10 Website Design Trends You Want in 2019 for Better UX

It’s all about user experience in 2019! That’s why these 10 web design trends are so important. Take a look!

Web design trends come and go, but believe it or not, there’s a reason for it. The digital landscape is always changing. What worked last year or even last month won’t necessarily work today. 

There was a time when keyword stuffing was all the rage. Search engines ranked sites based on keywords alone. The more keywords you crammed into a blog post, the higher your ranking.

Now, Google penalizes your website if you get caught stuffing keywords or using irrelevant ones in your posts.

That’s why companies that care about their rankings adhere to SEO standards and practices. The latest and greatest when it comes to SEO standards? User experience.

Google emphasizes the importance of UX metrics. As such, you should too. But, for some reason, it’s gone almost unnoticed. Until now. 

2019 is the year of UX. This means there are some adjustments you need to make to ensure your users have the best experience possible. Here are 10 web design trends that will help make it happen.

1. Mobile-First Sites

You likely heard that having a mobile-friendly site was your biggest priority last year. It still is. Maybe even more so.

Last year, Google rolled out mobile-first indexing. It makes sense, considering that 52.2 percent of searches are now done on mobile devices. 

With Google’s mobile-first initiative, its bots will use the mobile version to crawl, index, and rank sites.

If you’ve focused on the desktop version and let your mobile site become secondary, you’re going to want to fix that. 

2. Speed

You’ve heard that your site needs to be faster, so speed being on the list of the biggest design trends of 2019 isn’t a surprise.

The average user will leave your page if it doesn’t load in three to four seconds. Google recognized this and made it a part of one of its famous algorithm changes last year.

Google always valued speed, but until the “Speed Update” in July 2018, it was mainly focused on desktop. No more, Google said. It now dings you for mobile loading speed.

3. Animation

Animation is everywhere on the web today. It’s in background videos, banners, micro-interactions, motion graphics, and scrolling effects.

SVG animations are setting new standards. The quality looks great, regardless of resizing, and users feel it makes a site more interactive. 

4. Video

We can’t mention animation without bringing up video. We’re not talking about the autoplay pop-up videos that feel like they take forever to load.

We’re talking about using video as your background or as a banner at the top.

Moving images are more attractive to website visitors. It keeps them on your page longer, which helps with SEO and can improve your conversion rates.

Video is so important in today’s digital climate that Facebook prioritizes pages using the Facebook Live feature. 

You can also cram a lot of info into a video, especially by using smart graphics. 

5. Responsive Design

Remember when we mentioned the importance of a mobile-first design? The easiest way to amend this issue is by having responsive website design.

In a nutshell, this means your site works across all devices, on all screen sizes. There’s no converting or “Would you like to visit our desktop version?” messages.

Whether a user accesses your site via their laptop, smartphone, tablet, or desktop, they’ll have a seamless experience. This also means you won’t have to worry about two sites either. Responsive web design does it all across all platforms.

6. Minimalist Design

Sleek, clean, and easy to read. That’s what today’s users want.

While video, animation, and even hero images are among the top trends, it’s all in your presentation – as long as you don’t go overboard. 

The minimalist design will also keep your page loading at a faster speed. And as you know, speed is one of the most important trends now and moving forward.

7. Large Titles

One way to incorporate a minimalist design while still adding some boldness is using large titles. 

Use larger text on your homepage – whether you have a one-page design or the standard multi-page site. This will make it easier to highlights your key points and show readers what to expect. 

8. Icon Libraries

More and more icon libraries started popping up on sites last year. In 2019, they’ll be everywhere. 

They’re aesthetically pleasing, clear-cut, and add a nice minimalistic element to a page. Even though they’re simple, they can do a lot.

If you’re going with the one-page design, they’re almost mandatory. It’s easy for users to scroll down until they see the icon library. 

Icons have vector graphic, which means the images are scalable. Yet, they’re small enough to help load your site faster. They also support all browsers.

We’d say that makes them a huge winner for UX in 2019.

9. Gradient Design

Gradient design jumped on the scene last year, and designers are sticking with it in 2019. 

It’s a nice way to show depth and texture while still holding true to a simple design. It adds a pop of color that can make your image standout on a white background. 

In other words, this one is all about aesthetics.  

10. Chatbots

If your site doesn’t use chatbots, call your website designer. Why? Because users love them.

In fact, a 2016 study found 49 percent of consumers would rather use text, chat, or messaging to handle all their communications. It’s only logical that this number is greater in 2019.

Chatbots, machine learning, and AI are shaping the business world. Use them to your advantage. 

Bots are able to point customers in the right direction. They can give them the answers they’re looking for faster than calling a 1-800 number or emailing customer support.

Users feel that using a chatbot is more accurate than scrolling through an FAQ page. The chatbot will also remember their preferences for the next time they log onto your site.

Besides, chatbots are intriguing and entertaining. Much more so than “on hold” music. That alone helps improve user experience. 

Ready to Add These Design Trends to Your Site?

You’ve probably seen some of these design trends last year around the same time. Being mobile-first, adding video, and having a clean design isn’t new. 

But, it does show how important it is to make these changes to your site. After all, you can’t keep putting these off forever.

Updating your website can feel overwhelming. That’s why we’re here to handle it for you. From adding responsive design to improving your SEO, we do it all.

Contact us today for a free consultation.