One trend that really took off in 2018 was improved mobile friendliness because frankly, it was necessary. A report from BrightEdge in 2017 showed 57 percent of traffic among its clients were coming from smartphones and in other categories and demographics, the numbers were considerably higher for mobile as well (https://selnd.com/2HFwzha).
With the world becoming increasingly more technologically advanced as each year passes, 2019 presents some new and impressive website design trends. Here are a few trends we are predicting to dominate your screens this year:
Chatbots Are Evolving
In past years, talking to a bot was usually a last resort when needing assistance. Now, with advancements in AI and machine learning, chatbots can actually provide faster and more accurate help than live chats can. With 24/7 service, expert answers, and immediate responses, it’s no wonder why chatbots are expected to be huge in 2019 and beyond with an estimated 80% of businesses incorporating them by 2020.
This year, we expect chatbots to be more customized to each brand with innovative designs and friendly faces to give them a more personable feel. A couple businesses excelling with chatbots right now are Casper and MedWhat. Casper’s chatbot, Insomnobot3000, keeps insomniacs company when they are stuck awake all hours of the night with no one to talk to, while MedWhat’s chatbot is ideal for hypochondriacs who are regularly misdiagnosing themselves.
Micro-interactions
Have you ever created an account, and when setting a password, there was a gauge telling you if the password is weak or strong as you are typing it in? And then once you’ve created the perfect password, a bright, green check mark appears giving you approval of a job well done? Well, that is a micro-interaction. Overall, the point of a micro-interaction is to provide people with feedback and help them see the results of their actions.
Micro-interactions are already very prominent; however, we predict that they are going to get much more creative and interactive in 2019. Chimes and other noises, scrolling-animations, hover interactions and much more can be expected. Essentially, this will provide businesses with a way to engage their audience while making the web pages appear more intelligent.
Even More Video Content
No one is a stranger to video content nowadays. Last year was major for video content because it’s perfect for our increasingly short-attention spans and with innovative video production, it gives websites that “next level” feel.
Yet, this year, businesses are going to have to put even more focus on video production. Thanks to Google and their shift to mixed search pages results, web pages that feature video content will now rank higher than standard web pages. With this, we are expecting video content to replace a decent amount of text which will help make businesses more searchable and shareable.
Vintage Type
We are predicting nostalgic feelings this year as old school fonts make a comeback. Business like Slack, Mailchimp and Warby Parker are taking part in this trend and they have good reasons for doing so. These fonts provide websites with unique character and it has this unspoken ability to grab the user’s attention, especially when bolded. These font choices can seem a bit out of the box for some business types, however, they are more harmonizing than you think.
Will You Take Advantage of These New Web Design Trends?
These web design trends will work wonders if you are looking to increase website traffic and user engagement. Adding these elements to your site may be expensive to execute but staying relevant is important to stay competitive.
If you’d like to learn more about these trends, feel free to give us a call! Our developers are always learning new tricks and would love to help!
