WordPress Tips

Website design trends change quickly. Design elements and website functionalities that were hot and innovative in 2021 will likely become overdone in 2022. You don’t want to lose customers because your website looks outdated or functions poorly when compared to competitors.

Website Design Trends for 2022

We have compiled a list of what we believe will be the top trends for website design in the coming year. These include the latest innovations, digital technology trends, website standards, and some forecasts for 2022.

Voice-Activated Interface

Speech-to-text. Text-to-speech. The way we access information is changing – instead of typing into Google, we now ask a question or make a demand. This means web design is adjusting to keep up with the prevalence of voice chatbots and virtual assistants. While a voice-activated interface isn’t commonplace for most websites, this emerging trend isn’t going anywhere in the foreseeable future. We can expect to see more and more websites integrating voice search as an option to traditional text search.

Accessibility and Availability

Inclusivity and accessibility are more than a trend, but there is a growing need for web design to factor in the needs of people with disabilities. Having a site that every visitor can navigate and interact with is more than just part of good customer service and providing an excellent experience. It can increase conversion, boost your SEO, and help you reach a bigger audience.

Elements that improve accessibility include:

• Creating strong color contrast between text and backgrounds;
• Adding focus indicators, such as the rectangular outline that shows up around links when using keyboard navigation;
• Using labels and instructions with form fields rather than low-context placeholder text;
• Using functional alt tags for images

Website Load Time and Page Speed Will be Critical

We all know how important web design is to quick loading times. These are crucial factors in UX and SEO and have been for years. It will continue to be a top priority for websites to rank well and have higher conversion rates.

Studies show that at least 50% of internet browsers expect a website to load fast and no more than two seconds after clicking a link. If it takes more than three seconds to load your site, your visitors most likely will leave, and it’s likely they’ll never be back.

Website performance has a direct impact on your company’s bottom line. Pinterest reduced perceived wait times by 40%, and this increased search engine traffic and sign-ups by 15%. Make sure your web design company focuses on “conversions, conversions, conversions.” Website loading times are a standard metric we look at to ensure a good user experience.

Personalized Content Using Geolocation and Browsing History

Perhaps you have visited a website and then come back to it a few hours or days later to see that the content has changed. When you pull it up on your phone for the first time or on another browser, you see the original content you saw the first time you visited the website.

It’s no secret, most advanced websites track your browsing history and know our locations. But innovative web designers will advise their customers to display dynamic content, content based on past user behavior, or what we know about a user. Not generic content made to serve everyone. Custom content created for users returning to your website for a second or third time can increase conversion.

Personalized content is probably more important for e-commerce website owners. Displaying recently viewed, saved, or liked products for online shoppers can lead to increased conversions. Highlighting abandoned cart contents for returning customers is also crucial to maintaining a higher conversion rate.

Without realizing it, personalized website content has become more expected by users; and it will be an even more dominant focus for a successful web presence.

Interactivity

Adding interactive sections to your website is a great way to provide value for visitors, get them to engage with your website, and learn more about them.

Suppose you were a realtor and added a mortgage calculator to your website. You’re offering value to your visitors while also learning more about them based on the data being inputted into your calculator.

Examples of interactive marketing include:

• Quizzes
• Polls and surveys
• Calculators
• Contests

Data Visualization

Communicating data in an engaging way is a struggle. But the struggle is worth it, because using data visualization takes advantage of the fact that humans are visual creatures, and still conveys the message you need to get across. Data visualization creates images out of your data that engage your reader and makes them want to learn more about your brand. Infographics and graphs are some of the most popular ways to bring data to life.

Illustrations

Sometimes browsing the web feels like seeing the same stock photo used across many websites. It can make a website feel generic and bland.

Custom illustrations can help your website stand out and feel like something fresh to website visitors. Since you will be creating illustrations from scratch, they can more accurately represent your company and branding and enhance the page’s subject matter.

Minimalism

Minimalism isn’t a new trend in web design. Still, it has typically been associated with a lot of white space (think Apple.) In 2022, we expect web design to use minimalism but use color rather than white space.

A great example of a site that does colorful minimalism well is Shopify. Each page of their website features a bold background color with clean text and minimal design elements to create an attention-grabbing and easy-on-the-eyes page. They’re proof that minimalism doesn’t have to be stark or boring.

Using Color to Evoke Specific Moods

Using color to evoke certain moods will be significant in 2022. Color psychology, the study of color’s impact on human behavior, has been around for centuries, and marketers have used it to help sell for nearly as long.

While the way we interpret colors has a lot to do with our perceptions, some general feelings are associated with colors. For example, green typically denotes nature and natural products while red symbolizes energy and passion.

Smart Video

Video has long been touted as a must-have for websites. It’s because they work. It’s the most effective online marketing tool. While video is great, it needs to be well planned. That’s what smart video is about: video with a purpose and meaning. One well-thought-out, high-quality video is better than a dozen haphazardly assembled ones.

Text-Only Hero Images

Newspapers always put their most eye-catching, important information “above the fold” to increase sales. The website equivalent of this is at the top of a page and is called the “hero section.” A current trend to catch internet users’ attention who are bombarded by different web pages every day is removing the typical background image in the hero section and replacing it with eye-catching typography. A bold, unique font could be just the thing to get a user’s attention quickly.

Bold Fonts

Visiting a lot of websites for leading corporations will show you that bold typography is on-trend. With heavy, bold fonts, the reader is instantly aware of the message, not necessarily the imagery. Combining these large fonts with neutral colors further emphasizes the headlines, quickly becoming an “image” of their own.