Technology has grown leaps and bounds in today’s fast-changing era, rendering the traditional methods of design redundant. Relevant Content is King has gained precedence over other facets of business. Moreover, considering the advent of data-driven analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI), the rules of the game have changed significantly; it is all about information; accessibility to that data; deriving meaningful insights and implementing the essentials for better results, simultaneously using it for forecasting; and predictive modeling. While the archaic design practices were more focused on aesthetics and grandeur, the current digital age is increasingly leaning toward the function-over-form philosophy. Amplified uniformity, Easy consumption of information, Simplicity, Performance, and Usability are mission critical to design nowadays.
In this chapter, you will look at the different trends and possibilities that will be in vogue in 2020 (based on personal perception and viewpoint).
Animations, Extensive Use of Colors, and Eye-Catching Typography
Animations are going to be a pivotal facet in web design as they enable solid user engagement. Apart from being lively, they also help guide the users in an interactive way without the bulk or clutter. They are quite concise and drive the point effectively in addition to their aesthetic appeal.
Pastel colors will be increasingly seen in web design, owing to their visual appeal. Moreover, websites and web apps tend to be more immersive with each passing day. Colors help define things in the way users perceive them. For example, the color blue defines depth or serenity, when you compare it to the ocean or the sky. They allocate a real-world experience to your sites/apps in line with the new-gen mindset, which is inclined toward more practicality. Even optimum use of colors in flat designs is likely to be prevalent in the future, a welcome change from the dull website flat designs observed in the past decade.
Typography is moving toward bold fonts and different font styles that invoke user attention. They immediately denote that the sentence/words are important and help convey the message with the right impact. Apart from user-focus patterns, they also show immaculate readability in a no-frills way.
Mobile-Friendly Design
The contemporary millennial generation prefers high-fidelity mobile devices and smartphones to consume information on the web. On-the-go mobility and remote work facility anywhere, anytime, make the mobile phones the focal point of accessibility. Smartphone makers are coming out with a diverse range of devices, including cutting-edge utilities on a frequent basis. In the recent past, Google stated that mobile sites are the de facto choice compared to desktop versions of the sites.
Therefore, responsive web design is not an option anymore. From an SEO perspective, responsive sites are the way to go. In addition, mobile-first design is more or less the norm, wherein you build a site for the mobile platform and then enhance and tweak it for the desktop screens.
However, the settings are not set in stone as adaptive design is preferable in some cases, especially from a UX perspective, specifically tailored for a particular target audience.
Personally speaking, responsive web design is more relevant due to its future-proof pattern and the way web designing is evolving into digital design.
Progressive Web Apps
Recent studies advocate the use of web and mobile apps owing to their portability, offline accessibility, and prompt notifications. These apps work like client-server or web-based applications but are just websites in a compact form. Mobile apps take less time to build and facilitate seamless functioning alongside a high degree of credibility. Moreover, they can be customized significantly as per the target audience and business needs.
Agile Design Practices and Data-Driven Design
In 2020, user experience will be essential for any vertical, including web design. Data-driven design is the future - you can implement the actionable insights you gain from advanced analytics. You can understand the high points, pain points, market trends, and also design predictive models. Coupled with next-gen AI analytics, data analysis can help you make viable decisions and drive more conversions. After all, analytics-driven practices ensure better decision-making, resulting in a satisfying user experience (also, think more like an end user and not just a designer/developer while creating websites).
Agile web design and development is a combination of industry-best practices and frameworks, which enable enterprises to respond or create modern applications and UI layouts. Based on extensive collaboration and coordination, Agile methods are incremental in nature with excellent adaptability and predictability. Cross-functional teams work in tandem with each other, helping enterprises achieve faster delivery and tangible results. Agile methodologies are well equipped to deal with the latest technologies and design models, enabling timely inputs and modifications. The outcomes are essentially feasible and fully functional when compared to archaic design methods used in the past.
Flat Design
Keeping it simple is the adage today, especially relevant in the function-over-form philosophy (Simple & not Simplified ☺). There are several benefits of this minimalistic design principle as it helps designers adapt to change without any massive overhead. They also help users locate information easily and consume information better, while being SEO friendly. It also advocates optimal use of whitespace and helps design a clean interface without the bulk or clutter associated with complex layouts. Apart from taking the guesswork out, website loading speed is optimal in flat-design websites.
