Website design trends and best practices
There will always be components of online design that will never go away, such as user-friendly navigation, data security, and quick load times. You may, however, maintain your site at the forefront of design and search engines by incorporating some of these new website features and aspects that are expected to be popular in 2023.
- Website Load and Page Speed Time Are King
Ultra-fast load speed is one of the most significant web design requirements. For years, quick loading speeds have been critical considerations in UX and SEO, and they remain a key focus for websites that want to rank high and perform better.
According to studies, more than half of web browsers want a website to load quickly and within two seconds of clicking a link. If it takes more than 3 seconds for your site to load, your visitors will most likely depart, never to return!
The performance of a company’s website has a direct impact on its bottom line. According to survey data, Pinterest lowered perceived wait times by 40%, increasing traffic from search engines and sign-ups by 15%.
- Animated Cursors
Another enjoyable approach to personalise your website’s user experience is to create how they interact with your web elements, including their cursor! The subtlety of this 2023 web design trend is catching users off guard. Readers can interact with alternative scrolling behaviours or on-click actions by changing the shape of the pointer or implementing cursor-triggered animations.
- Smart Content Loading
Many of us may be responsible for having websites that use a lot of resources, have numerous visual features, and use 3rd integrations, all of which cause our sites to overload. Luckily, there are many ways for creating intelligent websites that only download the material you need and see.
Limitless scrolling and sluggish loading are not new ideas. The significant social networks have been using it for a while, specifically when it comes to continuous scroll. Additionally common with lengthy (one-page) websites is this technique.
Every website should examine how using one or two technical approaches will help them rank higher or outperforming their rivals. Such features can help improve the user experience for all website visitors, hence improving your conversion rate and ranking.
Slow Loading assures that the web browser (such as Google Chrome, Safari, and Firefox) downloads only the content that is visible on the screen, rather than wasting server resources and TIME loading offscreen content that that may or may not be visible.
Many website users never scroll all the way to the bottom of a page. So, why load that data and lengthen the site’s loading time? A better technique would be to load the content as they scroll down the page and get closer to it.
- Chatbots That Act More Like “Chatbuds”
Chatbots are another trend that has emerged in the recent years and is expected to do so in 2023. Chatbots are expected to be the standard for simple customer service inquiries and “end consumer” as artificial intelligence and machine learning become more advanced.
For example, suppose a consumer visits your website looking for phone service and the chatbot identifies that they are eligible for a free lease option. The chatbot can advise them to the upgrade. This can lead to a positive client experience while also sparing the organisation money on customer service expenditures connected with dealing with a live person.
- Availability and Accessibility
Inclusivity and accessibility aren’t just a passing fad, yet there is an increasing need for web design to include the needs of persons with disabilities. Having a site that every visitors can navigate and engage with is more than just part of providing excellent customer service. It can help you boost conversions, improve your SEO, and reach a larger audience.
Among the elements that increase accessibility are:
- Making a dramatic colour contrast between the text and the background;
- Including focus indications, such as the rectangular boundary that appears around links when you use the keyboard to browse;
- Rather than using low-context placeholder text, use labeling and explanations with form fields.
- Using effective alt tags for images (which also improves SEO!)
- Virtual Reality (VR)
VR experiences on websites will become increasingly prevalent in the next years. Consider services like Airbnb, which allow you to visit a rental before making a reservation. Or the capacity of the furnishing retailer IKEA to display how a sofa might look in your space.
VR can be a great tool for a website in terms of providing valuable, meaningful content to users and helping them in making purchasing decisions.
- Micro-Animation
Micro animations, as you could have figured from the name, are little animations. However, in this case, little does not imply inconsequential. Micro animations are quite useful for guiding visitors through their interactions with your website.
Micro animations have indeed been popular for a few years, but in 2023, they will be used organically. As our UI/production designer said, we’ll consider how objects move, whether they’re on a curve or wheel rather than a flat plane.
One of the most recent web design trends for ecommerce websites is the usage of micro animations to improve user experience and provide customers with a more dynamic view of their products. Micro animations are used by yoga apparel stores to show customers how their clothes fit and move on real individuals.
- Quick Video
Websites have long been urged to include video. Video is really popular! Video is interesting! It’s the best instrument for online marketing there is!
Video is great, but it needs to be planned. Smart video is all about producing content that has both a meaning and a purpose. The days of just including a YouTube video on your website are long gone. One smart, high-quality video is preferable to a dozen hastily put together ones.
A printer firm called CEI uses eye-catching but unobtrusive video in their hero picture. It’s a cute visual representation of what they do, which is offer Raleigh businesses inexpensive printers and copiers.
- Consistency
In addition to maintaining consistency in your navigation, all of your site’s pages should have a same visual look and feel. Consistency improves usability and user experience in areas like backgrounds, colour schemes, typefaces, and even style of writing.
Not every page needs to have the same layout, though. Rather, design distinct layouts for particular page kinds (e.g., landing pages, informational pages, etc.). Visitors will find it easier to comprehend what kind of information they’re going to see on a specific page if you use those layouts regularly.
Conclusion
Think of personalised graphics, moving cursors, and combining images with graphical elements when you consider web design trends for 2023. Your website will stay current in 2023 thanks to all of these reasons and more. The design of your website can be updated to benefit your brand and revenues.