Did you know that 38% of people will stop engaging with a website if it looks unattractive?
Here are three trends changing the way people view and interact with websites in 2021:
- People expect chatbots and conversational interfaces.
- AR and VR are reshaping web design.
- Pageless websites are the new normal.
Besides these, we’re going to show you nine other major design trends that affect web design. Let’s get started.
Does Web Design Have a Future?
The internet is huge. Almost every person in the world with a mobile phone or computer has access to the internet. However, you can’t browse the internet in thin air. You need websites to visit. Web design is one of the most important aspects of a website’s look, feel, and performance. The design has a 75% influence on a website’s credibility.
Therefore, every company with a website needs web designers to make their website attractive, responsive, and user-friendly. Since the number of websites will only increase, the demand for web designers will also rise.
So, does web design have a future? The answer is a big Yes! In fact, it’s one of the fastest-growing digital sectors in the US and is likely to grow at an annualized growth rate of 4.4% in 2021 and beyond.
What Is the Future of Web Design?
The future of web design is bright, as the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) will play a significant role in engaging users and establishing credibility. However, new web design and development technologies are entering the industry, resulting in new web design trends.
Let’s look at how web designing will change in the future.
1. Developer Tools Will Change the Game
Earlier, building and designing websites was a mammoth, expensive task that required technical proficiency and coding expertise.
Coding still has a major role in web development and design, and it won’t change. Web designers need to be technical and know how to write code, but developer tools have made things significantly easier. For example, Google’s Chrome Developer Tools allow you to edit your HTML and CSS and debug your JavaScript in real-time. Simultaneously, you can view the performance analysis for your website.
Angular JS, an open-source web framework, allows you to extend your website’s HTML syntax to manage dynamic views. It creates a quick, readable, and expressive development environment.
These tools have made the life of designers and developers easier, allowing them to be more productive and produce better-quality work.
2. Data Meets Design
Data analytics is revolutionizing web development and design. Often, companies have design and data teams working separately. Designers think how a website should look like instead of realizing what the users want.
Data-driven development is overcoming this hurdle. The fusion of design and data will allow web developers to know how users interact with the website. Users can save their preferences, so they can pick from where they left. AI-enabled data analysis can help analyze those actions to determine user habits.
Combining data with design paves the way for personalized website experiences. As data has become the new fuel for businesses, web designing will go toward data-driven design in the future.
3. Conversational Interfaces
Today, web designers have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression. As online experiences become more user-centric, conversational user interfaces (CUI) have come into existence. A CUI is a user interface that uses natural language processing (NLP) and natural language understanding (NLU) to interact with people and create real-life communication experiences.
Two common CUIs that have gained a lot of popularity among web designers are:
- Chatbots: AI-enabled chatbots can mimic human agents and engage site visitors in multiple ways. They can even act as Tier 1 support agents by answering common queries and escalating complaints to live agents.
- Voice Recognition Systems: While chatbots only communicate through audio, voice recognition systems interact through voice. Smart home assistants are a common example.
These CUIs have found use cases in various industries. When someone is visiting e commerce sites, a CUI can provide them with product suggestions and updates on billing and shipping. On healthcare websites, CUIs can facilitate health monitoring. A CUI turns a static website into a conversational website capable of delivering hyper-personalized experiences to users.
Landbot.io is a tool that allows companies to implement conversational UI to their website. To demonstrate the potential of CUIs, they have built their website in a conversational style. Visit their website to get a better idea.
4. Web Animation
Animations can turn a website from static and boring to interactive and engaging. Imagine having a website that literally spoke to its users. That’s what animation does to a website. It helps grab attention by drawing the eye to important elements on the website. As web design becomes more visually appealing, UI animations have emerged as a major trend in the web design space.
There are two more reasons to use animations in your website design:
- Supported in All Major Browsers: Adobe Flash isn’t responsible for showing animations on browsers anymore. HTML5 and CSS3 have replaced Flash, and they work seamlessly in all browsers.
- Provide Interactive Feedback: Animations provide interactive feedback on how users interact with your website.
5. VR and AR
Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are reshaping website designing and the online marketing space. The number of mobile AR users in the US was 90.9 million, whereas total VR users stood at 57 million. Web designers can use AR and VR to create interactive and immersive content that increases engagement rates and conversion potential.
Users are more likely to remember AR and VR experiences than text, images, and videos. Importantly, VR allows customers to virtually explore products and make confident purchasing decisions.