Emergence of Single-Page Websites
2020 will see several enterprises opting for a Single-Page application. Single-page applications/websites make it easier for the user to locate information. You just need to scroll down to the required section. Single-page design is mobile friendly and consistent across multiple devices/screen sizes.
Single-page design has only internal links; therefore, the navigation is quite simpler and has more clarity. It is quite easier to design and maintain apart from being cost effective. Due to one long page only, you can derive more meaningful insights from Google Analytics and considerably optimize the website without any hassles.
Bounce rates for single-page websites are quite low, and the conversions are higher compared to multipage websites.
Organic Illustrations
While 2019 was all about geometric illustrations, natural and organic shapes are bound to rule the roost in 2020. For example, Material design is much more in use currently than ever before - users are likely to root for real-world shapes, something they can relate to instead of unreal geometric shapes. Also, hand-drawn or 3D digital graphics will be in vogue in the coming years. As web design is set to converge into digital design, the future is all about creating an immersive user experience.
There has been a decline in the use of Flash in the past years. The year 2020 will see the inevitable demise of Flash, especially with Adobe offering no more updates or enhancements for Flash Players. HTML5 is predominantly used to replace Flash due to the high degree of uniformity across all device types.
Chat-bots
Chat-bots are increasingly becoming a common feature in websites today. For example, e-commerce websites have chat-bots for initial interaction (think online chat support) with the customers. Recently, it has been observed that chat-bots address the customer concerns effectively and only escalate the customer concerns to a customer care executive as per the requirements or resolution procedures. Apart from time and cost savings, they depict more of a round-the-clock support for customer, an important aspect in ensuring a fulfilling consumer experience.
Therefore, 2020 will incline toward chat-bots becoming a regular feature in most websites, especially in the services industry. Chat-bot adoption is sure to grow manifold and will be crucial while designing UIs in the coming decade.
Accessibility
Accessibility should encompass all types of users, even those with disabilities of any nature. In the future (not just 2020), accessibility will not have the current limitations - accessibility for people with disabilities will be more of a mandatory inclusion and vital to any design.
When it comes to accessibility, a new trend in websites is to provide the facility of one-click sign-in. It helps tackle the frequent login issues and improves user engagement, leading to more conversions. Empowering site users to access their data/information with a single-click accounts for an exceptional user experience.
Voice Search
When it comes to web design, you can place featured snippets containing the relevant data in the header or navigation components. As Voice Search is more inclined toward localization, you can add content, visuals, videos, and images based on the relevant location. An example would be registering your business in Google Local for distinctive visibility.
You can mark long tail phrases in your structured data and metadata. Another excellent way of highlighting vital information is by using them in callouts and panels on your website. It grabs user attention and is easy to locate. (Tip - Google Analytics is quite powerful and helps find the conversational type of search terms and phrases for your business niche.)
Mobile phones are the preferred media for voice searches. Mobile responsiveness is crucial while designing your site for Voice search. Therefore, Mobile-first or Mobile-friendly design is just right for creating and optimizing your sites for voice search.
Voice searches abstract the need to type and scroll, specifically enabling frictionless hands-free interactions. Once users give voice input, they expect the results to be faster than the traditional way of typing search queries for obtaining information. So, page loading speed has to be faster – therefore, site optimization for site speed is a given.
Video marketing is increasingly being used on sites as they gather more traction compared to old ways of marketing. When it comes to voice search, designers should customize the site design to incorporate precise and detailed transcripts for videos.
Summary
In today’s digitized world, web designers are morphing into digital designers. The fundamentals of site/app design have changed considerably with data and analytics being the focal points. In the current times, web design is not focused on aesthetics only - instead, the focus is more on ease of use, interactive attributes, readability, and accessibility. The target audience is the crux of digital platforms.
Real-time methodologies in web design are pan-optic in nature. As websites have a lot of dynamic features, usability is the core. UX designers will work in conjunction with web designers to chalk out many wireframes and prototypes before arriving at the final design. Data-driven development will prove to be a game-changing methodology in the UI design and development life cycle.
A website nowadays is your first point of communication for your enterprise with the business world. So, the future is as much about user interaction as it is about the look and feel of sites. A total approach may involve comprehending the digital space with a macroscopic perspective, a world in itself to explore. To infer, web design is inclined toward a unified viewpoint, concentrated on empowering enterprises with that competitive edge in this digital age, opening up a world of possibilities.
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