The short history of web design has been littered with various fads and gimmicks. Ranging from the terminally annoying 'splash intro', through to the equally annoying pop-up (not quite dead, but thankfully less common). It has taken a good ten years to get to where we are now with our 'typical' homepage layouts (header, navigation, content area etc etc) and we are now finally seeing web designers taking a good hard look at the area of the page that is often the most forgotten – the humble footer!
Check out 99% of websites and the footer will be pretty similar. A copyright statement, links to T&C's and legals, maybe even a link to 'other sites' if you're lucky. Yawn yawn yawn...yada yada yada.
We, at Bluhalo, believe that every web designer needs to carefully consider the footer as a commercially important area of the site. Just because it is at the bottom of the page doesn't automatically mean it should be at the bottom of the content hierarchy. The humble footer is dead...long live the 'functional' footer!!
A lot of people are already becoming tired of the term 'Web 2.0' (sites and techniques that allow users to easily share information and content) but there is no doubt that your typical Web 2.0 style site is beginning to influence web design overall. Footers on these sites are designed to contribute to the rest of the site's content and are not merely there to neatly finish off the page. Think how a user interacts. A few years a go scrolling was seen as bad and implemented as a last resort. These days, I really don't think the user cares too much if they have to scroll to get to information. So, if you are asking the user to scroll, let him/her get to a footer that either offers them value or value commercially to the website owner (by way of the user reading and interacting with it!).
There's a growing variety of footers now being implemented. Some contain the site map, which is fantastic for SEO and a great tool for the user and some contain contact forms. Previously, both of these functions would have been hidden away somewhere, no doubt buried 4 clicks away! It's also a great space to place applications, newsfeeds, downloads, blogs, search fields, advertising etc etc. The potential is endless but whatever you choose to go in your footer, you can be sure that it will be playing a far more important role than a couple of years ago. Just don't ignore it!
Bluhalo's Digital Design Team
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