While people are talking about visual trends, let's mark some technological changes that may appear in web design this year. We’ve asked experts and influencers in this field to predict key changes that are about to happen. Wondering what to be ready for? Here we go with the most frequently mentioned predictions. Read much more insights below in quotes by experts.
Web Design Prediction 1: The focus of attention will move on mobile applications
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Web Design Prediction 2: Web pages will get fully-interactive thanks to AI-powered chatbots
Will also adds that the 'machine-learning' aspect of a chatbot's intelligence has massively developed over the last year, and 2019 is probably the year we can logically expect to see the results hit the mainstream. “Rather than just mindlessly perform a particular task the same way as they are programmed to, chatbots will learn from every conversation that they have with a customer, applying their findings to future conversations to improve their chances of success. This development is likely to shake up how useful chatbot technology actually is to a business, catapulting it to the forefront”.
Asking relevant questions about a product/service will be simple and it will be done faster because visitors will be able to quickly refer to a certain paragraph or video each time they formulate questions. Each session will be supervised by a member of the Customer Success team and also by a high configurable chatbot outside working hours”.
They will want the contact form to auto-reply to the individual and add them to a contact list in a CRM tool of some kind, for example. Fortunately, it’s easier than ever to set up some of these integrations. 2019 will be the year when developers ask: can this be something that the website can automate?”
Web Design Prediction 3: More scrolling. Plus non-traditional scrolling will rock
Over time, customers, and users have begun accepting the fact that they will have to scroll to find value but above the fold SHOULD at minimal give them an initial understanding that they're on the right page so that they do not become a bounce statistic. We're seeing more and more design trends geared towards imagery and an initial page statement but requiring the user to scroll and get information bits at a time”.
Think about a similar design to a video game. You move the mouse and the page moves with you. I'm excited to see how it develops. With so many people wanting things faster, this design improves speed by 3x. A lot of people still reach for the scroll bar, or if they're using a Mac vs. a PC there scrolling experience is usually different.
Having this 360-scroll design eliminates those small wait times that can really start to add up. It's less frustrating for the consumer and it means lower bounce rates for the company".
Web Design Prediction 4: Rise of interactive, scroll-triggered animation
Scroll-triggered animations are on the rise. We like them because they increase engagement and time on page as long as they don’t confuse the user or take away from the website’s main goals”.
Web Design Prediction 5: Upswing of cloud-based solutions
We have SLA's with clients and response times are guaranteed. This trend will continue. Clients do not want it hosted in house, or in colocation, they want it on the cloud, and they want to stop managing so much themselves. I see cloud-based solutions like these, but also Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, to continue seeing a huge upswing in 2019”.
Web Design Prediction 6: Less pop-ups or 1-click exit
After the recent update of Google Chrome, it blocks pop-up windows by default and they are not automatically visible on users screens anymore until the user allows it in browser settings. So it marks the next tendention.
Web Design Prediction 7: More usage of next-gen media formats
Web Design Prediction 8: The death of the slider
That’s not all! We’ve listed the most often mentioned predictions above, but there are much more things to expect in 2019. Read below all insights about technical changes in web design which are about to happen.
The pendulum has swung back from single-page design to multiple pages that can be better optimized for SEO.
Daniel Levine, Trends Expert
For 2019 as website speeds begin to increase I believe we will begin to see more and more interactive functionality being built into websites such as chat bots and interactive animations. Chatbots are already getting smarter with AI. Who knows what website chatbots will be capable of by the end of 2019.
Jamie Thornberry, Web Developer
I see a big increase in the demand for websites, because of the high profile social media purges we have seen this year. Whatever your politics might be, business owners are seeing how Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Patreon can just shut people down if they choose to.
... So now business owners are realizing that they must have their own website, their own property on the Web.
Stefan Mischook, Studioweb.com
#The Overlapping Effects Basically this trend can be implemented within fonts, graphics, and colours as a variety of elements can overlap each other. It not just offers the mesmerizing UI Designs but also creates an illusion of space. Also, this allows reflecting a dramatic and sensational touch the mobile app UI design.
I have used it in a couple of startup mobile apps. From my perspective, the practice of using this effect has a great competence as it makes the interface more engaging and eye-catching. Because of the overlapping effect, a sense of space and depth is created which increases the comfort of using the application.
In a nutshell, the elements overlapping looks unusual and grabs the users attention. So will the trend of 2019.
