There are always new webdesign trends gaining momentum. Who could forget parallax scrolling from a few years ago, which is still popular today? As of late, long-scrolling pages are getting more attention from site visitors. One trend that’s not gotten as much recognition as many others, and has been around for a little while already, is card-based design. The most popular website that showcases this design trend is Pinterest, but there are also other sites that are increasingly using this design approach, and with good reason. When visitors browse a site that uses this design technique, they immediately notice the cleanness and well-organized planning behind such a simple-yet-elegant approach to design. There’s a slew of benefits to using card-based design on your own site.
A grid approach to IA
When you look at any card-based design, it’s impossible not to also see a grid-based design peeking through. That’s because every edge of a card is really the edge of various grids in a bigger, well-organized system that promotes great consistency and harmony in the way the site’s presented. This in turn significantly helps the information architecture of your site. Information architecture is the intelligent order and flow in which your visitors absorb site information, ideally in keeping with the goal of each page and the overall site.

Heavy reliance on images
We’ve heard the old saying that people are visual creatures so many times that it’s a cliché, yet in card-based design, it takes on new meaning. Card-based design relies on visuals almost exclusively; any copy on the same page is usually secondary to the visual in terms of the information architecture. Going heavy on images like this is a strength of card-based design because studies already confirm that images elevate web design. For example, both high-quality pictures and using more human faces in images boost conversion rates. In fact, all told, there are several ways in which using images in design can increase your site’s conversions. In other words, the emphasis on using images makes card-based design more attractive to site visitors. It’s no coincidence that Pinterest is, according to Alexa, the 15th most popular site in the U.S.
Enhanced UX
Any designer should tell you that the user experience matters most. It’s what we’re supposed to be designing for, first and foremost. Another reason that card-based design has resonated so well, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, is because it helps the user experience. And that encourages site visitors to keep coming back to your site, which in turn leads to them spending a longer time there, which finally leads to more conversions! A great user experience centers around people being able to find their way around your site without any friction; basically, they should find what they want to find immediately and with no headaches.
Well-Suited for mobile design
You may’ve heard that mobile has already overtaken desktop in the sheer number of users. In the U.S. alone for 2015, mobile media digital time comes out to 51% compared to desktop’s 42%. Card-based design is ideal since it takes this trend into consideration by being eazily compatible with responsive frameworks. Because cards offer content in more digestible chunks, it makes it easier to display on mobile frameworks. Look at cards this way: their shape and size is practically a mimicry of the shape and size of a smartphone or tablet. Of course, not exactly a perfect match due to the multitude of different models available, but still a pretty close match when you think in terms of aspect ratio.