Website Design Trends You Need To Know About in 2019
When it comes to website design, there are a lot of factors that are crucial to the success of your website - functionality, speed, optimising your content for SEO, security and staying on top of current website design trends. But, it also pays to understand the difference between strong design trends and short-lived passing fads. Incorporating a good design trend should have your site looking and functioning for the better. If you opt for a passing fad, it’s likely that it’ll reduce functionality, you'll end up with some website disasters, or a site that looks far too dated than it should in about two years' time.
So, with that it mind, here are the top website design trends to consider if building your website in 2019.
1. Mobile First Website Design
With more and more people are visiting websites via their smart phone, this is not so much one of 2019's website design trends as it is a necessity.
According to a study by Neilsen, during the month of February, 2018, Australians spent more than double the amount of time on their smartphones as they did on desktop, and spent 12% more time on their phones than they did for the same period in 2017.
And it makes sense - whether you’re at home, on the bus, or even at the beach, you’re likely to reach for your phone at some stage to browse online.
‘Mobile-first’ is about designing a website that considers the mobile device user first. By making the website as minimalist, or ‘flat’, as possible, it speeds up the load time. This is highly advantageous for those on a mobile device, but also for those using a desktop.
A quicker load time improves the user experience and customer journey. This will lead to longer time spent on site, and hopefully lead the customer to convert. A faster load time will help with Google search rankings in mobile search too, so you’ll appear earlier in Google searches.
2. Flat or Minimalist Website Design
As mentioned above, with the advent of ‘mobile-first’ design as one of the key website design trends, comes flat or minimalist design.
‘Flat’ shouldn’t mean unexciting website design. In fact, it should be quite opposite.
Flat website design means cutting out unnecessary clutter and over-sized, data-rich imagery, while ensuring content and layout are still eye-catching and engaging and enhancing the user experience. That means being clever with the use of white space, an eye catching colour theme, or geometric shapes. Typography, and the creation of lettering unique to your brand or website will likely gain popularity as the minimalism trend grows. In fact, we have already seen this earlier in the year with Airbnb. They decided to create their own font that would perform optimally across all of their platforms while capturing their brand.
3. Micro-Animations
Micro-animations is the next on out list of 2019 website design trends.
These are mini animations or functional movements that guide the user on your site. Like many of the elements mentioned here, they play both a functional and aesthetic role in website design.
They work by giving your customer visual feedback and providing context, showing them the role of certain icons or navigation points on your site as they click or hover over them. They essentially replace text in a much easier to understand, visually appealing way.
The micro-animation may expand, enlarge, or transform into something else, such as a dot point turning into a tick to show an action is complete, a hamburger expanding to show what they menu will direct to, or an icon turning into a circle and slowly filling to the top to denote something is loading.
4. Video
We just said website design was going minimalist, so how can video be one of our highlighted website design trends for 2019?
Well, it all depends on what you need for your brand. For many businesses, a minimalist site will deliver just what they need to get ahead for 2019. For others, introducing website design elements like video backgrounds could take them to the next level.
Video can be a very successful key component of website design if crafted and implemented well. We've certainly seen the success of video across entire marketing strategies here at Lance Montana.
Video is ideal for showcasing something that can’t be done via still imagery. This might be the way a luxury fabric falls in slow motion, or to showcase the speed and dynamism of a sports car. Video works especially well for luxury brands and lifestyle offerings as it creates a sense of drama and impact. Video backgrounds are also going to be important if your business is, in fact, in videography.
Video as a form of storytelling is incredibly compelling. It can be far easier to get attention or explain a message via an animation or visual compilation than it is through a still image, or even text. Just a few short seconds is enough for a viewer to see something and decide they want to see much more.
Video can also help to keep a viewer onsite longer, and the benefits are two-fold: the longer they spend onsite, the more likely they are to convert. We have seen this in product videos, and the same is true of video in general. Secondly, the more time they spend onsite, the better Google will rank your site in its search queries.
5. Chatbots
Chatbots are the last to make our list of website design trends for 2019.
How many times have you logged onto an ecommerce site only for a small chat box to pop up, along with a speech bubble saying, “hi, can I help with anything?”
They have become an integral part of website design for many online e-tailers. They are drastically shaping the experience their customers are having online. Although not brand new, they have improved rapidly over the years thanks to the advancement of Artificial Intelligence. And, if you've had much interaction with them, you'll have experienced that there is still a way to go.
A chatbot’s role is to provide customer service. They are there 24/7 to guide the customer journey, and to prompt you to ask about any enquiries before you leave the site.
In 2019, chatbots will look to gather more info about the potential customer based on interactions and location. A chatbot’s understanding of the human language has also improved overtime as more and more people use them, and more data is fed back. In 2019 this will improve even further with voice search - thanks to the likes of Virtual Assistants like Google Home, Amazon’s Alexa and Echo - tipped to revolutionise how we search online.
Want to optimise or implement a new website design for 2019 and beyond? Contact us at Lance Montana to find out how we can help. We also offer a range of supplementary services designed to support and enhance your brand’s digital presence, including SEO, digital strategy, email marketing and social media marketing. Read about these on our Services page for more information.