Dhaval Sarvaiya, Co-founder at Intelivita
The right color can improve readership by 40% by making messaging easier to read and more visually appealing. Color is one of the first things our brains perceive from a brand, so it’s often the first thing that pulls us in. Choosing the right colors for a website can make the difference between engaged viewers (and conversions!) or nasty high bounce rates. Not to mention that brands are fighting to differentiate themselves from the competition – bold color choices help them to do that.
Ross Kimbarovsky, the founder of Crowdspring
One of the biggest trends is Accessibility. While accessibility on the web isn’t a new thing, it’s becoming more and more important as the baby boomer generation continues to age. Taking things like impaired vision and reduced motor control into account when designing and developing websites is becoming critical to all users experiences. The generation reaching retirement age now were some of the first to use computers and the internet extensively in professional and personal environments, and so they will come to expect to be able to continue to use technology as they age. In addition to creating a great user experience. This past year has seen unprecedented number of lawsuits against companies that do not comply with the ADA regulations. I predict that we will see even more in 2019.
Tom Malesic, President at EzMarketing
Progressive web apps will see continuing rise to prominence in 2019. PWAs' benefits are well-documented: they're more efficient, more economical, and their low barrier to "installation" makes them a much easier sell.
Apple has been slow and quiet in supporting them, while Microsoft and Google are on board, with Google supporting a crucial "Add to Home Screen" feature.
Also, Service Workies – "A collaborative project by geddski & Google Developers" – is starting to teach many developers how to build them.
I haven't built a full PWA yet, but I plan to, and I'd be surprised if I made it through 2019 without doing so.
Aaron Yoshitake, Developer at Pickakit.com
Web design in 2019 will involve more innovation than ever. Our lead web designer + developer, Michael Lorenzo, says that there are three key changes to be aware of. Speed
Increased speed has shown to increase conversions, page views and revenue, so it’s no surprise that this will be a major focus for web developers in 2019. Google is even prioritizing web pages based on loading speeds. There are already many techniques that developers and designers can utilize to help optimize a website’s speed, but stay on the lookout for more.
Augmented Reality
Augmented reality (AR) is more obtainable for web developers than ever before. AR is all about combining physical and digital worlds. AR has not made its big debut on the web yet (it’s mostly used in apps and games), but this will change in 2019. When it comes to user experience and AR, the possibilities are endless.
Broken Grid Design
Symmetry is out, and broken-grid design is in. This type of web design will create layers and utilize white space, containers and movement. In turn, designers will be able to more effectively draw attention to important elements. This non-traditional format aligns with today’s new-age, creativity that is rarely ‘inside the box’ …or grid in this case.
Phoebe Perelman, Content Marketer at Absolute Marketing Solutions
Late 2018 was a massive sea change for a lot of businesses, as Google made significant changes to its search algorithm, resulting in turbulent dips and spikes in search traffic for certain queries. Many of these changes are already spurring businesses to shift their focus to speed and performance optimization – here's why:
One of the biggest changes was its "Speed Update," which went live in 2018. Page speed is now officially a mobile ranking factor, and together with Google's shift to mobile-first indexing, these changes force businesses to find ways to make their websites load in three seconds or fewer on mobile devices.
Here are a few specific design changes I predict more businesses will be making in 2019 to stay visible in search:
Putting performance and user experience ahead of flashy design and choices.
More brands, especially SMBs on shared hosting, will implement a more minimal look and feel in their web design and development, limiting the use of large images and self-hosted video, sluggish plugins, external JavaScript and CSS, and fonts.
Implementing next-gen photo and video MIME types like WebM.
Implementing WebM right now is a complicated project, as not all browsers support the file format – this forces developers to use fallback image formats and workarounds to host images and videos with WebM's speed and performance benefits. I expect that WebM support will gradually become a priority for all modern browsers that do not currently support it
A greater focus on accessibility and structured data.
While most companies know that accessible design is best practice, I encounter too many websites that don't even cover basics like image alt text and high-contrast font colors. There are a few reasons I think accessibility will become a bigger focus in 2019: for one, the number of ADA and web accessibility lawsuits grew from 57 in 2015 to 432 in 2017, and an aging, but still connected population means that any business whose target audience includes Boomer and Gen X users will optimize their websites to meet their needs.
Nat Hornyak, a technical SEO specialist and web developer at The Content Factory
More software companies will begin to offer pre-packaged websites to their customers. Traditional web design agencies were built from the same model as advertising agencies. In 2019, companies do not need to spend thousands of dollars to have a website created anymore. Only the largest of companies should care about small design elements like rounded buttons vs square buttons. Instead, we're living in a conversion-rate focused world centered around data & analytics. It doesn't matter if you have a good looking site, what matters is if it converts. And the power of conversions, is in your copy.
