We live in a world of constantly evolving technology – and websites are no exception to that. Both the functionality and design of websites are constantly in a fluid state of growth as new technical possibilities arise and trends spread. As a Denver web design company specializing in responsive website design – websites built to provide an exceptional user experience on all devices – we’re always working to stay abreast of exciting ideas and possibilities in the world of websites. But we especially carve out some time at the beginning of each year to deep dive into what’s changed over the last year as far as trends in website design and development, and where it might be headed for the next year. Often, design elements that at one time had a sparkle to them and WOWed many users, eventually grow outdated or overused, replaced by new trends. And since your website represents your business, it’s one of the first pieces of your business you should think about keeping up to date – so your customers (and potential customers!) see that you’re re-investing in keeping your business fresh, sleek and efficient. It shows growth. It shows care. It shows professionalism.
We love helping our clients – or aspiring entrepreneurs and business owners who aren’t even our clients – to be successful online. So, this article is here to showcase some interesting trends we’re seeing in responsive web design for 2023. Let’s dive in.
1. Website Headers Filling the Full Page
Using a website header that fills the entire page – width and height-wise – is a popular and super versatile website design trend that we expect to see continue being used in a lot of creative ways. From a basic version of this with large text and a button left or center aligned, to more creative versions such as with a transparent overlapping menu over a beautiful picture and dynamic elements with animation, there are a lot of very interesting design paths you can go down within this concept.
2. Use of Organic Shapes in Backgrounds or Elements
Use of shapes within page background is a great way to spice up the design of a page and make it eye-catching without distracting too much from the actual purpose of the page – the content directed at the user. For a while, geometric shapes dominated across the web, but lately organic shapes such as subtle round objects or flowing curves have become more popular.
3. Speed and Mobile Optimization Are King
With the majority of browsing now coming from mobile and users being used to instant gratification like the instant and endless scroll of social media and the expectation produced by the page speed performance of other website, people expect a website to load quickly and be easy to use on a mobile phone. Simply put, if your website is too slow or doesn’t function well on mobile devices, you’re very likely to lose business.
4. Live Chat and Chatbots
While website chat isn’t a new thing, it’s continued to greatly evolve over the last several years, with AI coming into the picture quite a bit and the technology for integrating chatbots and live chat into webpages has leveled up extensively. It’s now possible to create super fast, super streamlined chat experiences that users don’t have to leave the page for – and the benefits of this for lead generation and customer service are huge. Now with things like ChatGPT hitting the internet, we’re expecting to see very powerful chat functionality continue to become a bigger and bigger trend.
5. Micro Interactions
You know those tiny little animations you see on some websites and apps? Like, for example, when you mouse over a small icon and it spins or a button gets a tiny bit bigger when you mouse over it. That’s a micro interaction – just a fun little addition to your experience with the website or app that can also help guide them in what actions are available to them, and in turn can make your website a little bit easier to use.
6. Accessibility Options
Accessibility is not only a matter of wanting to make your website (and therefore your brand, products, services…) accessible to as many people as possible. It’s also, in some cases, a legal concern. This inclusive element of the internet is beyond a trend, and ultimately it’s in most website owner’s benefit as it can have a positive impact on things like SEO, traffic and conversions. As a result, we’ve seen a large trend towards the use of designs made with accessibility in mind. There are even some great tools out there now (such as WAVE) that use tech to assess your website and determine what things should be fixed to improve your website’s accessibility. For reference though, here are some things that help with website accessibility:
- Ensuring you’re setup alt tags for all your images made to describe the image in a helpful way to people who can’t see the image of its context.
- Including indicators to help focus important parts of the content such as links.
- Utilizing strong contrast between the text color and background color.
7. Scrolling Effects
There are many different types of scrolling effects, and we’ve been seeing more and more creative uses of this design trend. Scrolling trends include things like the popular Parallax effect which can make it look like a full-width background image is slowly scrolling by underneath the other elements and neighboring content sections, or animations on the page that are triggered by scrolling. These types of things make the design more engaging and in turn can increase the amount of time spent on your website.
7. Minimalism / Simplicity
A lot of what people consider “modern” or “sleek” these days when it comes to websites involves minimalism and simplicity – high-end but barebones graphical elements, clean typography, a basic color palette (think lots of white or black), and a super efficient user experience. With even a lot of major brands leaning into the minimalistic approach to their brand design and websites, we expect to continue seeing minimalistic web design to grow in popularity in 2023.
8. Artificial Intelligence and Dynamic Content
A great user experience on a website means being able to reach to your desired goal as fast as possible. Think about online chat when needing support from a large company, or using a personalized dashboard to understand and manage an account with a company. Things like dynamic content – where the website is coded to display content dynamically based on things like the user’s browser, location, user/account information (if they’re logged in) – and artificial intelligence will continue to push website efficiency and user experience to new levels this year.
9. Dark Mode
Dark mode – yes, kind of like the default for old computers back in the day – is making its comeback in the digital world. It’s not only easier on the eyes and makes it easier to focus on the contents of a page, but when used the right way can give a website a super sleek and modern look. It also affords the designer the ability to more easily direct user’s attention within the page because it’s easy to make things pop out of that dark space if you want to.
Conclusion
So, to break it down, the big takeaways from this would be that websites this year will continue pushing in the direction of clean, efficient, and engaging through the use of things like animations, AI, and minimalism/simplicity.
Ready to refresh your site, or have a company that doesn’t even have a website that you’re ready to give a beautiful home online? Our Denver responsive web design team is here to make it happen. Call us at (720) 507-9114 or email us at info@embermethod.com today.