Today, no business can hope to be successful without a website.
Let’s begin with some amazing stats that demonstrate the importance of web design:
- More than 30% of small businesses that have a website generate 25% of their total revenue online.
- More than 60% of companies reported an increase in sales after designing mobile responsive platforms.
- 40% of people will leave if your website isn’t mobile friendly.
- Nearly 40% of visitors will leave a website if the layout or content isn’t attractive, whereas 44% of them will leave if there’s no contact info given on the home page.
- Almost 50% of people say that design is the main factor in determining whether a business is credible.
- Improving your site’s loading speed prevents the loss of 7% of potential conversions. Nearly 50% of people expect an average web page to load in two to three seconds.
Saying that web design is important for your business would be an understatement. Your company’s website is the primary source of information about the products and services you’re selling. Consumers judge the credibility and quality of your brand by its website.
Creating a website that resonates with your target demographics is the best way to drive traffic and persuade customers to buy your product/use your services.
However, as web design trends are constantly changing, creating a great website that catches and holds users’ attention can be quite a challenge.
So, if 2019 is the year when you’ll be launching a business website, you have two options:
- Buying an already established website with a decent design and turning it into something great; or
- Building a business website from scratch.
In both cases, you’ll need to invest in web design. Here’s what you should mention in your design brief.
Top 5 Web Design Trends for 2019
#1 Mobile-First Design
Considering the fact that average consumers check their smartphones about 150 times a day, it’s not hard to figure out that the design of your mobile site is more important than the appearance of the desktop version.
Here are some stats to confirm how important it is to go mobile-friendly:
- Smartphone internet consumption grew by nearly 80% in the period from 2013 to 2015. Today, nearly 60% of all internet access is done through smartphones.
- Half of the total e-commerce revenue comes from mobile platforms.
- 40% of mobile device owners search for B2B products and services on these devices.
Even though these numbers make it clear that users prefer mobile-optimized sites, research has found that more than 90% of small businesses don’t have mobile-friendly websites!
As mentioned before, 40% of online users stated that if a site isn’t optimized for mobile, they’ll most likely leave it and go to the competition.
In addition, Google gives priority to mobile-friendly sites by ranking them higher in search results.
Web designers are well aware of the importance of having a mobile-friendly website. Mobile app design and responsive web design have become a standard in web design. When designing a website, they first create visuals that are optimized for smaller devices, than adjust them to the desktop version.
#2 Fast and Clean
You might have the most beautiful website, but it won’t do you any good if it takes ages to load.
On average, users expect a page to load in no more than 3 seconds. In practice, the average time for a mobile landing page to load is 15 seconds! Here are some more stats:
- Nearly 75% of mobile users have encountered sites that take too long to load.
- More than 45% of people say that waiting for pages to load is what they dislike most about browsing on mobile devices.
- Almost 80% of online buyers who have had trouble with website loading speed say they wouldn’t return to that site again.
It’s no wonder that slow loading speed causes half of the website visitors to leave. In other words, slow loading speed equals lost conversions and revenue.
Moreover, page speed also has an impact on how Google ranks your content. The largest search engine made changes in its algorithms so that fast-loading pages have primate in search results. So, if your aim is to appear in SERPs, you’d better make sure that your pages are loading super-fast.
With this in mind, web designers are creating simpler and cleaner sites with fewer elements. Websites burdened with heavy text are in the past. Today’s websites contain just enough text to convey the brand’s message. This text is combined with images in order to grab the user’s attention and engage them effectively. The emphasis is on providing a better UX so that visitors want to come back to the website again.
#3 Video Remains a Dominating Trend
Video remains the favorite visual design element and for a good reason. Look at these mind-blowing stats from YouTube:
- YouTube receives one billion unique visits per month.
- Nearly 100 hours of video are uploaded every hour.
- About 6 million hours of videos are watched every month.
And with the Internet connection speeds constantly improving, experts’ predictions are that by 2020, 80% of the online traffic will be video.
Here is why you must include video in your website design:
- Having an engaging video differs from the standard approach of website design and helps you to establish a connection with the visitors. Different types of video, such as explainer videos or product descriptions, instantly resonate with the audience and add to better user experience.
- Having a video on your landing page can also significantly increase conversions and help with lead generation.
- High-quality, informative videos boost your website’s authority and popularity. This, in turn, helps you to rank higher in organic search results.
- Finally, informative or funny videos get shared on social media more often. This strengthens brand awareness and further improves your site’s ranking.
#4 Illustrations, Animations, and High-Quality Images
Great visuals never get old.
Attractive graphics and illustrations are another design trend preferred as an effective tool for conveying a brand message. With the use of tools like automate retouching, they can be easily customized to suit the tone and vision of your company and help you stand out from the competition.
Web designers will continue to use transitions and animations as vital elements to improve user experience, engagement, and interaction.
#5 The Rise of Typography
Quality fonts that used to be costly are now gaining in popularity after Google Fonts made them free of charge. Fun and interesting fonts like Roboto and Open Sans are replacing once highly-popular fonts like Calibri.
As part of the aspiration for clean and simple web design, designers are opting for less elaborate typefaces and pair them with bright colors, gradients, customizations, and cutouts to make the lettering stands out.
Here are some of the biggest typography trends for 2019 to inspire you:
- Animated typography
- Undersized typography in the hero area of the website
- Serifs
- Cutouts and overlays
- Highlighted type
- Color fonts and type
- Text with gradients
- Allowing text and other elements to overlap
Final Thoughts
This year, web designers are focusing on simple, clean designs that engage users. The use of video and great visuals will continue to be a trend in website design, while typography will be used to highlight a brand and convey its message more effectively.
However, even the most attractive design means nothing if your pages are loading slowly or your website isn’t mobile-friendly. That’s why you need to make sure these are the two priority requirements in your design brief.