So 2017 is gonna end and 2018 is just around the corner. What are the trends that are likely to be the buzzwords in 2018?. Every year, web design trends are influenced by a few important platforms and general technology trends. In 2016, it was the smartphone boom that led to mobile browsing overtaking desktop browsing for the first time ever and it is on the rise since then. So in 2018, what are the web design trends to watch for?.
Designing for the mobile screen used to be a limiting factor, mainly due to poor bandwidth problems and size of the viewports. Things aren’t the same anymore. The design toolkit for mobile is a lot more effective now. Improvement in modern mobile tech has made sure that designing for the mobile screen isn’t a problem anymore. With that being said, let’s take a look at the most important website design trends to watch for in the year 2018.
#1 Animations Triggered by Scrolling
Animations that are triggered by scrolling are not entirely new; however, we can expect every web design company to use them differently the next year. Animations aren’t just used for the purpose of flash and flare. They are more meaningful now and carry a lot of depth to the way the content is conveyed.
How people use these animations has become a very important strategic decision, built for the purpose of improving engagement and conversion rates. Animations engages with the user a lot more effectively and encourage them to keep scrolling, pulling them to read further of the content being displayed.
Using these animations are part of designing an experience for the user and not just website design trends. They will ultimately determine how long and how much they will engage with your website.
#2 Advanced Web Apps
Apps take up over 89% of the total mobile media consumption share. Web design trends 2018 point towards a shift towards these growing popularity of mobile apps. A blend of traditional app experience and web design is making the rounds. This sort of a website-app hybrid is called as the Progressive Web App.
Progressive web apps, makes sense in a lot of ways. They improve the functionality of websites by including app like behaviours like push notifications, splash screens, offline mode, and animated page transitions etc. These blend the line between a web page and a full fledged app.
As these progressive web app hybrids become popular over time, you will be able to see them a lot more refined with advanced cognitive capabilities.
#3 Cinemagraphs
These occupy a very important space between the static image and a full fledged video. Cinemagraphs will be an important web design trends in 2018. They are not bandwidth heavy when compared to videos, but are more engaging than images. These small snippets provide an interesting dynamic image – very similar to the moving photographs you see in the Harry Potter universe.
We expect them to gain popularity because of their performance and mobile functionality advantaged. Developers won’t use cinemagraphs just for flair and flash; but, they’ll be used to command the attention of users and draw them to critical content on the page.
How you end up using the cinemagraph depends a lot on the creativity of the web developer. They are gaining mainstream exposure pretty fast. Which is a testimony for their popularity among the public.
Creating engaging cinemagraphs will definitely increase conversions based on different studies done by us in our web properties. They can also add a touch of 2018 to your existing website with ease and simplicity.
#4 Conversational Bots
As functionalities of apps and web pages are starting to merge into a single line, websites will include more advanced functionality of apps in the future, a lot more casually. As mentioned above, this will lead to a push towards the use of voice search, conversational bots, and natural language processing as well.
Advanced, intelligent and conversational bots could be used in a myriad of different creative ways in the web. They will play an important role in b2b web design trends of the coming year. For example, intelligent bot could be programed into a basic customer service bot, that answers some of the frequently asked questions effortlessly. This will reduce the load on your customer service team.
Websites could become lot more interactive when conversational bots become mainstream. You could ask almost anything regarding the website and it will explain it to you in a conversational tone without having to list anything on the website. You could just type in the URL and talk to a bot regarding your queries, in the most fully-verbal, natural and authentic way possible.
#5 Negative Space for the Win
White space is not something that is new to web design, but 2018 will add a whole new dimension towards it based on where things are heading now.
Especially in the mobile space, speedy, light-weight pages are crucial for their success. Flashy and gimmicky design, laden with heavy media is a thing of the past. Every single element on the web page should have a purpose: It could be to attract user, Increase conversions or engagement or any of the important metrics. No element can exist just because it seems cool.
That’s where white space come into play. They help create an interesting layout where content is the king. Animations and cinemagraphs will help the developer illustrate a product or offering. The good thing about negative space is that, when you use them effectively, it draws the attention of the visitor directly to the point of engagement or conversion without any distractions in between, spoiling the experience.
#6 Micro-interactions
Facebook has redefined the way we interact with snippets of information online in the form of micro-interactions. Instead of just “Liking” a post or a photo, you can now engage with it meaningfully in the form of various emotive reactions. This takes engagement rates to a whole new level.
Micro-interactions enable the user to engage with your content a lot more intuitively thus improving the user experience to a large extent. Gone are the time when the internet was a very static space. Every interaction with any element on a webpage would require a page reload for it to work in the past. However, things have changed a lot in the past few years and we are now on the better side of things. Micro-interactions are on the latest end of the engagement spectrum that help reduce speed bumps and give richer and intuitive interactions, so users are more likely to interact with you and your content.
This particular approach to designing interaction elements will enable users of the web to express their interests and communicate with the content creators in real-time. This will break down previously common communication barriers and improve the connectivity and speed which customers have started to expect in a predominantly mobile world of today.
#7 Bold Typography
If you are playing close attention, you would see a majority of the web design trends that we have mentioned are geared towards a more minimalistic style. This was the case with 2017, and it is extending into the next year as well. Developers are removing every possible distraction between the user and the content to create an immersive consumption experience.
Typography as a design-element plays a very important role in this shift in thought process and it will play a predominant role in the web design trends of the coming year. We’re already seeing various colorful, playful, and artistic typefaces replacing the need for images in minimal websites.
This is particularly the case with mobile website. It makes a lot of sense over there as well. Contrary to images, expressive typefaces do not add the extra weight to a web page. Other technical requirements such as the way they scale for different screen sizes isn’t an issue as they retain readability in various screen sizes without affecting performance. Getting rid of heavy visual content and relying on expressive typography brings in a cleaner outlook to websites, thus giving room for the important stuff to pop-up.
Gaudy buttons and clickable images are going out the door. Skinny little headers and menus are growing into a range of wide and bold headers that shout out loud the purpose of existence of a page, removing the need for any guesswork. In this style, even the call-to-actions are loud and clear and users are very receptive of this straightforward approach.
#8 Natural Language Processing
Natural Language Processing and voice search go hand in hand. Instead of a search engine that relies on keywords and phrases to understand what you are saying, an advanced conversational bot with NLP abilities would be able to understand what you are saying in a more natural and seamless way.
This technology is almost mature now and when this is integrated with advanced conversational bots, then traditional websites and content delivery systems would be sent for a toss.
Are You Ready for 2018?
If you are running an outdated website in 2018, it will heavily affect your conversion rates. You’ll have to say a sad goodbye to cluttered designs of the past and embrace the minimal and technically advanced design trends of the future. This will improve conversions and all other metrics tremendously.
I hope this article was useful for you to learn about creating the perfect social media marketing strategy for your small business. If you have any doubts with regards to this, let us know through the comments and we will be glad to help you out. If you have any suggestions regarding how we can improve the article, let us know them through the comments as well for us to improve.
