Pros and Cons of using flat design for your website

Nowadays, the design is something that is much more than just the look of an app or another project. It is all about the usage and functions. We know that in the current design world, this design is considered to be the most used one and it's a trend. Flat design is everywhere you look these days. Like always, web design is rapidly changing and evolving. The entire industry is currently shifting from 3D and skeuomorphism to flat and minimal design.

What is flat design?

Flat web design is a concept that focuses on the user and only features two dimensions to promote straightforward device navigation. It introduces simple design elements like blocks, shapes and high color contrasts, which can be easily moved, resized or changed.

Flat design has best attributes like the friendly aesthetic, simple user interface, positive wire-framing effect, ease of use and maintenance and much more. While the flat design is the in the thing, designers these days have not just one challenge to face instead have to make sure that the design is responsive enough to provide the user the ease of access on other devices than just desktops. The question that arises is what's the best way to make a website responsive and follow the latest design trend that is focusing on flat designing too.

Pros and cons of using flat design

The following listed below are the advantages and disadvantages of using flat design for your websites,

Usability

This is one of the biggest applications of the concept of flat design is in mobile devices such are smart phones and tablets. The release of the Windows Phone and Windows 8 interfaces and Apple's IOS7 are good examples of this.

• Pros- The advantage here is that the interface that you see on your device is simple and less complicated than before and maybe less scrolling. Links are typically a bold button, some with an arrow attached, or just intuitive graphic like a house icon for the home page. These encourage you to click on them and take your to the next page on your journey around the website.
• Cons- The disadvantage however is that some users may not be entirely comfortable with the interface, You will see that the flat design does not manage to support complex experiences. You will normally see that all users are not really aware of where to click when using a mobile app.

Bright colors

Flat design encourages the use of many colors and to some breaks away from the typical web safe colors.

• Pros- The advantages of this is this creates a more contrasting interfaces such as a background color to a link to a new section of the website being very different to the one before it and after it. Also bright and bold colors are seen as engaging, warm and inviting.
• Cons- The disadvantage is that the more colors uses in a project the harder it will be to match them properly. What is this means is that putting good colors together for a good looking interface. Designers who make successful uses of color use a system of consistency in terms of color saturation and brightness so that the choice of color looks intentional.

Click here to know the Web design trends for 2018.

Typography

Flat design has brought about the focus on type. That is using decorative type and different font types.

• Pros- The advantages of this that typography has blossomed once again and shown how good it is when used in this design concept. Gone is the decoration uses with fonts like shadows or extra boldness.
• Cons- The disadvantage is that while the focus is on good typography, equally bad typography will stand out. For example, the ultra-tin type used in the Apple IOS7 interface was heavily criticized. Flat design is also unforgiving when it comes to the use of bold. However, every choice has its consequences whether these are big or small.

Irrelevant decor

• Pros- Flat design has the advantage of placing constraints on the designer to stay within the style being used and avoid irrelevant things like shadows and animations or effects that actually have not place. This is also known as minimalism.
• Cons- The disadvantage however is that designers are limited to what they can use to make a design truly flat and as above some skeuomorphism is not a sin if used lightly.

Visuals

Flat design encourages sharpness and a clean looking interface.

• Pros- The advantages are that a lot of high contrasting features such as colour, typography and an overall boldness present a look that is easy to follow. Buttons and other user interface elements are in many cases made using shapes with basic rounding for corners or edges. For example a home icon in a website may be illustrated with a square or rounded box with a house like icon inside.
• Cons- The disadvantage is that an interface can look too simple. Some experts agree that it can be very hard to convey a complex message using this concept. Also, advocates of skeuomorphism say that embellishments such a bold underline or a slight shadow under a button add a sense of realism to make an interface easy to use. This does depend on the project.

Trendy

• Pros- flat design is the hottest trend nowadays. Those pages, applications that use flat design are on the top. Flat design gained the attention of many graphic designers during a short period of time.
• Cons- On the other hand, you can’t exactly determine how long things are going to be the same. Due to the fastest growing technology, updates and new things always come and it’s a question how long will be here this trend.

Conclusion

Web design is evolving, and to choose between a flat or skeuomorphic concept, designers need to evaluate the pros and cons of each approach in context with the website’s objectives. Flat design is surely one of the more popular design concepts out there at the moment; but it is only one design style of many and will work for some projects but not for others.

Flat website design has both aesthetic and functional benefits. The trend is already inspiring adaptations and catching the eye of Microsoft, Apple and other digital shot-callers. Whether you want to build a website for your business, personal use or a charitable cause, a flat interface is certainly worth considering.