Companies like EzTix have created pre-packaged websites for our customers that tell them what to write, and limit how much they can write, in each area of their website. Doing so has already shown an incredible increase in revenue for our customers, and continued conversion-rate optimization (CRO) testing helps us find new ways to increase revenue for our customers all over the world.
Joe Martin, Director of Product at EzTix Event Ticketing
In regards to tech changes that affect web design, here’s what I see: Utility CSS Frameworks will be all the rage.
Bootstrap 4 started this a bit. Bootstrap 5 will most likely increase. Tailwind is super popular for this. Utility CSS frameworks means less creating your own classes and something that resembles styles. For example .mt-4 for margin-top at 4x your standard margin spacing. They are much more powerful, especially if you design with a reusable component first style. They can prevent you from making mistakes creating your own CSS classes. They also can include tools to clean up any unused CSS which keeps your final file size very low.
Web Assembly will start being used in popular production sites.
This means working with developers using languages that are not JavaScript on the front end. It may also have developers taking 2nd looks at how to style & output images and text.
Component Libraries have been around for a while.
I think 2019 is the year where using a tool like Storybook becomes the de facto way for designers and developers to work together building websites. If you're not designing reusable components & storing them in a component library like Storybook, you need to start doing this. You're wasting time & the ability to re-use those later.
Matt Ferderer, Web Development Consultant
I guarantee that we’re going to see a lot more functionality ux-wise. Most of the complaints I get from clients about their previous websites is that they look amazing, the design is incredible, but…their customers can’t find their phone number. Or prospects don’t know how to email the business. They are having high bounce-rates as a result and actually losing business. I think we’re definitely going to see a really cool merge between the world of user-friendly features, plugins, and design.
Jolene Rheault, an Owner of Refreshmarketing.net
Top 3 online trends I see: Mobile first.
Mobile e-commerce will grow in importance and mobile payments will become the standard so if your customer experience is not responsive and mobile friendly already you better get with the program fast.
Video and rich content gains even more traction and drives growth.
In a mobile first world, you have less time to grab people, attention spans are shorter than ever so video will be used even more, show don’t tell for maximum impact, rich content drives engagement.
Content will match the buyer's journey.
Understanding that journey will inform how to attract, engage and convert customers and which keywords and topics are used.
Paige Arnof-Fenn, Founder & CEO at Mavens & Moguls
2019 will be a year of making sure your piece of online real estate, big or small, is actually getting seen in a search. If you are a designer or developer creating sites for clients in 2019 then the #1 skill I would recommend investing in is quality copyrighting. Do not have your client write the entirety of their own copy. They don’t have the technical or industry knowledge to do it in a way that will actually get them seen online. I know, cringe. This is most designer’s, worst nightmare. I mean we are all visual artists right? But in 2019 Google will continue to put emphasis on search “intent” and context. Which means when you are writing or editing content for keywords or phrases, you must think of the “why". Is the user wanting an education or to buy something?
Then help Google rank your site well by giving all of your keywords “context”. For example, if you are writing about “Senior Housing”, be sure to define your key terms; is this a person over 55 or are they about to graduate college? Now elaborate on housing. Do you mean apartment complexes, or assisted living?
If these steps are done properly you are on your way to your beautiful site actually getting seen on the web in 2019.
Sarah Jolly, Co-Founder of Jolly Creative Agency
2019 is going to be all about personalization. There is so much noise on the web these days, and the way to stand out is to provide just what you visitors at looking for – in the right way, at the right time. This isn't about creating a million landing pages (though we're a big fan of focused, targeted ones), but rather using the tools out there (check out Template Monster's integrations!) to help your visitors solve their problems on your site. From seamless e-commerce experiences, to product recommendations and geographic specializations, it's getting even easier to create a personalized experience for your visitors to help you stand out and grow.
Kasey Bayne, CMO at Redstamp.com
One prediction I have includes the need to minimize content and its form. As of right now, it is believed that more/longer content will generate more traffic and sales to your website. One reason for this is because it helps you rank higher on Google searches by listing hundreds and thousands of keywords. Many marketers use this form of content for SEO to get their business at the top of google pages. But I predict this type of design will change in 2019. In the past year, technology has greatly advanced and created the use of voice search. This new trend has increased over the past year and will continue to grow even more in 2019 as more people continue to switch to these digital assistance devices. This includes devices like Alexa and Siri. With the use of these devices, optimization will be a lot more critical. They are very different than your typical keyword search.
