Is your website’s design outdated? According to the digital marketing firm WebFX, three in four visitors determine the credibility of websites based on the design. With an outdated design, visitors may not trust your website enough to engage with it. For a high level of credibility that encourages visitor engagement, you need to use the right design for your website.
1) Interaction
Interaction has become a popular web design trend. Rather than only using static content in their website’s design, many webmasters now use interactive content.
Interactive content is characterized by its ability to change in response to visitors’ commands. Maps, games, surveys, polls and calculators are all types of interactive content. Visitors can perform commands to change them. You can include interactive content in the footer or sidebar of your website’s design. An interactive web design such as this will boost engagement while creating a more positive and memorable experience for visitors.
2) Minimalistic
Regarding web design, sometimes less is more. Using too many visual elements in your website’s design can make it look cluttered. Visual elements consist of lines, patterns, colors, logos, images and other digital aesthetic components that don’t affect how visitors use your website. Rather, they only affect your website’s appearance.
An excessive number of visual elements will lead to a cluttered design. You can prevent your website from becoming cluttered, however, by using a minimalistic design. Minimalistic is a simple web design scheme that focuses on a limited number of visual elements. It will direct visitors’ attention to other elements, such as navigation links and content, so that they stay engaged.
3) Hero Image
The use of a hero image has become a popular web design trend. A hero image is a large, high-quality image that encompasses most or all of the screen on which it’s viewed. It serves as the above-the-fold focal point. After loading your website in a web browser, the first thing visitors will see is the hero image.
What’s the difference between a hero image and a banner image exactly? Hero images and banner images are displayed in the same place, and they both serve as the above-the-fold focal point for websites. While you can always use a banner image, a hero image might be a better choice.
Hero images are larger than banner images, so they allow for a more visually engaging website. You can also include overlay elements like text and links in your website’s hero image, which may not be possible with a smaller banner image.
4) Dark Mode
More and more websites are being designed in dark mode. Dark mode, of course, is a native feature of most mobile devices. Also known as night mode, it’s defined by the use of light-colored text and elements against a dark-colored background. When switched to dark mode, mobile devices will use this contrasting color scheme.
Dark mode is popular among mobile device users. According to a survey cited by Search Engine Watch, over 82 percent of mobile device users prefer dark mode over the default light mode. Rather than requiring visitors to change their mobile device’s settings, though, you use a dark mode design for your website.
Dark mode design follows the same principle as the dark mode feature of mobile devices. You can implement a dark mode design by using light colors for your website’s text and other in-container elements and dark colors for your website’s background.
5) Enhanced Accessibility
Another web design trend for 2021 is enhanced accessibility. Enhanced accessibility means designing your website in a way that’s natural and easy for all visitors to use. Some visitors may have impaired vision, for instance, that prevents them from seeing images and reading text. Embracing enhanced accessibility in your website’s design will allow them to continue using it.
For enhanced accessibility, use a large font size of at least 16 pixels while ensuring that all images have a descriptive alt text tag. For more information on how to increase your website’s accessibility, check out the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) at w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag.
6) Gradient Colors
Gradient colors have made their way into the realm of web design. Gradient colors don’t consist of any single color. Instead, they consist of multiple colors that blend together to achieve a glowing effect. You can use gradient colors in your website’s hero image, body, footer, sidebar and other places. They are particularly effective at blending the edges of these parts together.
With gradient colors, you can blend together different parts of your website. You can use gradient colors at the bottom of your website’s hero image and the top of its body, for example. Visitors will still be able to distinguish these parts from each other, but the gradient colors will create a unique glowing effect that’s not found in traditional color schemes.
7) Video
You may want to use video in your website’s design. Video-based web design is on the rise. From blogs and journalism portals to e-commerce stores and local business sites, countless websites now feature video in their design. Some of them have a hero video rather than a hero image, whereas others have videos in their sidebar or footer.
Including video in your website’s design will likely lead to longer page-viewing sessions. When a page has at least one video, some visitors will probably watch it. Therefore, video-based web design can increase the length of your website’s page-viewing sessions.
If you’re going to use video in your website’s design, don’t forget to optimize it so that it doesn’t cause slow speeds. Hosting videos on your website’s server may cause them to load slowly. An alternative practice is to host them on YouTube. When hosted on Google’s famous video platform, you can use iframes to embed them into your website’s design.
Don’t let an outdated design hinder your website’s performance. Give it a makeover with a new and modern design. Using some of the top web design trends for 2021, you can build a more credible and engaging website.
Related Posts
December 12, 2015 Web Design
10 Best Web Design Practices For Responsive Websites
Building a fully responsive website that provides mobile users with a high-quality user experience doesn’t have to be hard. There are many best web design practices that can help you customize and improve a...
