10 Web Design Trends for 2018
In order to improve your chance at making conversions (gaining subscribers, customers and brand advocates) you need to work on your brand message. It has been noted that companies who introduce themselves prior to offering a CTA button have a much higher conversion rate. Still, how do you proceed to do this in the best, as well as most time- and effort-efficient manner. It is common knowledge online that you have about 7 to 9 seconds to make your audience stay or leave, which means that the first impression that your company makes might just be the tipping point.
Another thing you need to keep in mind is that human brain receives visual information 60,000 times faster than a textual one, which is why the design of your website might start sending a message long before your content does. The position of your CTA button, the overall layout of the page, its alignment and style all play a crucial role in the effectiveness of your on-page marketing. In order to help you get the most out of this, here are 10 web design trends that are expected to be huge in 2018.
1. Minimalism
The first thing you need to keep in mind is that no matter how good your design is – your audience has a limited amount of patience. In fact, failing to load for just 4 seconds may lose your website one-quarter of its visitors. An average visitor expects your website to load within first two seconds and in order to make their website as responsive as possible, a lot of web designers turn to minimalism. Reducing the number of on-page elements means reducing the number of HTTP requests, which could give one’s website a significant performance boost.
2. 2D patterns
While we’re on the topic of minimalism, creating a design that consists of 2D geometric patterns such as lines, squares and circles. Seeing as how this kind of design lacks complicated animation, it isn’t that resource intensive. Aside from this, it is also touch-friendly, which makes it ideal for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.
3. Brutalism
As a complete opposite to the above-listed two trends, we have brutalism – a style that was shaped by grey and unpredictable architecture of the Soviet era. Even though it may seem as if this goes against everything advocated in the previous sections, it is undeniable that this style has some of its benefits. Through the asymmetric shapes and somewhat unusual use of flamboyant colors on bleak backgrounds, it can easily control the attention of your visitors and point it wherever you feel like. Aside from this, it was also well established that teen and younger millennial audiences respond positively towards this particular theme.
4. Focusing on conversions
Earlier on, we spoke a lot about increasing conversion on your website and in order to do so, your entire design needs to become data-driven. In other words, you need to gather hard facts about elements which improve website’s conversion rates and find a way to incorporate them organically into your design. For instance, it is a well-known fact that introducing a video before offering CTA button might boost your conversions by 144 percent, while opting for a red instead of a green button might give you a 21 percent boost. These are just some of the things you need to pay attention to in order to achieve a true conversion focused web design.
5. Left text alignment
Another important trend you need to keep an eye out for is the overall alignment of the text you display on your homepage. Numerous studies claim that people are more likely to focus on the left side of the screen. Furthermore, the area at about 400 pixels from the left edge of the screen is the absolute attention hotspot. In other words, if you have something particularly important you want to display, this is where you should do it.
6. Limited number of choice
While most people may assume that a plethora of choice is always a good thing, this way of thinking might eventually start working against you. One popular study tested two consumer groups. The first group was presented with 6 different varieties of jam and the second group was presented with 24 different kinds. Interestingly, the second group was ten times less likely to make a purchase. The bottom line is that sometimes having too much choice can be even worse than not having enough. Moreover, having too many clickable areas at your homepage might make your navigation counterintuitive.
7. Mobile friendly formats
One of the things you may not know about the internet is that most people currently browsing it are doing so from their phones. Since 2015, the number of Google searches from mobile devices is greater than one from PCs, while this year Android triumphed over Windows in this very same field. Because of this- your design needs to become mobile-oriented in order to be effective. Making it touch-friendly (which we discussed in one of the previous sections) is just one way to do so. You could also pick mobile-friendly formats for your content, like videos and infographics in order to give it a significant boost.
8. Authentic images
Earlier on, we stated that visual is more effective than textual, which is only backed by the fact that 8 out of 10 people won’t even bother to read past the headlines. This is probably one of the main reasons why you need images to further enhance the attention you hope your content will receive. Nonetheless, generic niche-images are easily recognizable and using someone else’s work without their compliance is illegal. This is why it is probably for the best if you were to focus on creating your own authentic images.
9. Full-screen forms
Return customers are incredibly profitable but in order to re-engage them, you need to have at least some basic contact info. The easiest way to gather it is with a cunning use of full-screen forms, where they can type in their email or company website. As you may have guessed, this method is particularly handy in B2B engagements.
10. VR and AR
Finally, these last two years were massive when it comes to the notions of Virtual and Augmented reality, which is why there is no reason to assume this trend won’t pick up in 2018, as well. Seeing as how this might change the game from the root, web designers will have a lot to catch up in order to stay in the game. On the other hand, such tools might be able to provide a whole new level of immersion to your audience.
In conclusion
The funniest thing about the above-mentioned 10 design trends is the fact that all of them exist for at least several years now. The reason why they are referred to as 2018 trends is due to the expectation that they will reach the pinnacle of their popularity next year. Either way, each of these trends is capable of boosting your web design’s efficiency and your average conversion rate. Still, how big of an impact each of these trends will actually have in the future remains to be seen.