Want to find out what’s new in web design this year? You’ve come to the right place!
Today, customers demand fast websites that are not only easy to use, but that also look great, are interactive, and offer them an experience.
But, apart from struggling to please picky and impatient customers, web designers are also struggling to keep up with the ever-changing trends. They have to stay on top of new techniques, technologies, and tricks that continue to appear at a phenomenal rate.
As people spend more and more time online, web designs are the hearts of the online presence of all brands these days. So, it takes high-quality web design services to engage and delight customers and set a business apart from its competitors, especially since data shows that 75% of a website’s credibility comes from its design.
Let’s see which trends web designers use this year to build websites that engage and make audiences come back.
- Dark mode design
The dark mode option has been gaining momentum on apps among users for a long time now. The dark mode option doesn’t just make apps look really cool, but it also helps users conserve battery life on smartphones. Facebook Messenger, AccuWeather, Amazon Kindle App, Evernote, and 9gag – these are all apps with millions of active users who have implemented the “dark mode” option.
But guess what?! More and more websites are also creating designs with a dark aesthetic. In fact, the dark modes have become so popular that even the giant Google announced earlier this week that the Google app on Android and iOS will finally support dark mode.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know what this option does to an app or website. But let’s make sure that you have it all clear in your mind: the dark mode allows users to change the background color of an app window to black.
And, with screens laying around everywhere we look, and users becoming more and more concerned about their sight, we expect this trend to continue to gain momentum in web design this year.
2. Large typography
If you have been surfing websites lately, you’ve definitely noticed that typography is getting bigger and bolder.
Large typography in web design is by no means a new trend, but it seems that this year it is really exploding. And, when we say large text, we mean it! Most websites today have a homepage made up of nothing but a directory of large text.
Why is this trend emerging? Because it has become a great way to deliver a strong and simple message about the brand that customers can’t ignore.
For those who want to experiment with their web design, there’s one more trick to the big typography trend: overlaying thin and thick fonts of different colors to make sure that both types of text are readable.
3. Designs that are all about the user
UX design is definitely taking over the web design sector as the Internet users become pickier and pickier about their online experiences. In fact, a report shows that nearly 88% of consumers are less likely to come back to a website after having a poor experience with it. So, like it or not, it’s time to meet the users’ needs if we want them to return.
But what does design that focuses on the user experience look like? Well, there are a few words that define a user-friendly design: useful, usable, findable, accessible, and valuable. So, to create a full and pleasant experience for users, today’s designs aren’t just interfaces that share content, they also have graphics, layouts, text, plus interactive elements to provide a unique and engaging experience.
4. Mobile-friendliness and high page speed load
According Hubspot, nearly 93% of online users leave a website because it doesn’t correctly display on their device. Similarly, 93% of them leave a website because it doesn’t load fast enough. So, it about time that web designers started concentrating more on the user.
So, there are two significant aspects that web designers are focusing on now more than ever before: page load speed and mobile-friendliness.
Today, Internet users spend nearly 70% of their time online using their smartphones. Thus, as more people use mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets to access websites, designers need to focus on designing mobile-friendly interfaces. Mobile-friendly designs are all about delivering users the right experience no matter the type of device they use, which, as mentioned in the statistics above, has become imperative.
As for the page load aspect, it has also become a crucial thing to deliver both because Google considers page load speed a ranking factor and because let’s face it: as humans, we are inherently impatient.
4. Artistic illustrations
Artistic illustrations, particularly those drawn with lines and hints of animation, are gaining momentum this year. Why are they so popular in 2020? Because they are a fun, easy, and engaging manner to deliver information to users. They can be interactive or static, but in each casethey look cool and appealing.
However, artistic illustrations are not a new trend. Yet, they bring something new to the table this year: they have a hand-drawn look that transmits personalization to users, which we all know that customers have been craving for over the last few years.
Web designers got rid of all the attractive, yet impersonal graphics, and replaced them with something more authentic: hand-drawn artistic illustrations.
5. Minimalism in design
This classic trend in design just keeps going and probably won’t be leaving the web design scene for a long time. Yet, although it is a trend that’s been around for many years, it continues to evolve all the time. This year, minimalism in web design goes hand-in-hand with white space, and both trends aim to give the interface more structure while also creating a sense of cleanness.