Web Design Trends to Watch for in 2019

With the gradual advancement of the web technology and more customer-centric approaches in digital businesses, it has become necessary to stay updated about anything happening on digital media. When it’s about online success, there’s nothing more important than the design of your website. The New Year is just around the corner which means you’ll need to up your game to attract visitors. You can do so with a new design for your website. Let’s see how you can accomplish this.

More Use of Negative Space

There’s nothing new about negative space but in 2019, it’s going to be a game changer. People typically go online more often with their smartphones than their desktops and laptops. To make the mobile pages faster and easier to load, more use of negative space is needed. Every element on a web page is used for a specific purpose. Animations are not used anymore only for the sake of visuals. They are included to illustrate a product or service and drive more conversions. With negative space, you can directly draw the attention of the audience without creating any kind of distraction.

Cinemagraphs and Videos

Videos and cinemagraphs will be a popular trend in 2019. A sudden moving element just between a static image will attract the attention of users. What you need to keep in mind is that the layout of the design doesn’t become too busy because of images or too long of a video. Just a couple of quick snippets will create an impact. Apart from this, the cinemagraphs and videos should work well on mobile devices. For example, you can program them to run when scrolled or selected for a specific period of time.

Scroll Triggered Animations

Animations are not new. But, in 2019 they are going to be used more purposefully. There should be some kind of strategy to increase engagement and conversions. You have to contemplate how you can entice users to keep scrolling down the funnel to the conversion point while making them aware of your products and services. These animations will not only keep your website clean by removing unwanted menus and buttons but also make it lively.

Web Apps

Mobile users spend 89% of their total online time using mobile apps. With this in mind, designers have started implementing traditional app functionalities in the design of mobile web pages. There are websites with updated app features like push notifications, offline mode, splash screens and animated page transitions. With the development of web apps, there will be more refined cognitive capabilities like NLP (Natural Language Processing) and automation. Web apps will also let you provide a more customised solution to your users by learning their personal preferences and style. For example, Facebook analyzes its visitors and based on that it filters its feed.

Micro Interactions

Paying attention to the micro-interactions has done wonders for several websites and this year, it will be a hot trend. With micro-interactions, you can let your users take actions on your website without loading the page. Before, users would have to manually reload pages. But with micro-interactions, you can do so without creating a speedbump and the chances of retaining more customers increases. Facebook has set some outstanding examples of micro-interactions. For example, instead of simply liking a post, you can now react in different ways.

Look for the areas where you can implement micro-interactions and let the users express and communicate in real time. It will break down barriers and improve connectivity.

Card Design

A card design website layout has become very popular. They are widely used to define pricing, features and blogs on several websites. Pinterest is a good example of a website with this type of layout. It’s built using a rectangle layout in the grid that links to specific pages on the website. It’s great for a B2B organization to have a homepage with a couple of cards that highlight some of your special offers and features.

Full-Screen Forms

Online forms are one of the most effective ways to generate leads. Online forms should be attractive to encourage users to provide their info. And this is where full-screen forms play a major role. It captures the attention of users so they become more likely to fill the form. You can also create a pop up instead of creating a separate landing page so the user has fewer steps to view your contact form.

Scrolling and Parallax

Scrolling, though a minor factor, can leave a huge impact on the users. There are several types of scroll effects you can add to your website. The smooth scroll is one of the most popular types of scrolling. Custom scrolling is also gaining popularity. The trend skips the traditional browser scrollbar and develops a custom on page experience for the content. There are websites that use the virtual and horizontal scroll that can be controlled with a mouse. Both types of scrolls are great if you want to enhance the experience of mobile and tablet users.

You can also include a parallax scroll that is known as a scrolling mechanic. It gives a 3D effect to the scrolling experience by moving the foreground faster than the background. It adds a sense of depth to your landing pages and highlights the elements on the screen.

Materialize CSS Framework

It’s a combination of CSS, SasS and javascript framework that enhances the user experience by blending the simplicity and cleanliness of a flat design. It mainly works to improve the look and feel of a particular element on the website. Though it doesn’t have as rich components as bootstrap, it comes with many elements that you can’t find in bootstrap, for example, parallax and toast. It’s also suitable for all modern browsers and covers basic styling, transactions and animations so that a better user experience can be had.

PHP 7

PHP 7 is gradually becoming more popular with developers. It is free and works great with all types of content management systems. It is highly flexible and comes with various extensions. It also supports a good number of add-ons and various frameworks. Moreover, PHP 7 improves the page load time

Menus

Today’s users are smarter than those who used to surf the internet 20 years ago. You don’t need to tell them what to do after landing on your website. They can scroll themselves and find what they are looking for. Because of this, designers are opting to ditch the menu to let the users find content as they explore. With the increasing popularity of mobiles and smartphones, experiments with menus will be more viable in 2019. For example, you can include a side-scrolling feature to your website.

You can also consider the meganavas menu if you have a lot of categories and services. With it, you can create a drop down to reveal all your subpages and even featured content while keeping the header clear and simple. As hamburger menu has become very common with people, you should consider creating a menu in a different style and set more examples of immersive navigation.

Split Screen

Another design trend that is appearing everywhere these days is split screen. It gives the users a natural feel while creating a visually striking impact. The trend is also quite effective on mobile devices. The two sections can be turned into two separate blocks or side-panel navigation. It is often used to show products and services. You can use it to define a single product by putting the image of the product on the left side and adding a brief description of the product on the right side.

Gamification

This process involves including game-like elements into your non-gaming content. It was introduced with the intention of adding a fun appearance to a website and get more user engagement. This design feature allows you to add 3D elements with some random cool effects. It’s great if you want to educate your users about your products and services.

Haptics

Haptics is mainly used to improve the user-experience of a mobile or a tablet user as it gives users a subtle sensation while touching some specific areas of a website. Usually, it’s a slight vibration that lets you know that the button is pressed or you have successfully taken an action. The technology is aimed at encouraging users if they stop to proceed further. It can also be blended with some pleasant textures.

Extensions

PNG, JPG and GIF are extremely popular forms of images. But if you want higher quality images, you should start thinking about the SVG. At present, it is one of the most used extensions in the world of digital marketing. What’s special about SVG is that it is easily scalable without compromising the quality. It can compress small files of all sizes and brings out a remarkable retina display for the images. It can also enhance design options with filters and added interactivity.

Colours

When it comes to the colours of websites, the duotone magic is happening right now. It involves implementing dual colours into the design process while maintaining a combination of flexibility and continuity. You can also go bold with a bright coloured design to contrast with the muted elements.

In conclusion, it can be said that 2019 will be a daring year with a lot of changes and experimentation. There will be several attention-grabbing options and features.