South Africa’s digital landscape has been developing at a rapid pace and, along with it, Nelspruit has become one of the country’s emerging tech destinations. As the capital of Mpumalanga, Mbombela is so much more than just a gateway to the country’s foremost safari destinations, it is also a hub of web development activity.

Here are a few of the exciting Nelspruit website trends that have been cropping up for 2018:

Data gathering via micro-interactions

One of the best ways to ensure that your online marketing strategy is working, is to get real-time data from your users. Micro-interactions, such as liking or sharing a piece of content has been popularised by social platforms like Facebook. This is a much better way to get data from your users than a review page, for instance. As soon as someone has to deal with a page reload to submit commentary, you’re going to be dealing with a whole lot of bounce. Creating the potential for on-the-fly interactions on your website breaks down communication barriers, allowing your users to interact with your content in real time. This is invaluable in a time when tech-savvy users will no longer settle for clunky interfaces that are difficult to navigate.

Cinemagraphs as the mobile image of choice

Mobile web users have become used to the dynamism of videos, but don’t always have the time (or patience) to wait for the entire thing to load. The answer to this quandary lies in the cinemagraph – dynamic snippets that hit the sweet spot between stills and video. Its main function on websites will be to draw the user’s eye to important conversion points and to create fun interaction points (e.g. images that spin or dance when you touch in on mobile; 360-degree views of a product on an e-commerce site).

Minimalist mobile sites that convert like crazy

Minimalist mobile sites have been gaining popularity steadily throughout 2017, but will really be taken to the next level in the year ahead. Flashy call-to-action buttons and images yesterday’s news. In 2018, we’re looking at sites that take advantage of negative space to draw attention to engagement points, speedy, light-weight pages and expressive typography instead of heavy images.

These are just a few of the exciting new developments in the world of website design in Nelspruit and further afield. We are looking forward to a year of developing amazing, innovative websites, so get in touch if your brand or business could do with some tech love!