Did you know that 94% of first impressions on websites are design-related? If your pages have a busy layout, boring web design, poor search capabilities, and very small text, your visitors will close the tab within seconds.
So how can you fix this? You need the expertise of a website design company to bring the latest web design trends in 2023 to your pages.
In this post, we will discuss current web design trends and how our team of designers can bring them to life. Read on and see how it can benefit your website, whether it’s a business page or an ecommerce site.
Trend #1. Mobile-first design
To be fair, mobile-first design is nothing new, but it remains king in 2023. According to SimilarWeb, 64.95% of global internet traffic in September 2023 came from mobile devices, proving that mobile-friendly websites are paramount for business owners.
True enough, since Google rolled out the mobile-first indexing in March 2018, website owners are continuously keeping up with the algorithm.
But a few years since this update, where are we today in the mobile-first web? Here are the trending design methods that can help maintain your mobile-friendly pages:
- Responsive web design. With this method, our designers and web developers create a website to function across devices. This is regardless of the screen size and orientation, making it a comprehensive option if you want to future-proof your website. Overall, this method saves your site visitors from endless zooming and panning to navigate your pages.
- Progressive advancement. For this web design strategy, we create your website for mobile first. Once we have a version of your website on mobile devices, we slowly expand it by adding features that are better accessed on tablets and desktops. Overall, this latest web design is perfect if the majority of your target audience is heavy mobile users.
- Graceful degradation. Unlike progressive advancement, our web designers will first design the advanced features and then degrade them to suit smaller devices like tablets and smartphones. Overall, this trending website design isn’t very popular with our clients, but it’s still a great strategy for some.
Trend #2. Minimalism
Of all the modern trends in website design, minimalism is the one that took the Internet by storm. Nowadays, many website owners opt for a clutter-free look for very good reasons.
In digital marketing, we have something called the “blink test”. Basically, it only takes site visitors 3 to 5 seconds to decide whether they want to stay on your website or not.
If your page is littered with disorienting animations, endless pop-ups, and loads of generic stock photography, there’s a high chance that your visitors will abandon ship within the first few seconds. This spells high bounce rates and measly conversion rates for your business.
This is why minimalism became such an effective trend. As they say, less is more. Here’s why site visitors – and website owners – love minimalist designs:
- It makes the text easy to read. Many of your visitors will be seeking instant answers and solutions. And as much as possible, they want it served in a clean platter that makes content easier to consume.
- It creates the right focal point. With a clean design, you can place the spotlight on call-to-actions and main page elements that you want your visitors to see. It channels your visitors’ attention to the right place instead of being overwhelmed by tons of information all at the same time.
- It’s easy to navigate. Site visitors like it when they can easily transition from page to page within a website. This can help reduce bounce rates and eventually turn your visitors into customers.
- It loads faster. The biggest advantage of a minimalist design is it lightens the load of your website. It loads faster across devices, which is a big plus for Internet users who have a short attention span and minimal patience over lagging pages.
Trend #3. Bolder color schemes
According to Top Design Firms, 38% of people appreciate color more than any other component of your web design. If done right, you can use your website’s color scheme to boost your brand recognition and even your conversion rates.
As one of the 2023 web design trends, the use of bold colors can highly benefit your business website. However, you should avoid overdoing it as 21% of consumers will leave your website if it has ‘outlandish’ colors.
Color trends to watch out for
To help you out, here are 9 color trends for 2023 that many web designers – including us – saw as a big hit this year:
- Highly saturated colors. Acidic colors like red, yellow, blue, and purple are powerful hues in web design. Also, these are some of our long-standing ecommerce design trends in 2023. After all, they are effective attention-grabbers, especially on call-to-action buttons and social media posts.
- Cheerful colors. Dubbed the ‘millennial kitsch’, these colors take inspiration from the 1990s to mid-2000s color scheme. It includes pink, blue, yellow, and green that stand out on web pages without being an eyesore.
- ‘70s scheme. Retro colors are back, but now in the modern Internet space. Hues like mustard yellows, earthy browns, and avocado greens are taking rounds in brand logos and main website themes.
- Metallic hues. Silver chrome is a top pick this year, which is somewhat similar to the acidic hues. It can add a futuristic vibe to your website, which is a great pick if you’re in the technology industry.
- Mediterranean hues. This warm color palette made a big boom in the web design industry during the post-COVID era. Our designers had a great time playing on gray clay, dusty reds, and warm pink shades this year.
- Ecstatic colors. A slightly toned-down version of saturated colors, ecstatic hues can add a confident and refreshing touch to your pages.
- Earth tones. Light greens, earthy browns, soft blues, and gentle yellows are staples in our designs. It’s a great choice if you have an outdoorsy or nature-inspired brand.
