Top Web Design Trends For 2019

Discover the trends that will define website design in 2019 — and beyond.

2019 will be all about delivering on Emotionally Intelligence: to deliver personalized, convenient, and meaningful moments on the web.

Creative Insights by Mike Rynart
Creative Insights by Mike Rynart
Top Web Design Trends For 2019
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It’s the end of the year, and I’ve been doing a lot of reflection over the last few days. It’s the perfect time of year to look back and reflect on what you’ve done right this year. As well, look ahead where you are going in the future.

For this post, I’ve collected my picks for the best trends to look out for in 2019. As a web developer, you’re a lifelong learner, because this industry moves so quickly. I started working on the web in 1997 when there was no Front-end vs Backend or UX person. You were just a Webmaster and everything was best viewed in Netscape Navigator. The first days of the web was like one big static information dump of web pages for people to read. Life for a web designer was simple back then. You couldn’t do much technically, to begin with, but there was no concern about Responsive design, cross-compatibility, and speed.

My passion and curiosity drove me to learn about the latest web trends and pushing me to create cutting-edge websites that amaze people! And I’m so excited to continue helping people build incredible web experiences that grow their business and make everyday life better. I believe your website is the most important tool you have for growing your business and your website has to be working for you.

Before we dive deep in 2019 trends, let’s take a look at what happened this year.

2018 was very much about creating an immersive user experience. Marketing Automation through Click funnels. web animations and micro-interactions, conversational interfaces and chatbots, AMP, Progressive web apps, virtual reality (VR), chatbots, vibrant text-based designs, interactive video, AI and machine learning.

All of these trends are going to grow in 2019. In fact, there has never been a more exciting time to be a web developer. So what’s next for our ever-evolving web? 2019 will be all about delivering on Emotionally Intelligence: to deliver personalized, convenient, and meaningful moments on the web.

Here are the top Website Design trends that I predict will be huge in 2019:

 

1. Instant-loading Mobile-first Design

Web Performance plays a major role in the success of any website, especially on mobile. Mobile-first In 2019, you will no longer need a website that is just responsive; you will need one that is mobile-first, loads instantly and feels like a native App. Because of this, PWAs are likely to become the new standard for mobile app development. A Progressive Web App (PWA) is a web application that gives an app-like experience to its users. And, PWA makes this happen with the use of modern web technologies. This means PWAs work exactly the same as the Native mobile apps and even you can use it the way you want- either like a PWA or a Native app. PWAs are also relatively easy to develop, and it’s likely that a developer will have the skills to create them.

Considering that over half of Google’s searches are performed from smartphones and 53% of mobile users will leave your site if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Not having a fast mobile-optimized website means potentially forfeiting many site visitors. This year I’ve spoken on Web Performance at several events this year. It’s important to measure, optimize and monitor your performance to continue loading fast and keeping users happy after your site has launched.”

Your web hosting plays the most important role in your website’s speed. If your host is slow, then no matter what you try on your website, your page load speed will remain below average. I found SiteGround to be a fast, reliable, and customer friendly hosting company.

 

2. Real-time Personalization

Ever wonder how websites seem to just know you and your interests? It’s called real-time personalization, a tool that customizes your content based on your customers’ characteristics and behaviors. A personalized user experience helps one stand out in the oversaturated market. The most traditional way of personalization is referring to users by their name or presenting relevant content using keyword-matching strategy. Airbnb and Netflix successfully does this using some complex algorithm which monitors users viewing history and user ratings. As real-time website personalization becomes increasingly popular, the number of available tools (dynamicyield, qubit) to help online marketers implement it has grown. By using tools that extend the core functionalities of content management systems, digital marketers have more control over their websites and a greater ability to target specific visitors with specific content.

 

3. Mobile Micro-Interactions

Motion creates emotions. Micro-interactions play an important role in user engagement and usability. Taking the time to understand and fine-tune very specific interactions can make your website feel alive.

in 2019, web pages will heavily feature their more interactive incarnations. Hover and scrolling animations, chimes, and much more. All in all, this is a way to involve your audience in your website, to subtly transmit information to the users about their actions and usage, and make web pages feel a little smarter. Check out how to create micro-interactions from Adobe XD to Webflow and translate your designs and prototypes into live, fully functional websites.

 

4. Voice Search Optimization

In 2018, we saw an uptick in voice search via Google Home, Amazon Alexa, 2019 is expected to continue on that same upward trajectory. Similar to how content marketers had to tweak content to be more search engine optimization (SEO)-friendly, voice search optimization will be important in the coming years.