Marketers, bloggers, business owners, etc. will have to work a lot harder to get themselves noticed in response from these devices. In order for this to happen, they will have to make sure their content is in more of a Q and A form. This is because most users ask questions in the hopes of receiving an answered response. If your content is not short and does not follow a Q and A type form, then it will be hard for your content to get noticed as a response from these devices.
Eventually, and it will increase more in 2019, people will start to only use voice search and your content will get lost if it does not follow their platform.
I predict this type of content will become popular in 2019 because of the use of smartphones as well. As every year passes, smartphones continue to evolve and become our main source of communication. Eventually desktops/laptops will no longer be of use and people will only turn to their smartphones to find information they are looking for. That’s why it is important that your website design will become mobile friendly in 2019 if it is not already. Now a days, people have a short attention span and are look for information on their phone that they can quickly find.
Therefore, the design of short content, big headers (that highlight the main thing so it’s easy to locate), and many “call to action” buttons will become more popular in 2019 to allow users to find content much more quickly and easily while using a mobile device.
Thank you, I hope this information helped. My contact information is below. Feel free to reach out for more information or if you have any more articles with help needed.
Andrew Ruditser, Lead Technology Coordinator at MAXBURST, Inc.
I’d like to point out that 2019 may actually be the year of design rebellion, when some well-established rules get broken in favor of bolder, more dynamic choices. Speaking of breaking things – broken, irregular and asymmetrical grids are on the rise, and my work has also started to reflect that. Layouts will be all over the place in the months to come, with text and images overlapping as if in some unintentional code error. Playing it safe, with tidy, symmetrical layouts is definitely so 2018. From my experience, the deliberately irregular patterns, sliding images and elements overlapping all over the place will surely spark the crowd’s interest, as the viewers have been oversaturated and downright bored with the clean, neat and by-the-book layouts.
My advice to other designers is to be careful, though. The line between edgy and messy is a very, very fine one. With this sort of design choices, your website can either appear as visually striking and innovative, or it can come off as cluttered and sloppy. Every designer’s goal is to convey all visual and textual messages in a clear way, so we should try not to overdo it and not to overstep the line.
Marina Pavlovic, Web Designer at Qode Interactive
A. Parti Coloured Palette & Loud Typography will Dominate
You may have noticed that majority of e-commerce giants are adding duotone/gradients to their apps as opposed to flat colors, which are more limited. Embracing light and dark color schemes across different devices and avenues to grab the attention of the target audience. I believe that it’s time to adopt this trend to boost and preserve the usage of e-commerce portals. According to E-commerce Platforms via Statista, retail ecommerce sales worldwide amounted to 3.4 trillion US dollars and e-retail revenues are projected to 4.88 trillion US dollars in 2021!
The big names apple music, stripe.com, eurocarparts.com are already embracing the trends to keep up the sales. I believe that loud typography and rainbow colors would begin to take over the world.
B. Vital Whitespace & Motion Graphics will push the Boundaries
As we all know use of whitespace is a key consideration when thinking about minimal design. Minimalism and motion/animation in graphics works exceptionally well when it comes to exhibit content. The simplicity of the design would allow the attention immediately to targeted content. Have a look at the designs that simply allows the content to be the main focus, embracing the whitespace and motion graphics trend netsolutions.com, captiv8.io
C. Custom illustrations
Custom illustrations will eventually replace the stock images. Bounce rates and low customer engagement have proposed an opportunity to use illustrations for not only catching the eye though also as a form of communication. For instance, have a look at these designs which clearly show the diverse potential of illustration to compliment the UX of the page hiring a b2b eCommerce developer and preventing app uninstalls.
Ravneet Singh, The Head of Design at Net Solutions
Component based design will rule 2019. Creative teams are starting to realize the benefit of design systems using component based approaches to managing design and development assets. The increase in productivity by managing libraries of design files and corresponding code to quickly reuse in a variety of contexts is super attractive, but presents a new challenge. How can we design things that can be used again and perhaps in a different way? With the introduction of component based page building in both WordPress (32% of the web) and Drupal (X% of the web), creative teams will have even more reason to take a componentized approach to design to extend the power of their creative vision all the way into the hands of the content creator to help brands get their message to market faster. What I expect to see in 2019 is designers embracing these benefits and taking a more modular approach to the experiences they create.
