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Web Design Trends; Every year we see new trends and new website features that get a lot of press and attention online, we also see companies racing, trying to implement the latest web design trend or even try and start a new trend.
The year 2019 is no different, but it also has a few fundamental changes in the way we use the internet and a few trends that can help your business grow.
In this post, I won’t just talk about design trends, think of it as a guide on what 2019 is bringing and what to keep in mind when you are doing your next website feature add on session.
Google introduced Mobile-First Indexing back in 2018, with the transition taking place, slowly but surely all websites will be migrated.
It might not mean much, but it is actually one of the biggest changes that will affect websites online, well website rankings, so it is good to be in the know, and to start off let’s dive in and explain what it is;
Mobile-First indexing means that Google will be shifting the way it ranks websites, up to the time of writing this article, Google has ranked websites based on the Desktop version of the website, it didn’t penalise you for your website not being super-responsive, and for a while, it was ranking results on mobile differently than they did on a desktop.
That doesn’t you won’t rank at all, it just means Google crawlers will be taking a ‘mobile-first’ approach to determining the relevancy of your website, it does mean though, that your website is more likely to get hit if it doesn’t offer a mobile-friendly experience.
You need to make sure your website is mobile-optimised! You might think to yourself “That’s ok, our website is responsive, it won’t be a problem!”, I am going to have to get a bit technical to explain this point; Yes, your website might be responsive but what Google is looking for is mobile-optimised and not just mobile-friendly.
Mobile-friendly or responsive website only means that the website is viewable on mobile devices, the concept behind it is taking the same website as the desktop website and make collapse the page elements to stack on top of each other to fit within a small screen, this is the first step to mobile optimisation.
Mobile-optimised, on the other hand, is taking mobile friendliness to a whole other level, it is focused on providing a mobile-focused user experience Which can mean a completely different looking landing page, with buttons replacing texts or links to make it easier for the website visitor to navigate through.
You can take the first step by testing your website through Google’s own mobile-friendly test tool, it will give you a good indication of how bad or how good the changes will need to be.
You have come across illustrations integrated into web design more than once now that we are nearly in the middle of 2019, our own website features some illustrations, and 2019 seems to be the year of continuous growth for web illustrations.
Illustrations help you deliver your message in an engaging and creative way while having hero images on your website can deliver a basic understanding of what you are about, illustrations help you showcase what you do in a more interesting way, a more modern way.
It is also key not to go overboard with the number of illustrations on the website, use them as a tool to deliver your message in the right way, think of it as your brand’s tone of voice, is it quirky? is it professional? or is it young? Illustrations can help you with defining your tone through a number of different styles.
It has been around for yours, and it is a pillar in the design world! Minimalism is delivering the content of your website in a clear and minimalistic way of embracing the white-space.
The benefit of minimalistic web design aside from the rich look is using the white space to direct your users’ eyes on the content that you would like to deliver, used correctly minimalistic design can be a great tool to increase your website’s conversion rate.
Say it and say it loud, another contender to the trends list is Blod Typeface, while text has always been and will always be part of the design process, having bold text on your page started with the advent of Hero Headers it has recently grown in popularity as the centerpiece of landing pages.
In design Bold Typeface is utilised to grab attention, and deliver your main message loud and clear. We have also seen some really interesting utilisation of bold text.
Now we are onto the exciting stuff, to kick off the list of 2019 web trends of technologies we will start with the two movers and shakers of the industry; Chatbots and Machine Learning.
Chatbots are a set of automated responses and language identifiers implemented within your live chat service, allowing users to navigate, make purchases, or find information just by asking it. Think of it as a robot that’s handling a part of your customer service.
If you want to learn more about Live Chat, and how it can help your business, we have published a post earlier in the week discussing it in depth, but back to the chatbots for now.
So, yeah it is cool, and sounds fancy but why are they a trend now? Well, the answer really lies in users behavior online, using chatbots can help your users find what they want without the need to have a 24/7 customer services team, you just need to tell it when someone asks for X do Y and it is ready to go.
And to clear the air, no it does not chat with your users like it is a human, it only executes a set of functions or tasks based on what they users enters or clicks.
Machine learning is kind of what you would call Artificial Intelligence, although I am not a fan of calling it that, because artificial intelligence is quite different from machine learning and I will probably go on a rant about it in a different blog post, but for the sake of this post lets say they’re the same thing.
Machine Learning is collating data and figuring out patterns, then executing functions based on the patterns found. That might sound a little complicated, and in all truth it is, but to simplify it, think about this scenario related to chatbots; The user will browse your website and click on a product, then they leave the page and now they want to ask questions, so your chatbot jumps in, but now it automatically knows what product they are talking about, and based on their behavior it figures out which stage of the buying cycle they are, so it offers them a coupon code at the end to make them complete the purchase.
Now the sky is the limit, think about the possibilities and how you can customise your buyer’s experience, and increase your conversion rate by implementing those technologies.
PWA or Progressive Web Applications have been in the works for quite a while, and they have been creating such an excitement in the web development world.
A simple explanation of what they are is, They are offline websites that can be installed on your phone’s home screen and integrate services such as push notifications, and hardware features. Pretty much they are here to get rid of installable mobile apps.
Google Defines them as follows:
Progressive Web Apps are user experiences that have the reach of the web, and are:
Reliable — Load instantly and never show the downasaur, even in uncertain network conditions.
Fast — Respond quickly to user interactions with silky smooth animations and no janky scrolling.
Engaging — Feel like a natural app on the device, with an immersive user experience.
PWAs will help you offer your users a unique experience, without all the downsides of a regular website, such as load speeds, engagement, and interaction.
They are usually unnoticeable, but they play a big role in the way you use apps and websites that implement them. A micro-interaction can be the beep you hear when you refresh Twitter or the color change when you hover over a button. They have one goal; enhance the user experience.
The short answer is yes, of course, you do! Micro-interactions are not just fancy additions to your design when done right, they provide immediate feedback based on your users’ behavior, encouraging them to complete actions and intuitively understand the function of every button and link on your page.
They also provide feedback that an action has been taken and it is being processed, rather than displaying a blank screen, or a static screen confusing the user and prompting them to click the submit button 200 times.
Now the Google Home and Amazon Alexa are nearly in every home, there is one possibility that a lot of businesses are not accounting for; Voice Search.
You can now tell your voice assistant to make a search for something online, and it will return results, the same way Google does, the only difference is, it reads websites that are voice ready, not being voice ready will exclude yours from the race.
As of January 2018, there were an estimated one billion voice searches per month being conducted, and it is projected that 50% of all searches online by the year 2020.
So to take advantage of the rise of voice search, you will need to analyse your website and make sure that the content is written in a way that can be consumed with no screen, consumed over sound.
This year will be a very interesting one, with the introduction of new technologies and new exciting designs, but it also offers a very interesting new dynamic for businesses online.
It will be the year when businesses will have to make changes to be able to compete and sustain advantage online, with the new technologies that are being implemented it will be very interesting to see the interpretations and implementation of the technologies mentioned through the post.
If you would like assistance with exploring the new features and trends and how they can help your business, we are offering a free strategy call, with no fees, no obligations. We are recognized as a top Website Design Company on DesignRush.
So what are you excited about, what’s the one thing you are going to implement and pioneer within your industry? Share it in the comments below!
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