Some industries that can make the most out of AR and VR on web design are:
- Beauty and Apparel for virtual try-on
- Retailers and vendors for 360-degree product views
- Entertainment, Arts, and Travel for virtual or self-guided tours
6. Pageless Websites
No kidding, pageless websites are a real thing. However, it doesn’t mean your website won’t have many pages. Instead, your website is a single, endless scroll, and thus, these sites are also known as single-page websites. Normally, a website has a homepage, about page, contact page, services page, etc. A user needs to navigate to different pages to get all the information.
Pageless websites eliminate the hassle of moving to-and-fro from one page to another. All the information is on one page; the user only needs to scroll up or down. Sheerlink by RTX is a great example of a pageless website. It also has amazing animations you can take inspiration from.
7. Voice Interface + Voice Search
Every second smartphone user engages with voice technology. Google voice searches are growing, and websites need to adapt accordingly. Web designers need to take their conversational UI approach a notch further by adding a voice interface to their websites.
8. Smarter Websites
A smart website is essentially a website that adapts to the users’ requirements. The biggest aspect of smart website design is responsiveness. These websites change their layout based on the resolution of the device.
Other elements of smart websites are:
- Location Based Elements: Web admins and designers can tweak the website content as per the visitor’s location. Many eCommerce websites, like Amazon and Etsy, do this.
- Context Specific Page Adaptations: Web admins can collect and store cookies to create personalized experiences for the users.
9. Dynamic Storytelling
Storytelling is an excellent trait to incorporate into your website. But what if you have various types of different users? Take Netflix, for example. It has millions of users with varying tastes and preferences, and using the same storytelling approach for all users won’t cut it.
Dynamic storytelling helps you overcome this hurdle. Instead of taking a one-for-all approach, you can showcase content to your users based on their actions and preferences. This way, you can engage your potential buyers the right way and achieve your lead generation and sales goals.
10. Mobile Responsiveness
Web user expectations are increasing. 85% of adults think that a company’s mobile website should be as good or better than their desktop website. Since more than half of internet traffic comes from mobile devices, mobile responsiveness has emerged as one of the most prominent trends in the web design space.
11. Accessible Websites Protect Against Lawsuits
ADA Title III Website Accessibility lawsuits have increased by 200% since 2017. These lawsuits include website accessibility claims brought by persons with visual impairment and other disabilities. They allege they can’t use the website due to its lack of accessibility through a screen reading tool or other accessibility problems.
As these lawsuits are increasing, website designers must ensure their websites are accessible. You can do this by making the text readable through screen reader software. If you have images, add alt text to them, and if you have videos, add captions to them.
12. Green Hosting Could Become Mainstream
With consumers realizing the worsening climatic and environmental conditions, green hosting is becoming a popular trend among businesses.
Various web hosting companies offer green hosting, such as:
- GreenGeeks
- Kualo Hosting
- DreamHost
- Hostpapa
- Fat Cow
These companies use eco-friendly and energy-efficient servers to host websites. Though it isn’t essentially a web designing trend, many companies are moving to green hosting.
What about the people working in web design?
How Big Is the Web Design Industry?
The US web design services industry is currently valued at $40.8 billion. The sector has shown greater growth than the technology sector overall.
Several factors are affecting the growth of the web design industry in the US and worldwide, including:
- Increasing competition for online presence
- Users expect web design that’s more responsive and intuitive.
- Increasing correlation between web design and credibility
Another indicator of the growth of the web design industry in the US is the number of web design and development companies. In 1995, fewer than 1,000 web design/development companies were there in the US. By 2005, the number multiplied by 30 times to over 30,000. As the demand for good-quality website design and development increases, the web design industry will continue to grow in the future years.
Is Web Designer a Good Career for the Future?
Web designing is an amazing career option for anyone who wants to enter the IT industry. It is an integral part of the modern-day IT industry, and every company needs a web developer and designer. The demand for web designers has expanded from private agencies and digital businesses to all industries, including government and nonprofit organizations.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics presents some statistics for the occupational outlook for web developers and designers.
- The median pay for web designers in 2020 was $77,200 per year for in-house employees and $37.12 per hour for freelancers.
- 174,300 jobs for web designers were available in 2019.
- The job outlook for web designers will increase by 8% through 2029, faster than average.
- 14,000 new web designing jobs will arise every year through 2029.
Clearly, a career in web designing is lucrative, with thousands of new job opportunities emerging every year.
Summary
Web design plays a pivotal role in a website’s performance, both in terms of user experience and SEO rankings. However, the digital space is continuously evolving, resulting in new trends. Web designers need to capitalize on these trends to create memorable website experiences that please the users and encourage them to take action.
Need More Information on the Future of Web Design?
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