Every year, tech­nol­o­gy advances and with it, user inter­faces and web­site designs evolve. For the greater part of the past decade, web­site own­ers and design­ers worked togeth­er to please Google’s search rank­ing algorithm. 

Wise­ly so — the search engine essen­tial­ly required basic web ele­ments in order for sites to rank — sen­si­cal func­tion­al­i­ty, qual­i­ty con­tent, but­tons that work, hyper­linked pages, sim­ple nav­i­ga­tion. These basic web­site build­ing blocks became the foun­da­tion for most web­sites. Thanks to these imple­men­ta­tions, con­sumers are able to browse web­sites with­out com­pli­ca­tions and with a gen­er­al under­stand­ing of where to find spe­cif­ic con­tent on pages and what to expect to find when arriv­ing at the URL address.

Now, we’re in an excit­ing design space. Web­site design­ers have the algo­rithm-pre­ferred build­ing blocks down pat and con­sumers have a sol­id under­stand­ing of web nav­i­ga­tion. Final­ly, design­ers can return to their artis­tic moti­va­tions and begin tak­ing cre­ative liberties. 

The bursts of cre­ativ­i­ty you will see in 2020 will be small and sparse to start as design­ers sam­ple ideas with con­sumers. Hope­ful­ly, these changes con­tin­ue through­out the year and leave us with a more cre­ative­ly pop­u­lat­ed inter­net, soon.

Let’s take a look at what design trends are pop­ping up this year, why you should care and how to incor­po­rate a few into your pages. 

Why Follow Web Design Trends

Fol­low­ing design trends serve so many ben­e­fits. By track­ing who is imple­ment­ing change, which fea­tures are evolv­ing and how design­ers are push­ing bound­aries, your design team gets the moti­va­tion and cre­ative ener­gy to fol­low suit and adapt your web­site to cur­rent trends that are lead­ing the mar­ket, too.

  • Com­pe­ti­tion aware­ness — Stay on top of trends to keep up with indus­try competitors.
  • Moti­va­tion to cre­ate — Get inspired by oth­er brand’s inno­v­a­tive designs (in your indus­try or anoth­er vertical)
  • Idea gen­e­sis — Come up with new ways to apply evolv­ing trends to your spe­cif­ic con­sumers’ behav­ior.
  • Mar­ket­ing aware­ness — Keep a con­stant beat on how mar­ket­ing is evolv­ing and where your brand falls in the larg­er picture.

Why Follow Web Design Trends

Why Change Your Website for New Trends in Web Design

Mark­ing your com­pa­ny as a cre­ative leader speaks vol­umes about your brand. Con­sumers imme­di­ate­ly know they can rely on you to evolve with tech­nol­o­gy and mod­ern times. Let’s look at a few oth­er ben­e­fits of updat­ing your site to include cur­rent trends:

  • Posi­tion your brand as an indus­try leader by stay­ing up to date with design trends
  • Project your brand as a cre­ative pow­er­house with fresh design integrations
  • Stamp your knowl­edge of tech and tech evo­lu­tion on the web
  • Become a mar­ket­ing leader in your indus­try that con­sumers trust and com­peti­tors follow

Web Design Trends 2020

Some of this year’s trends include stay­ing on brand with con­sumer engage­ment func­tions and fan­cy­ing up fonts. Check out the list below for the full preview. 

Dark Mode

Dark mode has slow­ly made its way to the new nor­mal. The dark mode is eas­i­er on the eyes, mak­ing it a wise design option in a decade rid­dled with increased aware­ness of health and well-being. If you pro­vide or plan to pro­vide a dark mode option, spend time ensur­ing all fea­tures flow and pro­mote opti­mal user design functionality.

Long Image Crops

As more con­sumers search for prod­ucts from their phones, a shift in images is mov­ing toward long image crops to pro­mote the best view­ing experience.

New Fonts

Alas, we are adding new fonts to web­sites. As you choose from font options with more flair and per­son­al­i­ty, keep selec­tions lim­it­ed to only 2–3 to ease con­sumers into the new look.