David Vogelpohl, VP, Web Strategy at WP Engine
It is highly expected for designers to break the 12 column-grids and experiment with dynamic layouts defining desktop’s gravity and encouraging engagement. The flash-era designs will make a booming comeback inspiring the designers, coders, and writers to treat the website as a playground. As Google has already started implementing flash-era doodles, more artistic designs are about to pave in! The websites with generative content will gain an inclination when flat-illustration designs reach their saturation point. The designers will work towards providing a personality or character to the websites with more inventive ways.
Kim Smith, Content Marketing Manager with GoodFirms
In 2019, websites will use even more video – especially to get their message across. People would rather watch videos than read content. Videos also increase time on site, which is valuable for SEO and overall engagement. Corporations will also launch microsites about specific topics rather than keeping everything under one umbrella. Several microsites are easier to manage than one massive, complicated website. Plus, microsites will also perform better in SEO rankings because they are more targeted. This allows Google to better understand the information, products and services on the platform.
Gabriel Shaoolian, Founder and Executive Director at DesignRush
For me, the future of Design will arrive everywhere with: Motion Design. And it will be the biggest trend of 2019. But be careful to limit its use. Even though this method of design has existed for decades, in the past 10 years it has experienced exponential growth thanks to the digital revolution.
Motion design is, in little words, the art of giving life to your graphics through movement.
The idea is that you can create a design that responds immediately to the user’s actions. The motion should seem natural, in the same way, that things move around you in real life.
Example with a simple web/app password.
An example of this is AlfredService. Upon entering their website you can play with it and experiment with its functionality as you scroll down. Although it is very attractive, the design is extremely overloaded. And in the end, this creates problems for it to be understood quickly and efficiently by the end client.
In fact, I believe that motion design is by itself adding a new level of depth to interactive design. Which was always about the art of connecting the dots and telling stories that allow the users to use our products and achieve their goals.
Example of a progress/loading bar.
The difference is that before there was no motion and for the user, the dots were difficult to connect visually. What motion is providing is the possibility of communicating even better, which makes it easier, and in a more fluid way, for the user to understand your work.
Here an example of a simple submit button and complete task.
Additionally, you can use motion design in videos that explain to your users the products or services that you offer. An excellent example of this is by Lettuce App.
In closing, I recommend that you keep your animations to a minimal level. Use them only when they have significant value because they can be a cause of distraction for your users, ending up in lower conversions, when in reality you are seeking just the opposite.
Cristian Rennella, Design Director of oMelhorTrato.com
I think the biggest tech changes will be less tech and features on websites. With everything going to mobile, I suspect there's going to be less room for features that don't improve the experience. I suspect we're going to start seeing more minimal designs, that focus on less scrolling so that more important/profitable information can be displayed.
Jeff Neal, TheCritterDepot.com
One trend that I think you will continue to see in 2019 is a focus on improving load time & speed – this is no longer just a developer issue. I feel that this trend will continue to be a focus in 2019 due to the percentage of mobile browser usage which continues to increase as well as the fact that Google has incorporated site speed as a ranking factor a few months back. The need for improved load times doesn't necessarily equate minimalistic design – what it does mean is smarter usage of how and where rich media and other heavy loading resources are used. Essentially design will need to work with development and marketing teams to strike a balance of creating a visually appealing site while ensuring fast loading time.
Josh Brown, Marketing at Helpjuice
For years, SEOs have heard the same drum beaten over and over – “SEO is dead”. It’s now the in-joke of our community. However, I think 2019 is the year where Lazarus rises and companies start to place heightened emphasis on SEO again. For most companies, organic traffic constitutes well over 50% of all web traffic without any real care being given to it. Done right, SEO can lead to these potential customer being routed towards a path to purchase just as efficiently as Google Ads can. With this in mind, I really believe SEO considerations will be massive in web design trend in 2019. Web developers will become more adept in using Google’s structured markup and schemas to feed the search engine with richer content, ready to appear in Google search results. This such an important thing for companies to understand in 2019. Most are now sitting on the Google Mobile First Index. When people search on mobile, they are usually asking a question, out and about and ready to act. Optimizing for these customers is crucial to closing sales. Also, it’s important to understand that Google is keeping more and more people on the SERP and not directing them to websites at all. This is good for brand awareness, getting your brand into the mix early if you can steal those top positions with rich content and featured snippets.
Marty Meany, SEO Specialist at Three.ie
If you have some predictions on your own, please write them down in the comments section below.
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