructing a successful responsive navigation. The device size, platforms, browser compatibility, are some of the prominent issues which webmasters frequently struggle to cope up with. However, with the sophistication of design tools and creative processes have given a rise to different navigation trends that are all set to shape the responsive landscape.

This article is aimed at providing you a knowledge about some responsive navigation trends that will dominate 2015.

Hidden Toggle

Hidden Toggle is a responsive navigation which can be called using different names such as sliding drawer menu, hamburger menu, etc. Some iOS apps are given the credit for popularizing the use of this kind of navigation. The major benefit of using this design is that it gives your interface a clutter-free look, which is quite useful for small screen mobile devices.

However, Hidden toggle navigation also looks cool on devices with larger screens and it is expected to grow in the near future. Using this type of navigation will allow you push your content to either right/left side depending on the location of menu. This is a useful approach to improve the visibility of your links.

However, despite all its virtues, Hidden Toggle also has its own set of demerits. First of all , it has a complicated structure which can easily confuse less proficient developers. Secondly, there are many webmasters who aren’t still aware of the use of this design and how it actually works.

On Screen Toggle

The concept behind on screen toggle is similar with that of Hidden Toggle menu. It also helps designers to clean up space and make things appear more lucid. Here, designers convert vertical menu into an on-screen toggle, so that more space can be created and elements can be presented with ease. On-screen toggle is easier to understand as compared to Hidden Toggle. Its ease with each it allows designers to play around it makes this type of navigation quite popular among them.

The restaurant website perfectly demonstrates this type of navigation in its design. Looking at the website design, you can clearly observe its theme which perfectly complements the navigation style and gives it an exciting appeal. The on-screen toggle menu also makes the sub-menu easy to access, which adds to the convenience of mobile users.

You can also play around with different details. For example, the menu can be placed on the top. This increases the accessibility of menu items when scrolling the website.

Horizontal navigation is good, but its scope is limited to desktop only. They do not work well on mobile devices. That’s the reason why designers are often recommend to implement vertical navigation, when designing for mobile devices. Vertical navigation makes sure that the website and its various sections can be accessed easily.

Mavenlink is also yet another website which makes an intelligent use of vertical navigation. Vertical navigation works well on mobile devices as compared to the horizontal one, which is good for desktop devices. For anyone who wants to target their mobile customers, vertical navigation is a nice option.

Select Menu

The Select Menu is another trend that is expected to grow this year despite the fact that it still presents certain challenges in front of designers when it comes to designing for mobile. The major advantage of using this kind of navigation is that it frees up plenty of space and keeps the navigation functionality to the header, where users are mostly accustomed to see the navigation. It is also easy to recognize and define native controls. This type of menu also works great across all kind of browsers and devices because it’s simply made up of “form” elements.

Navigation Realignment and Resizing

One of the easiest to implement navigations, this type of navigation is known for its simplicity and minimalistic appeal. The concept is to create a website menu which can easily adjust as per the screen size. While doing so, the fonts are scaled down proportionately to ensure a delightful user experience. Navigation links are created smaller, and focus here is to create links that fit well and make sense when rendered on smaller screens.

Fiafo is a website which has nicely projected this technique. Seeing the full-view, you’ll notice how navigation links start to float off the right side. But, as soon as the browser window gets shrink, the links start moving right beneath the logo and take the form of a single navigation bar.

Let’s Wrap Up

As you can see, the concept of responsive design has a lot of potential and a number of ways through which it can be implemented to satisfy mobile audience. Navigation is an important part of a responsive design and has a great influence on website designers create. 2015 will bring more critical considerations to it and refined its elements more to create unique experiences. Hopefully, after reading the article, you’ve gained an insight into what’s happening is the realm of responsive design. Playing around them will help you build a user interface that is all set to create an engaging and meaningful user experience.

Author Bio: Maria Mincey is an software developer for Xicom Technologies, a web development company which delivers most comprehensive web applications and solutions for different industry verticals.

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