Your website is a vital aspect of your online presence and is often the first introduction you have to your potential customers.
While a stunning website design with flawless customer navigation has some significant influence over how well people respond to your brand, the online space is ever-changing, and keeping up with it is essential to your success.
Just as with fashion trends, the online world responds the same, with users pushing trends and redefining the online world each and every year.
With the dawn of a new year, it’s time to begin looking forward and planning for the newest trends that are beginning to take hold in the online space.
Keep reading to discover the eight website designs you can expect to see over the next year.
Why Your Website Design Matters
Capturing the attention of millions of people online can be challenging, especially as attention spans have dropped and saturation has taken over the market.
Your website can help change that.
As you cater your website design to the changing ways people are consuming information, you’ll increase the engagement you find on your site.
This can come in the form of functionality, such as better accessibility, or integrations like augmented reality (AR) to get your visitors engaging with your website in new and exciting ways.
Ultimately, your website is a digital handshake, and you’ll want to ensure it’s ready to welcome your visitors in the ways they want it to.
Website Design Trends in 2023
The age-old adage that everything comes back into style exists for a reason, and we’re seeing a boom of this as we kick off 2023.
In the last couple of months of 2022, there was a stark change in the trends, with one of the most notable being the resurgence of the 90s and early 00s aesthetic.
This trend has set the tone for much of what we can expect to come in 2023, and while not all the upcoming trends circulate around this theme, many will.
Here are the top trends you can expect to see in the coming months.
1. Nostalgia-Driven Content
Whether it be through colours, styles, or designs, people love being brought back to the “good old days.”
Including content on your website, whether it be a specific colour palette you may have seen everywhere in the 90s or a design element that nods to a popular trend from back in the day, people visiting your site will take notice.
Not only will adding nostalgic elements to your site get users excited, but it will also help you connect with people of all ages, whether it’s because they’re being transported back or they’re young and experiencing the trend for the first time.
2. Speed is Everything
We’re living in a time where instant gratification is king.
With attention spans growing shorter each year as social media boasts impressive overstimulation, the speed of your site has never mattered more.
While years ago, people expected to have to wait as pages buffered, those days are long gone.
The majority of users have no interest in sitting around waiting for a webpage to load and will bounce off in search of a faster load at the first sign of a slow site.
In 2023, your website design will need to support the speed of your site, ensuring you’re not packing pages with dense information that could result in slower load times.
3. Overlapping Text
Overlapping text can come in many forms, whether it’s text that’s layered atop an image or integrated with the design, hovering text is becoming more popular.
One particular style we’re seeing is something known as “Parallax Scrolling.”
Have you ever been scrolling down a site only to discover a still image beginning to be revealed while simultaneously being covered again? It’s almost as if it’s an entirely separate section of the website below the page you’re on.
This trend is booming, with people loving the surprise element it brings. Not only that, but it adds a sense of depth to your site, adding a layer of realism to it as users scroll through each page.
4. Chat Integrations
Getting involved with the visitors on your site is essential, and the faster you can do that, the better.
Including a way for your visitors to interact directly with your site in an easy, non-invasive way only serves to further satisfy the fast-information, instant-gratification society we’re living in and enhances the accessibility of your site (more on that below).
With the development of chat integrations, your customers will be able to easily obtain the information they need without requiring you to be behind the screen. This ensures every potential customer is being reached out to as soon as they enter your site, without requiring extra work on your part.
5. Accessibility Matters
More attention than ever is being placed on ensuring everything is accessible to all and website designs are following suit.
Why cut an entire subset of the population off from your site when you can design it to welcome them in just as much as everybody else?
Your website’s accessibility not only helps get your site in front of more people simply by making it more accessible, but it can also give your SEO rankings a boost.
A website design with accessibility in mind can take various forms, with some strategies including things like:
- Bold colour contrasts between text and backgrounds
- Focus indicators as you hover over a button or integrated link
- Adding specific instructions and labels for online forms
- Adding effective Alt tags on images, catering to those who require an auditory experience while online
Everyone consumes information differently, and catering to various audiences is more vital than ever.
6. Augmented Reality Integrations
Nothing is more frustrating than browsing online only to be fighting to catch a glimpse of the entire product you’re looking at from the standard 2D image on the site.
With AR or “Augmented Reality,” those boundaries no longer exist.
AR integrations allow you to have items on your site that are 3D, providing a completely interactive experience for your visitors.
Through this, they’ll be able to move the objects on the page in real-time to get a better look at them from every angle. From spinning them around or zooming in and out, every user can get a more immersive experience, almost as if they were standing in the store and exploring the item in person.
Not only will this get people more involved on your site than ever before, but it also ensures they never feel like they’re missing out. Everything they need they can access at that moment.
7. Mobile-Catered Content
Smartphones have changed the way many people access information, with a great number of them using their phones as their primary method of browsing online.
This has made it more important than ever for you to design your site to cater to them, ensuring it’s easy for your users to move through your website from the smaller screens of their phones.
These designs should take into consideration aspects like:
- One-handed scrolling
- The location and size of the buttons
- The size of the paragraphs
- The spacing of the content
- Your website integrations
The last thing you want is people opening your website on their phones only to be struggling to use it effectively, leading to frustrating interactions and, ultimately, a quick exit for something more mobile-friendly.
8. Redesigned Simplistic Hero Banner
A “hero banner” is just a fancy term for the section of your website that’s at the top of the screen or “above the fold.” It’s the very first thing your visitors see when they click through to your home page.
Over the last year, we’ve seen a more minimalist approach to this banner, creating a clean welcome page that sets the tone for what they can expect.
Many website designs are beginning to incorporate big, bold typography with very little imagery, creating a simplistic aesthetic while still getting right to the point with one impossible-to-miss word.
Over the next year, this trend may become more popular, with websites being designed to quickly catch the attention of every visitor without compromising on the information they’re looking for.
Make Website Design Easy with IMP Digital
Keeping up with the ever-changing landscape of the online world can be a lot of work, and you’ve got a business to run.
By partnering with the team of experts at IMP Digital, you’ll be able to get back to your customers in-store without having to worry about your online presence.
With a team of talented website designers, you’ll be proudly showing off your new site, that’s loaded with custom integrations that not only give your users an immersive experience but boasts new and improved features that are challenging the industry standard.
Contact us to book your free call, or explore our services to see how we can make a difference for your business!
