In today’s vast and saturated online world, amazing user experience and creative web design aren’t unique – they’re expected. Therefore, we took the time to highlight these UX and design trends we think will make a major impact in the web design world this year. One trend you might notice throughout the article is the fact that designers are using video and movement opportunities to grab the users’ attention and keep visitors on the page for longer periods of time.
Web visitors are sharper and more judgmental than ever. And, they’re only growing more so, as the generations who have grown up with internet access take on a larger and larger percentage of the population. Strong, modern web design is vital to your brand’s reputation, your bottom line, and your future. Below are the seven design trends you might just start seeing more of around the web when our digital calendars flip to 2019.
Bright Colors & Gradients
Colors
Bright colors are naturally at home on the web. Computer screens can deliver vibrant, saturated color more easily than print media ever could. And, color is one of the most powerful visual communication tools available.
Choosing the right colors for a website can make the difference between engaged viewers (and conversions!) or nasty high bounce rates.
Gradients
We would be remiss if we failed to mention gradients. Gradients seem to go hand-in-hand with the bright colors we see on the web.
In fact, the web design world has been calling gradients a trend for so long, that they’re more of a standard than a trend.
Modern screen technology is masterful at executing the color blending that is necessary to make gradients look fantastic. But, that’s not why gradients are so popular in design.
Gradients provide subtle visual interest without being too busy. That’s what makes them so great for lending an air of dynamism to a design without overwhelming the important stuff.
Staging a big comeback last year thanks to likes of Instagram and Spotify, bright colors and gradients are here to stay in 2019. Color continues to be at the root of web design strategy, providing the strongest emotional connection between brands and their audience. Multi-tonal gradients used to be hot in the 90’s spicing up the financial advisor’s PowerPoint presentation. Today, they are used to the extreme to create a polarizing effect that engages the audience while incorporating brand colors. Here are some tools that were built to help you create gradient libraries for development:
- UI Gradient: Pre-made colors gradients for you to simply copy the code & paste into your stylesheets.
- WebGradients: Ditto
- Gradient CSS Generator: Lets you customize the colors and copy & paste the code.
Custom Graphics & Illustrations
If you want to stand out in a crowded marketplace, you must visually distinguish your website from the competition. You can’t do this if you use generic website templates.
Web templates have improved over the years – they’re now more customizable than ever before. But, they are still templates. And that means that thousands of other websites will use that very same design.
Dynamic Full screen video background
One of the best ways to catch the customer’s attention is to create a website with a dynamic video background. Moving objects tend to be more attractive.
Compared to text or still images, short videos are a more convenient way to provide more information, enabling the user to quickly understand the characteristics of the web page or product.
Video helps increase user time on page, which is good for SEO and conversion rates. Facebook’s prioritizing video posts is solid proof of the medium’s effectiveness. Moreover, given that we live in an era of diversified information, the application of dynamic elements such as video backgrounds will gradually increase.
Mobile design integration
Mobile devices are the most popular way to access the internet and your web design needs to support mobile users. According to research by ComScore, mobile users spend more than double the minutes online than desktop users.
Consider how people search for something. According to Google, over 48% of all users started their search for something on a mobile device. Every business needs to optimize their website for mobile devices. Failure to provide a strong mobile user experience will turn prospective customers away.
Utilizing Color Branding
A web design trend that we are loving is the multiple color branding look. Companies like Camden Town Brewery are moving towards a web design that is branded based on page or product and changes when the user navigates and interacts with the product or pages. This web design subconsciously helps the user navigate through the site and associate which product or service page they’re looking at solely based on visual color cues
Dynamic Scrolling design
The newest iteration of scrolling design is intentional, draws focus where it is needed, and engages the viewer. Dynamic scrolling design is a new-ish kid in town.
Dynamic scrolling involves designing your website in a way that makes it obvious that there is more for the viewer to see below the edge of the screen.
This can include diagonal graphics that draw the eye downward, visually cutting off a familiar shape so that you feel compelled to scroll down to see the completed shape or, even revealing hidden visual elements and copy behind moving scrolling graphics.
The result is that there is always a graphic element tantalizingly just out of view – propelling users to scroll down and explore.
Responsive Design
The rapid development of reading devices in recent years – mobile devices, tablets, TVs, wearables, and desktops – has made designers aware that responsive design should be one of the mainstream web design trends in 2019.
Since Google started highlighting mobile-responsive websites in 2010, mobile has become the first choice for responsive web design. Now that the number of mobile users has far exceeded that of desktop users, Google has also announced changes to its algorithm to prioritize mobile-first indexing. The goal is to encourage companies to update their responsive web design and enhance the online experience of mobile users.
A final word
Your website is a critical component of your brand, and as your brand and marketing strategy evolves, your site should as well. After all, your website and your brand should work in tandem. Misalignment can damage not only your brand but also your customer’s trust.
But, the decision to incorporate a trend into your website design should always be determined by whether that trend makes sense for your brand.
Designers can capitalize on their strengths to create more bold, unique, and unforgettable designs. Creative web design is not a matter of chance. It can be analyzed, understood, and executed. Keep an eye on new web design trends, and you’ll be sure to build excellent websites
