In today’s digital world, your website plays a key role in determining what prospective and current customers think of your brand. When customers are greeted by a website that’s aesthetically pleasing and functions well, it’s much more likely that they will continue to use the website now and in the future. The design of your website is highly important to consumers because of the large number of websites at their disposal. These consumers don’t need to use a poorly designed website because there are likely dozens of other options that provide similar content or products.
When designing a website, keep in mind that first impressions are of the utmost importance. It only takes the click of a button to back out of a website and visit another, which is why you must grab the attention of site visitors immediately after they reach your website. The way in which you design your website can determine if people stay on the page. If the page is functional, aesthetically appealing, and contains relevant information, you should be able to make a good first impression. By following modern design trends, your website should appeal to your target audience.
You can also use various marketing techniques to enhance the design of your website. For instance, consider placing social media buttons on your home page that take visitors to your social media pages on Facebook and Twitter. It’s also important that the content that’s placed on your website is relevant to the interests of your main audience and is optimized for search engines.
If you want to effectively understand the tips and tricks of web design, you don’t need to be a skilled designer and coder. Many of the web-design tools that are available to you include streamlined features that make them easy to use without having formal training. In 2021, there are some new web design trends that you should be aware of if you want your website design to stay ahead of the competition. This article goes into detail about some of the latest trends in the web-design industry.
Key Takeaways:
- Checking out the web design trends for each prospective year is an important tasks if you are a designer yourself or have an online business as it keeps you ahead of your competition.
- In this article there are seven web design trends we found for 2021 which include animations, scroll effects, shapes and abstract designs, videos, vector art, accessibility, and asymmetrical layouts. Check out the details of each below!
1. Animations
Animation can be a great way to keep visitors engaged with your website. It’s a popular technique that involves creating successive drawings that help to create a basic illusion of movement. In web design, animation can take the form of animated text or fully animated backgrounds. There are many different ways to animate a line of text or an image, which gives you the ability to create wholly unique site elements that make visitors more engaged. If you only provide site visitors with static text and imagery at all times, they may become bored. Animation can help a website stand out among the competition and may be what you need to start converting site visitors into return customers.
Likely the best way to use animation as a web designer is to entice site users to take specific actions. For instance, you could animate the call-to-action button on your main page, which would lead the user to click the button and perform the action that the button describes. Call-to-action buttons are small buttons that contain phrases like “click here to subscribe” or “add-to-cart”. To get the most out of animation, make sure that you use it sparingly. Outfitting an entire web page with numerous animated elements only serves to act as visual noise.
One modern form of animation that has become increasingly popular with website design is parallax animation. This is a highly complex form of animation that involves the background of a page moving at a slower rate than the foreground, which creates a kind of three-dimensional effect as the user scrolls through the page. These are very interactive elements that can keep your site visitors engaged long enough to take an action on your website.
2. Scroll Effects
Over the past decade, many new scroll effects have been discovered that help to make websites more appealing to the modern customer. When a user scrolls down a web page, they are interacting with the website and participating in its design. With the majority of websites, scrolling is a simple task that doesn’t lead to anything new. However, this doesn’t have to be the case. Along with parallax scrolling, there are a variety of scroll effects that you can add to your website if you want to provide users with an exciting and memorable experience when they use your website.
Some of the dynamic scroll effects that you can integrate into your website design include horizontal scrolling, zooming into images, and transitioning from one area of a page to the next. The many options at your disposal can help you create a distinct website that’s completely different when compared to what the competition provides. Users have a sense of anticipation when scrolling through a web page, which benefits both parties. Their anticipation can make a web experience more memorable when it’s answered with something unique and appealing. As the designer, you benefit from being able to deliver on this anticipation.
3. Shapes and Abstract Design
Modern websites are increasingly making use of distinct shapes and abstract designs. When you use basic shapes on your website, they can enhance the appearance of a web page. These shapes can add color, frame some of your content, and create balance on the page. On the other hand, complex and abstract illustrations can be used to bolster your brand identity and make your brand more memorable for site visitors. By using shapes that are unique to your brand, you have a better chance of strengthening your brand. If you opt for creating abstract designs and shapes, make sure to integrate these designs with the visual style and colors of your brand.
4. Videos
Videos have been used on websites for decades. However, most of these videos have been informational in nature, which means that they are primarily used as interviews and promotional videos that can provide visitors with content that’s more engaging than reading an article. In the past few years, videos are becoming even more important as they are starting to be used as actual design elements in a website. Because of modern technologies, videos can be integrated into the design of a website in several different ways.
For instance, some tools allow site owners to have videos played in slow-motion, on a loop, or automatically when the user scrolls over the video. It’s also possible to create unique designs for the videos that allow you to add visual flair to the page in question. The Wix “transparent video” tool gives you the ability to create transparent videos that still retain a high quality. To best understand how engaging videos can be when used in your website, studies have shown that visitors remain on websites for 60 percent longer when the websites are outfitted with videos instead of just text and images.
5. Vector Art
A unique and effective type of art that you can add to the design of your website is vector art. Graphics are known to be engaging and can help you break up written content on your website. However, these images can lengthen load times and provide users with a worse experience. Using vector art can help you provide users with beautiful imagery without needing to sacrifice load times.
Since these files are implemented in the SVG format, the images can be scaled to any size without losing their quality or taking up more resources. There are currently thousands of vector art files that you can select from, many of which can be customized by graphic designers. These graphics can also be outfitted to any design, which means that you should be able to find ones that match your business and brand.
6. Accessibility
In the modern world, accessibility is more important than ever and is becoming a primary focus for many companies that want to expand their customer base. Accessibility involves making your website accessible to as many people as you can. There are numerous methods that you can use to increase the accessibility of your website. For instance, you could use clean imagery, larger text, or contrasting colors to make a website more accessible.
The purpose of doing so is to allow people with disabilities to enter and browse through your website without issue. There are upwards of one billion people all over the world who require modern accessibility features to browse websites. Keep in mind that brands that focus on inclusivity and accessibility will benefit from a stronger reputation and a better brand image.
7. Asymmetrical Layouts
Many websites opt for a symmetrical layout to their website that provides users with an orderly structure to all design elements on the page. While symmetrical layouts are effective and certainly won’t hurt the design of your website, asymmetrical layouts are becoming increasingly popular in the design industry. These layouts offer distinct benefits that can’t be had with any other design. For instance, asymmetrical layouts are dynamic, which makes them stand out when compared to symmetrical layouts. This dynamism offers more freedom of design.
It’s possible to maintain a sense of balance on your website even when using an asymmetrical design. However, you will need to take the movement, color, and size of each page element into account before arranging the design. If you’re having difficulties with asymmetrical layouts, consider using a website template that incorporates this design.
All of these web design trends are easy to implement into any website and can help you stay at the forefront of your industry. If you’re a small business that’s just getting started, integrating these trends into the design of your website could help you grow and improve your brand.