- Dark tones. This website inspiration for 2023 draws from sci-fi flicks. In terms of web design, dark colors add a sense of sophistication and mystery to any brand.
- Viva Magenta. This list won’t be complete without Pantone’s Color Of The Year. Viva Magenta is an animated shade of red that can give your website a warm look that stands out.
Trend #4. Interactive design features
- Virtual reality. Virtual reality (VR) tech is a fast-growing market seen to be worth over US$22 billion by 2025. And why not? It offers users a sensory experience if paired with 3D elements like virtual tours or 3D worlds.
- Parallax zoom scrolling. Now, this trend drives our web developers crazy, but the finished product is worth every line of code. Parallax zoom scrolling is an animation technique where the foreground moves quicker than the background elements. It adds a sense of depth and realism, which is one of the most trending themes of 2023.
- Scrapbook aesthetic. This trend strikes the balance with the often-futuristic take on web design. It features doodles, handwritten fonts, cut-and-paste collages, and sticker graphics. Our designers love this trend since it’s a conjunction of both the physical and digital worlds.
- Entertaining 404 pages. 404 error pages pop up when the requested page is unavailable or if the site visitor can’t find what he’s looking for. To ease the frustration, designers often come up with light-hearted and funny designs to encourage visitors to stay within the website. And if you want to be a little extra, you can insert an interactive mini-game in there (like the legendary Dino Game on Google Chrome.)
Designers’ notes: Before you get to work on this trend, you should know that interactive features can take a blow to your website speed. In the end, it’s all about getting the right balance, so you won’t sabotage your website performance.
Trend #5. Accessibility features
Accessibility features are all about making your website more user-friendly. It allows you to reach a bigger audience, especially those with visual, speech, hearing, and cognitive limitations. And above all, adding these features to your website is the right thing to do.
Your site visitors are not the only ones who value user experience, Google does, too. While Google doesn’t have a specific ranking factor for accessibility, improving your website through these features will still earn your SEO campaigns an extra boost.
Another thing, between 2017 and 2018, there was an 181% increase in federally filed ADA web accessibility-related lawsuits. In one of these cases, the court ruled that websites constitute “public accommodations” and therefore expected to meet the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) standards.
Web accessibility trends to consider
While the above serves as a cautionary tale for website accessibility, compliance doesn’t have to be scary. Here are the new website trends you can start working on together with other web content accessibility guidelines:
- Good color contrast. You can start making your website more accessible by using a good color contrast that makes text easier to read. This is a big help for people with low vision or individuals who struggle to identify between specific colors.
- Closed captions. If you’re embedding videos on your pages, make sure that they have closed captions. This will help site visitors who are hard of hearing to understand your content. Also, you can maximize it as part of your SEO efforts.
- Text-to-speech. Also called “read aloud” technology, this quintessential accessibility tool adds convenience for users with vision and reading difficulties.
- Large controls. Don’t be that person who uses the tiniest X marks that make pop-ups and online ads infuriating. To make your pages accessible, use large controls, buttons, and links that are a breeze to click or press.
Trend #6. Sustainable web design
More and more consumers are shifting to eco-friendly options and so are the web design industry trends. In fact, 8 out of 10 consumers said they are willing to pay up to 5% more for sustainable goods. So whether you’re selling products or services, there’s no doubt that sustainable web design can be an attractive selling point for your target market.
If you’re interested in joining the movement, here are some strategies you can implement:
- Consider green hosting. With green hosting, data centers utilize renewable energy sources to power up their infrastructure. And if you host your website in one of these providers, you can add an eco-friendly ‘badge’ to your pages, which is a big plus for your visitors.
- Lighten your images. Multimedia content like images and videos consume a lot of real-world energy to transmit on the web. You can lighten the load by avoiding image carousels, using responsive image markups, and utilizing efficient image formats like WebP, which is 30% smaller than JPEGs.
- Clean your code. Danny Van Kooten, a Dutch programmer, created a new version of his Mailchimp WordPress plugin by slimming down his code. The result? The plugin sends 20 KB less data, and with 2 million users, that amounted to 59,000 kilograms of reduced CO2 outputs. It’s equivalent to flying back and forth from New York to Amsterdam 85 times.
Ready to make your website design future-proof?
The task of keeping up with new web design trends doesn’t stop in 2023. It’s important to future-proof your website with a team of specialists like Top Position who will ensure you’ll get the latest innovations on the Internet.
We offer comprehensive web design and development services to ensure that your business will have the best home on the web. Whether you need the latest ecommerce web design trends or a facelift for your old pages, we are the experts to call.
Our team is ready to take on the task, regardless if you have an old website or starting from scratch. The best part? You’ll own everything on the website we will create.
Interested in a free quote? Contact us today and our design specialist will give you a free estimate and consultation!
