Whilst we still have Christmas on the horizon and the New Year seems a long way away, the time to be thinking about revamping your website and online presence for 2023 is now. Upcoming website design trends are already starting to emerge, and you don’t want to be left behind!
Whilst these design trends will not mean that you have to start your website from scratch (unless you don’t have a website, in which case you’ll have to!), they help refresh your online presence and reach new and old audiences. There’s nothing more visually off-putting than a website that looks as though it’s not been touched in twenty years after all!
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Here are a few design trends to keep in mind ahead of the New Year – all of which Weave Studios can help bring to life for you!
Design trends that keep pace with your page speed
Page speed has always been an important aspect of any website. A slow-loading website can affect a potential customer’s first impressions of your enterprise. It can turn them off waiting for your website to load, which leads to less traffic and fewer online sales than you’d like.
What’s more, the speed of your website may even be affecting your chances of being found online in the first place. Google is now evaluating websites based on their page speed as part of its SEO analysis. This analysis helps rank websites based on relevancy around keywords typed into the search engine and is integral in helping your website onto the first page of relevant Google results. Basically, your website speed could be keeping your website out of the limelight!
You can look to combat this by compressing any images you have on your website pages, condensing your HTML code, or investing in page speed optimisation services from a specialist company.
Access for All
If the last few years have shown us anything, it’s that the infinite variety of humankind is becoming more and more celebrated. There is an increased awareness of the needs of different demographics that were looked over or ignored before. As a result, you need to have a website that anyone can use and extract information about you and what your business has to offer. Everyone can be a potential new customer!
This accessibility can be achieved in many different ways. Try to use models or illustrative graphics that include people across race, gender, and disabilities to develop a sense that your business is open to everyone. Use appropriate terms in your website copy, and be aware that language is a powerful tool of allyship towards marginalised groups. Another aspect to consider is how your website can be understood if certain audience members can’t see very well. A screen narration function which allows a viewer to hear the content of your website may be an idea, whilst enabling your website to be found through voice search on devices would also help people find your website.
Designing Information and Understanding
A website’s design should reflect the nature of your enterprise, as well as your personality and personal aesthetic. After all, you should decorate your website as you would any bricks and mortar shop! As your personal aesthetic will differ from other websites, both in and out of your particular industry field, tailor the tips below to fit your individual vision.
There are design trends towards simplicity on some websites, where minimalism continues to help foster clear page navigation, quick loading pages without huge graphics or images, and a consistent colour scheme based on the company’s colour palette or aesthetic themes. Simplicity can also be used in ‘white space’ within website pages. This does not need to be literal white space, but blank spaces within website design have been used in such websites as Apple to great effect. ‘White space’ helps rank content hierarchy on a page, reduces page load speeds and visual clutter, and helps boost the impact of visual storytelling by leading the eye from one relevant piece of information to another without elements that can distract the reader from your message.
Different, eye-catching elements are also tipped to be important design trends over the next year. Animated content and GIFs are one part of this. Stock photos can become repetitive and may not effectively broadcast the message that you want to your customers. On the other hand, animated graphics can be unique enough to better a user’s experience of your website by engaging users and keeping them on your pages longer. Animations on your homepage can quickly broadcast your unique selling point and what your business stands for – and grab your audience’s attention in a matter of seconds.
Bold colours are another aspect to consider in your website design this year. Bright colours can capture your audience’s attention and maintain their engagement with your message – whilst also building associations in their mind between the colours used and your brand as an exciting, modern company. On the flip side, using a simple black and white palette with bold colour accents can also be very effective and powerful. The best choice of colour palette is the choice that offers more visual storytelling elements to your brand and evokes more specific emotions with your audience.
One way you can build those strong emotions with your customers is by leaning into the retro design trends, which helps build nostalgia for the 1980s and 1990s. Vibrant or neon colours that make text leap out from the background, multi-coloured borders, robotic fonts and cartoon graphics – if it fits with you and your online aims, your website could be partying like it’s 1999!
Strong, bold typography is a must, whatever colour palette you choose. The right typography will help your message be clear and legible, building trust with your target audience and ensuring they receive your brand message, flair and personality.
Interactive web design is also an important trend seen across the internet that you may want to take advantage of. These types of design trends can be triggered when a website user scrolls down a page and a design or graphic changes into a different design or a link as the user continues to scroll and engage with the page.
You may also want to investigate whether a ‘dark mode’ suits your website. The option is available on websites such as YouTube and Facebook, which makes the screen background darker than the conventional white background, which can help users consume content more comfortably and saves their device’s battery life.
Campaigning Creative Content
Whilst design is important in any online endeavour, the quality of your content is just as important. The content you publish and share is important in an increasingly online world – so what should you try this coming year?
One major way you can grab your audience’s attention is through the medium of video. The incredible popularity of media platforms like YouTube and TikTok shows that video content is, in part, at least, the way of the future for online engagement and getting your message across to potential new customers and followers. Video, as part of your website content and design, also helps you to create quality, diverse content that can break up the abundance of text on your site. Videos are also a really good way to capture ‘on the go’ audiences or audiences who do not have time to read your blog articles or website pages.
Another aspect of modern content creation is the emphasis on storytelling. Effective and compelling storytelling is what we expect online as standard, so trying out new methods of telling your story is the way forward in the new year. One method is called ‘scrollytelling’, which is a linear design that triggers a sequence of animated texts and multimedia content as a user scrolls or clicks through a website page. This method has been used in the past on ‘About Us’ or ‘Our History’ website pages, but now is the time for this to be developed for homepages to grab your audience’s attention from the start.
If you’re thinking of taking your business in a new direction based on expert online expertise and beautiful design trends in 2023, Weave Studios is here to help every step of the way.
We offer website, graphic, and branding design and have worked with many different businesses and organisations to build online awareness and loyalty within your target audience. Modern, user-friendly, and beautiful branding is part of our bread and butter – whether it is a branding refresh or a completely new venture, we’re here to make your ideas a reality.
Weave Studios are a friendly, experienced team that can help you realise your website, graphic design, and SEO goals. Our team create clean, modern websites built to industry standards that are fast to load, hosted by Weave Studios, and mobile-friendly. Get in touch with us today!