Min­i­mal­ism

Less is more is 2020’s new design mot­to. Where you can offer a thou­sand words with pic­tures, choose an on-brand, high-qual­i­ty image; where you can offer three logos that com­mu­ni­cate three pages of ser­vices explained, cre­ate three images that effec­tive­ly express what your brand offers. Pro­vide all essen­tial infor­ma­tion on the sur­face with­out going into detail or adding clut­ter. Again, less is more.

Fold­abil­i­ty and Device-Cen­tric Design

If your con­sumers use fold­able devices, pro­vide design options that adapt to their view­ing expe­ri­ence. As the adapt­able design is a large endeav­or, be sure to ade­quate­ly research your con­sumers and their typ­i­cal view­ing devices.

Micro-Inter­ac­tions That Match Your Branding

A big trend that is unfold­ing is the inte­gra­tion of micro-inter­ac­tions, such as ‘lik­ing’ a blog or post or pho­to. These inter­ac­tions are use­ful — they imme­di­ate­ly indi­cate what works for con­sumers, and pro­mote engage­ment, but they don’t always match brand aes­thet­ic. Find­ing ways to match inter­ac­tion design with web design will con­tin­ue to unfold in 2020.

How to Incorporate the Latest Web Design Trends

Stay­ing up-to-date on web design trends is one thing; fig­ur­ing out how to imple­ment them is anoth­er. Mak­ing changes slow­ly and rolling them out one fea­ture at a time are great ways to slow­ly adjust your con­sumer expec­ta­tions and behav­ior. Let’s look at a few tips for success.

How to Include New Trends 

Incor­po­rat­ing new trends may seem over­whelm­ing, but it doesn’t have to be. Take the inte­gra­tion step by step, and pre­view to a small batch of con­sumers for the best results. 

  • One fea­ture at a time: The most effec­tive way to update web­site design is to inte­grate one ele­ment at a time (as long as it doesn’t total­ly com­pro­mise UX). This way, your team can calm­ly fix the bugs and glitch­es asso­ci­at­ed with that respec­tive ele­ment, stay­ing in con­trol, com­pe­tent and efficient.
  • Pre­view back end: Always pre­view the site with the new design fea­tures on the back end. This is an essen­tial “test” to run before publishing.
  • Beta-test the new site: Instead of pub­lish­ing the new site to every­one, pub­lish it for a select group. This will pro­vide an oppor­tu­ni­ty to iden­ti­fy errors, glitch­es, and fea­tures that make nav­i­ga­tion difficult.
  • Track con­sumer behav­ior: Set up a track­ing sys­tem to iden­ti­fy how con­sumers nav­i­gate and spend time on the site with the new fea­tures. Track­ing is an ongo­ing task for opti­mal results.
  • Ana­lyze and use data: After you pool a sig­nif­i­cant amount of data, it’s time to look at it close­ly and cre­ate a sto­ry. Based on data, you might choose to add more of a par­tic­u­lar design or remove one altogether.
  • Ask for feed­back: Be con­fi­dent as you reach out and ask your audi­ence for feed­back. Request this infor­ma­tion in the con­text of enhanc­ing their expe­ri­ence with your brand.

How to Include New Trends 

Hire a Professional

When deter­min­ing work­loads and goal tra­jec­to­ries, out­sourc­ing a pro­fes­sion­al design team might be worth the invest­ment. Expe­ri­enced teams know which tools you need to stay updat­ed, exceed audi­ence expec­ta­tions and run with new design ideas with­out com­pro­mis­ing func­tion­al­i­ty. If you have a pro­fi­cient design team, con­sid­er a con­sul­ta­tion from an out­side firm.

Comment to Let Us Know About Your Experience

Have you run any of these new trends on your web­site? If so, let us know how it went! Addi­tion­al­ly, let us know about any tips you have to share on “updat­ing” your site accord­ing to design trends.

Rosy Strategies

At Rosy Strate­gies, we help our clients iden­ti­fy where they need improve­ment and updates in web design. Along­side dis­cov­er­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for trend imple­men­ta­tion and growth, we pro­vide con­fi­dent design and struc­tur­al analy­sis pack­ages so that you can exper­i­ment with up-and-com­ing design aes­thet­ics. To learn more about what we offer and which soft­ware plat­forms are best suit­ed for your needs, reach out to our team, today.