Write headlines in the form of questions that someone would ask their smart device. Use Q&A structured data for Question & Answer pages to amplify the display of a search result among many other search results.

 

5. Emotional Intelligent A.I. Assistants

Chatbots have been up-and-coming for a while now but will finally move into the spotlight in 2019. Amazon and Google are both working on adding Emotional intelligence to their digital assistants making them as human-like as possible. At I/O 2018 early this year, Google showed a duplex conversation carried out by its digital assistant where the machine interface was able to produce human emotions like “mmhmmm” in the conversation.

Emotional Intelligence is the ability to detect, understand and act on the emotions of ourselves and others. It allows us to understand and work with one another and is fundamental to how we understand and navigate our world. Improving our own emotional intelligence leads to a brighter, less scary future for conversational assistants like Alexa and Siri.

Facebook Chat, Drift and Intercom are amazing tools to help you convert visitors into leads. I’m currently using the free tier from Drift and it’s great.

 

6. AI-infused Web Design

Building a webpage is going to be less stressful. Forget drag and drop, just talk to an A.I. assistant to automatically decides the color, theme, and style of your website. Platforms like Adobe Sensei, Microsoft Sketch2Code, The Grid, Firedrop and Wix’s ADI. AI integrated website builders are Automating web development put less stress on the web developers.

One big area where you can start using AI is SEO and content optimization. AI-powered tools like Frase, Hubspot and Grammarly can help you create content strategies that are actually backed by data, not gut instinct, in a fraction of the time to improve your ranking potential. SEMrush, Buzzsumo, Answer the Public helps you to optimize for both AI and SEO

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning will help us to discover hidden opportunities, make tedious processes fast and offer relevant experiences to every customer. The next milestone for AI in web development is to develop self-improving applications that can think beyond the limits of human thinking. AI helping us to work better, smarter and faster.

 

7. Extended reality (XR)

Virtual reality videos will shape the future of web design. Finally, there’s extended reality (XR), which is arguably the most emergent of the current VR technologies. In essence, XR looks to combine Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Mixed Reality (MR), and everything in between. Mobile Extended Reality XR has the potential to become one of the world’s most ubiquitous and disruptive computing platforms—similar to the smartphone today.

extended reality XR

 

8. Interactive 3D Content & Video

2019 videos and 3D content will be bolder and more eye-catching than ever. 3D photos and videos, allowing the viewer to be closer to the action and create a new kind of experience. Google recently changed its search algorithm to push websites with video content higher on search engine returns than standard pages. Video not only diversifies the page but caters to an on-the-go audience who don’t have the time to scan through a lot of text.You can also tell an entire brand story with one video without using any words at all. Viewers will stick around to watch the video if it has captured their attention and are proven to increase website conversions. Platforms like YouTube VR, Google Blocks, Facebook 360 enables captivating and immersive storytelling.

VR experiences have the power to capture the imagination and draw viewers into an entertaining and immersive experience. This year, Elton John and his team digitally recreated two of his most memorable concert performances from the ground up in VR to promote his upcoming 2018 farewell tour.

 

9. Interactive storytelling

2019 will be the year of using data to tell a meaningful story. One of the proven techniques to engage visitors on the web is through storytelling. One way to differentiate your design is to plan it in a manner that it tells compelling stories. storytelling lights up more of your brain, which helps you remember things better. Therefore, a leading trend of 2019 will revolve around further strengthening web design with Interactive storytelling. Web designers can improve user experiences by introducing storytelling through VR or AR technology. In this interactive 360° experience by KLM it’s easy to picture yourself in the most beautiful places in the world.

 

10. Emotional design

The abundance of information we are encountering and our resulting lack of attention. Brands need to work harder and create more intense and emotional experiences to catch our attention.

The #1 way to increase conversion on your store is by creating an emotional experience and connection with your customers to the product. People don’t buy products, they buy feelings. In 2019, people will be more than just data points. The biggest design trend will be a return to a more human, emotional, expressive design.

Emotional design happens on three levels: the visceral, behavioral, and reflective. The reflective is how the product will make us feel and be perceived by others, which Tesla addresses with its video content that puts the car into a real-life context, making it easier for the user to imagine the feeling of owning a Tesla.

 

This leaves me with my favorite quote by Maya Angelou. She said, People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

So, what’s the trend that gets you psyched for 2019? Share your thoughts. Happy holidays, my friend. Appreciate you. And excited to build our empires together in 2019. 🙌

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