In a world where the average human’s attention span is just 8.25 seconds, down from 12 seconds as recorded in the year 2000, keeping people engaged in anything is an almighty challenge.
Every website’s basic aim is to keep people on it for long enough so they’re persuaded to take some kind of action. This could be buying a product, signing up for a service like a newsletter or simply learning new information.
The year ahead promises to bring new trends in website design that are already proving to be popular and successful. Whether you’re building a website from scratch to support your business launch or you know your old website is in desperate need of a refresh, here are some key trends to implement in 2023.
One vital focus for organisations is ensuring their websites are accessible and available to people with disabilities so that they do not exclude anyone from using them. A total of 15% of people in the world are living with a disability, according to the World Health Organisation, and Pew Research found that 23% of disabled respondents to their survey “never” go online. There are a number of different elements to focus on when making your website accessible, including:
Adding engaging, even fun features to your website is a great way to keep users on your website as long as it’s appropriate. Cue the arrival of the animated cursor. It’s subtle yet effective – a small added touch that can make a user’s experience a bit more unique. You could change the form of the cursor or even introduce cursor-triggered animations that users can enjoy interacting with. And one sub-trend of this is ‘scrollytelling’, which refers to when websites use animations as you scroll down the page to make the experience more engaging.
Just like that age-old presentation technique of asking the audience a question, including interactive elements on your website is an excellent way to keep users interested In fact, Mediafly found a huge 88% of marketers say having interactive content helps a brand differentiate themselves. There are many different ways to make your website. Here is a list of popular interactive additions:
As websites can now track users’ details like their location and browsing history, they can choose to feed them personalised content based on their preferences. This has been proven to increase conversion rates, with Econsultancy finding that four in five companies reported an uplift since they invested in personalisation.
Personalised content is especially important for e-commerce websites. A shopping site could save products that users like or add to their baskets. Then when they revisit the website it would remind the user of what they were interested in before and give them another chance to buy it. Many big brands already do this.
The longer that the digital world has been around, the more that becomes possible within it. One possible danger of this could be making your website overly complicated. If the website either looks too busy and confusing, or is too difficult to use, people will likely click off it and look elsewhere. Users want websites that are easy to navigate, where they can find information quickly and easily. This is easily achievable if you think carefully about the information you are including on your website, avoid waffling and space it all out.
Many businesses are already experimenting with some of these trends to refresh their websites, improve the user experience and make the site easier for developers to manage. Alongside already important features of web design, such as optimising sites for mobile and using colour effectively, it’s likely these five trends will see a significant increase across web design in 2023.
If you’re looking for an evolving web agency, that keeps up with the latest trends to bring you innovative designs, get in touch with our team today.
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