By Ian Pearson

The internet world has changed tremendously over the past few years until the point where web design and UX (User Experience) are vital to the success of any website. Google’s algorithm updates for search engines also meant that websites that wanted to be SEO optimized needed to pay more attention to user experience and high-quality content. UX design has thus come out on top as one of the most used web designs of today, but since it’s constantly changing, we’ll take a look at how it’s likely to look in 2018 and help you prepare for what’s coming.

Voice User Interfaces

With the rise of Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Google Assistant, we’ve come to a point in time where voice interaction is slowly becoming more and more popular. The rapid development of VUIs (Voice User Interfaces) means that they are soon to become a strong alternative to GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces) that we use most of the time. This means that web design is going to move away from designing for clicks and taps, towards a more screenless experience. While VUIs are predicted to reach about 50% of all user interactions by 2020, this doesn’t mean that GUIs are going to disappear. Voice-commands can be tricky and socially awkward in crowded places, so there will always be a place for GUIs to be used in the future.

Focus on the Content

Content has become huge over the years and it’s going to stay that way for a long time. Not only will high-quality content directly influence conversion rates on your website, but it will also bring you more traffic if you optimize it for SEO purposes. This is why web design trends like minimalism or UX design have become extremely popular since they never distract the users from what’s really important – the content. Great usage of whitespace is of the essence for web designers here, and once that’s mastered you’ll have a much content friendlier website.

Color and Typography

There are huge differences between desktop and mobile screens, which means that what works well on a desktop might not be clear enough while scrolling quickly on your smartphone. Since we’re already at a point where mobile devices are taking over the market as a whole, you need to make sure that typography is very clear when quickly going through the content on a mobile device. It’s the same with colour, as most users will only stop to read something that catches their eye, so you need to make sure that most important sentences are somehow differentiated from the rest of the text.

Design That Saves Time

Most popular websites today are trying to push their information in an easily consumable fashion. Just take a look at how simple Balenciaga’s shop is. The whole point is to create an intuitive experience that will maximize the effect and save your user’s time. We’re living in an extremely fast-paced society today, so your audience’s time is something you always have to take into account. This is only going to become more important in the future, as we’re just speeding up all the time. If your user can’t get to a certain point on a website in a few clicks, they’ll most probably abandon the website, leaving you empty-handed. Experienced web design veterans from Bapple recommend focusing on clear navigation as it is absolutely vital to your success, and so is the guidance that you provide for your users once they’re on your website.  

Ditch the Hamburger Menu

While hamburger menu was extremely popular a couple of years back, it’s becoming more and more clear that it’s time for it to go. Ditching the menu in favour of a tab bar will increase your navigation clicks, as Spotify found out when they did just that. The same goes for YouTube, who found out that getting rid of the hamburger menu meant their website became more user-friendly. The main reason for this is that you want your navigation menu to be in plain view, especially on mobile devices where you want it to be present on screen at all times, regardless where on the page you are.

Bottom Line

Staying in touch with web design trends has never been more important than today, as things keep changing faster than most people can follow. Minimalism, Brutalism, UX web design, these are all web design trends that are made for one purpose only – to increase conversions. It goes without saying that you should always take into account what’s your niche and how your audience will react to certain changes that you make. This is why you always want to be testing a lot everything before making a final decision.