Guest Author Emma Knightley from Digital Marketing Institute
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With 2019 just around the corner, we
look at 11 web design trends you should consider using. Balancing aesthetics
with functionality is a difficult act, but get it right and you'll set yourself
up for increased user engagement and higher conversion rates.
Find out how you can improve your
online presence with these 11 actionable tips.
“Mobile internet usage is predicted to increase sevenfold
between 2016 and 2021 – Statista”
1. Make Mobile a Priority
According to Statista, “In 2016,
43% of all website traffic worldwide was generated through mobile phones,
up from 35.1 percent in the previous year.” It’s true that the importance of
mobile-friendly web design has been increasing for the past several years, and
that trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.
In the first half of 2018, Google
rolled out its new Mobile First Index, placing
more importance on the mobile version of your website by making it the first to
be seen in the search results. This means that your website must have
mobile-friendly design.
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
are also becoming more important. If you haven’t already heard about AMP, it’s an open-source coding standard for
publishers that allows them to load their sites quickly on mobile. Traditional
mobile websites can be a bit clunky, but AMP ramps up the mobile experience by
stripping down code, using external resources for media files and running
scripts in parallel to allow pages to load instantly.
Whether you are designing a
brand-new site or retrofitting any existing site, AMP is a must for 2019. No
potential customer likes a page that loads slowly, and you don’t want to push
prospects to one of your (faster) competitors.
2. Irregular Grid Layouts
Grid layouts provide an easy way for
designers to tie all of the elements of their web pages together, giving each
page a theme and making it easier to navigate. This design theory has been
around forever, but there's been a shift in the way they're being used.
Many content management systems,
including popular platforms such WordPress, use grid design as the basis of
their templates. Two years ago, CSS grid was introduced to provide designers with
more options.
In 2019, we’ll see a shift toward
designers using more neutral space and more irregular grid layouts for an
ultra-modern design style. Simple styles that include the use of whitespace (or negative space)
makes content stand out so that it’s easier to read and navigate. These styles
are also easier on the eyes, encouraging users to spend more time on your
site.
3. Bold Fonts & Bright Colors
To complement these modern design
styles, you’ll need type font that stands out. Bold font styles help users focus on your content,
while the whitespace makes it easier to read and skim through. Together,
they’re a perfect complement. Because people typically only spend a few
seconds, up to a couple of minutes, looking at your pages, you need to catch
their attention with colors and designs that stand out.
The goal is to create an easy and
enjoyable experience for the user to keep them on your site for as long as
possible and eventually convert them into paying customers.
In 2019, we may also see these fonts
and colors taking the place of images. This makes sense for mobile especially.
Unlike images, which slow pages down, scaling the size of your typography won’t
impact performance. It also creates cleaner lines on your page that helps your
calls-to-action pop. Large buttons, hero images, and clickable images are going out
of style and making way for large typographic expressions.
4. Increase in Micro-Interactions
Facebook and other social media
networks have made micro-interactions extremely popular. Users love the ability
to contribute a variety of reactions to posts and private messages, from the
traditional “liking” of posts, all the way to a flurry of animated hearts you
witness when you share the love in private Facebook messages. These
micro-interactions allow the user to interact with others without reloading the
page.
This is different to the traditional
static website user experience, which requires users to reload pages to take
action, such as submitting a review. Such a scenario may seem like a minor
inconvenience, but it creates a speedbump for customers that will cause some of
them to bounce from the page, meaning you lose out on potential conversions.
Micro-interactions help level out these speed bumps and provide users with
richer interactions.
Using micro-interactions on your
site in 2019 will allow users to communicate real-time and increase the speed
and connectivity that they have come to expect in a mobile-connected world.
5.
More Advanced Scroll Triggered Animations
Scrolled animation triggers
encourage users to keep scrolling down your website pages with specifically
triggered interactive elements that increase engagement. Here’s one great
example of scroll triggered animation from Apple. These
animation triggers are nothing new, but they have begun to be used in a new
way. The best scroll triggered animations are minimalist, educational and
strategic, designed to increase conversions.
Scroll triggered animations can also
clean up the look and feel of your website. Instead of having a collection of
buttons and menus, your site will convey a true, interactive experience for
your users.
6. Top Sticky Elements vs. Bottom Sticky Elements
You know your users read from left
to right, but have you thought about the fact that your users are getting used
to clicking at the bottom of their smartphones or mobile apps to
navigate?
Since mobile app design is so
important to modern web design, website developers are beginning to make sticky
menu items scroll from the bottom of the site, as opposed to the top of the
site’s pages. Progressive web apps are somewhat responsible from this design
evolution, as developers start to design for modern functionality.
7. Responsive Design
Responsive design is less
of a trend than a principle, and it’s been around for a number of years.
However, its importance cannot be overlooked. Responsive design is when your
website is designed in a way that it resizes to look appealing across multiple
screen sizes: mobile, tablets, TV, wearables or desktops.
Though the UX revolution has been
happening for nearly a decade, it’s only recently been implemented on a wider
scale. In 2019, we expect this design element will continue to expand to
include new forms of technology such as Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality.
8. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence
They may still sound like terms from
a sci-fi film, but artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning have hit
the mainstream. Three years ago, Google’s AlphaGo AI beat a
skilled human Go player for the first time, a defeat that had long been sought
after, and AI assistants like Siri are available on millions of
devices.
So it comes as no surprise
that Adobe’s Sensei promises to make AI tools easily
available to web developers around the world, while The Grid has
been offering AI-based web designs since 2014. As AI and machine learning
continue to advance, we’ll start to see them make their way into webdesign in other, more
advanced ways.
9. Scalable Vector Graphics (SVGs)
Although they are not new, in 2019
you can expect this graphic format overtake more traditional file formats such
as PNG, GIF and JPG. SVGs are vector images, not pixels, which gives them many
advantages.
They are incredibly scalable (while
maintaining their quality), meaning they won’t affect page speed when animated
because they don't’ require any HTTP requests. SVGs are essential to providing
quality multimedia experiences for users in 2019 (360-degree
views, 3D images and Cinemographs).
10. Progressive Web Apps
Apps make up a large portion of
mobile media time, and web designers are started taking notice and blending the
best of web and app behaviors. This hybrid creation is referred to as a Progressive Web App. In 2019, we’ll see a trend
in upgrading websites to add elements such as animated page transitions, push
notifications and splash screens. Some websites like Medium,
are already there, offering apps that are easily accessible with a click. Such
apps will continue to evolve to meet each user’s personalized tastes.
They are useful to users from the
very first visit in a browser tab, no install required. As the user
progressively builds a relationship with the app over time, it becomes more and
more powerful. It loads quicker, even on flaky networks, sends relevant push
notifications, has an icon on the home screen, and loads as a top-level,
full-screen experience.
11. Internet of Things Connectivity
Connecting web services to the Internet of Things has been
a huge trend in 2018, and it will continue on this path in 2019.
IoT devices can include objects as
simple as a refrigerator to as complicated as a tidal turbine. These “things”
use sensor arrays and server-side processing to receive and act on their
environments. APIs that allow web developers to connect and communicate with
these devices are currently being created, leading to even more
interconnectivity of the next several years.
Simple, Functional, Futuristic Design in 2019
In 2019, the focus will be on
designing simple but powerful websites that are well optimized for mobile
devices and heavily focused on user experience.
These sites will feature new
types of formats, styles and technologies. Is your brand’s website ready for
what 2019 has to bring?
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