Business owners need to regularly update their web content to meet changes in consumer and online user trends that occur naturally over time. People usually seek out more attractive and friendly interfaces that make it easier for them to search online and interact with websites and apps. They also typically want interfaces that take into account their ever-changing needs.
Far too often, business owners base their site, social media and other online interface designs on their needs alone. This type of approach causes them to then lose foot traffic, sales and repeat business to competitors.
Top 2019 Trends
Web design prediction takes into account current web user trends and other factors. What has the second half of 2018 shown web designers? People want web solutions that make it easier and more efficient for them to interact with websites and apps. They want added value as well.
Find out more about the future of web design by reviewing these predicted 2019 trends:
1. An Increase in Interactive Elements
Many consumers enjoy discovering unobtrusively hidden and automated pop up and pop out elements that they can interact with on a page that provide them with additional information and opportunities to link out to other interactive areas.
The idea of interactive elements goes way beyond virtual maps that feature pop up details about locations, hotels, restaurants or travel deals and links to third-party partners. For example, a business might make images of places and events in blog posts interactive or pop up page content as a user scrolls.
Another interactive trend expected to gain more ground is interactive artificial intelligence systems like first-tier customer service chatbots. These systems can help save companies and consumers time and money by providing answers to basic billing and support questions and problems.
2. Bigger Everything
In 2019, businesses owners can expect bigger written words and phrases to become more of a norm. Written content elements like CAPITAL LETTERS, exclamation points (!) and large unusual fonts grab attention.
A large content of any sort on small mobile devices makes it easier for users to read and see image details. Additionally, short-length headlines in large fonts coupled with subtitles in smaller fonts make an attractive contrast, especially when the content covers breaking news and important business or industry updates.
3. More Focus on Color Associations
People are better at remembering what they see when they can associate an object or event with certain colors. Expect more business owners to move beyond simple brand color schemes and associate specific colors to individual and group products and services and even different site pages.
Expect them to also pick brighter colors associated with positive, happy feelings for user interactions with chatbots and messaging systems to reduce irritation and stress that some people feel when dealing with automated systems. Since old-style black and white photos that create a clean-yet-gritty snapshot of a topic have regained popularity, expect an increase in black and white photo style themes for sites that include splashes of color via business logos and text as contrasting highlights.
4. Greater Realism
Online users tend to frequent websites that display content that seems more realistic, natural and imperfect. As a result, expect a trend that focuses on video content, real-world, 360-degree-view galleries of locations and products and graphic shapes and animations that have imperfections and asymmetrical borders that stand out.
Since 2018 marked an increase in positive and negative discussion about diversity and multicultural topics, expect businesses in 2019 to attempt to reach out to diverse groups more by studying diverse personas and publishing content that appeals to women, people of color and other minority groups. Also, expect a greater focus on content that offers inclusion and accessibility for people who have various types of single or multiple health conditions that adversely impact their lives.
5. Out of the Box Decisions
A standard web design formula that included stock photos, solid background colors and traditional Sans fonts dominated online for many years. These elements offered inexpensive solutions that worked well with older technologies. Eventually, nearly everyone accepted them as the norm for great web page design.
With technological advances in recent years, business owners have come to realize that few cost or technology limitations exist. They can choose design elements from a wide range of options rarely used in the past online to compete better and give people stronger attachments to brands, products, and services. For example, they’ve noticed that drawings and illustrations sometimes appeal more to many people than photos.
Gradient-style color schemes appeal more than solid colors. Lastly, Serif fonts on modern platforms make site content stand out even though traditionally small lines on Serif fonts caused low readability. With more colors and bigger elements, Serif fonts are now more readable and popular.
6. Stronger UI
Given the ultimate goal of making every web page interaction valuable to visitors, expect business owners to focus on making the best user interfaces possible. Expect web designers to help them make better use of their online real estate with clean, non-irritating white spaces and pop up and pop out elements. Also, expect traditional web page footer to receive an upgrade that increases its size and content to give people a reason to scroll to the bottom of any page.
Beyond offering traditional elements like contact information, terms of use, press links, social media buttons, a sitemap and an email subscription field, expect footers to include extras valuable to visitors like brief surveys, a news ticker, industry links, latest blog post links, an upcoming events calendar or even a call-to-action statement in video format.
Since people hold smartphones in one hand, expect mobile page and app design to focus on offering menu access points at the bottom of screens so that people can use their thumbs to tap.
Conclusion
As you can see, you can attract and retain more customers and followers in 2019 with these and other great new web design trends. This is only a small sampling of elements that you should consider when updating your business website, social media accounts and other web pages. For more information about this topic, contact a knowledgeable, forward-looking web design team today.
