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Website design trends 2023 are not really anything new, but an evolution and continued growth from what we’ve been seeing the last 3 years. Since the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020 people have been spending a lot more time online and using the internet to find information about everything. Because of this, users expect a lot more out of the websites that they’re visiting. My big predictions for web design trends in 2023 are that websites need to be fast, secure, have good design, and create a good user experience.
Dynamic and parallax scrolling
Using scrolling effects on your website makes the page appear to be more interactive. It allows website designers the ability to add motion to a web page without adding videos which have the potential to slow down the site. You should use dynamic scrolling elements when you want the user to keep scrolling, to visually break up sections, or to add elements of interest. Dynamic scrolling adds visual interest because the human eye is drawn to movement. Parallax scrolling is the most popular of the dynamic scrolling techniques because it allows different page elements to scroll at different speeds. Just like everything fun, new, or interesting, don’t overuse dynamic scrolling because it can become distracting and uncomfortable to users in large quantities. Like all good design elements, less is more.
Chatbots
At this point in our online journeys, we’ve all most likely come across or have used chatbots on websites. Chatbots have become a website design trend for 2023 because they are a great tool to make use of on many websites because they can greatly increase conversions. One of the most popular uses of chatbots is to provide customer support. Customers can have their questions answered instantaneously without having to write an inquiry email and wait for a response from whoever is monitoring the website. Once a website visitor interacts with a chatbot, that anonymous visitor is turned into a hot lead that the site owner can then follow up with. Some new, exciting chatbot technology to keep an eye on are fully AI chatbots such as ChatGPT. Using ChatGPT and other fully AI chatbots will become more interesting as they are developed further.
Faster loading time
As always, a website can never load too fast. The faster the better. 3 seconds is a load time that has been thrown around a lot as a time for a website to load under, but there are so many variables to that number. The goal should always be to make the site as fast as possible.
Website Hosting
One way to ensure that you have a fast-loading website is to choose a performance-based hosting solution. Website hosting matters. Slow or shared hosting may be a cheaper option, but they can both have a negative impact on your website speed. Site speed directly correlates to Google rankings. Get fast, managed WordPress hosting from Flywheel for as low as $13/mo.
Compress and Optimize Images
Besides bad hosting, images are the number one cause of slow websites. There is an easy fix to this most common of problems. You can compress and optimize images before you put them onto the website or you can use a plugin that will convert images for you after they’re already on the website. Website images generally don’t need to be bigger than 2000 pixels (px). Professional images or photos taken on a smartphone can easily be 10,000px, which is 5 times bigger than they need to be for a website. Think about the area that you’re using an image for and re-size the image accordingly. Most images are saved as .jpg or .png files. By converting those extensions to a next-gen format like a .webp file, the images will be able to load faster on the website.
Additional Ways to Have Faster Loading Websites
Redirects are when you have users going to a certain URL, but then they get taken to another URL, and so on and so forth. URL re-directs are useful in keeping SEO when you change page names in a website update, but too much bouncing around will slow down server response time and therefore website speed.
Caching is the process of storing copies of files in temporary locations. Having caching enabled on a website speeds up page load time. You want your website to have caching enabled so that when repeat users come to your website, their experience is as fast as possible because pieces of your website content are stored on closer servers or on the user’s computer for faster load times.
Lazy loading is the process of having only the necessary parts of a website load initially. The elements of your website that don’t appear on the first screen of your website can be lazily loaded meaning that the user’s computer doesn’t have to load those elements right away which makes the parts that they do see first, load even faster.
Accessibility as a Web Design Trend in 2023
Web accessibility is the inclusive practice of ensuring that all people are able to use your website. It is currently estimated that about 10% of the world’s population (or 650 million people) have some form of disability. Besides alienating the largest minority from using your website, user accessibility or inaccessibility can greatly impact your SEO for the better or worse.
The most basic of website accessibility that you should consider is having a proper heading structure. All web pages should be set up like a term paper outline with the main page heading, sub-headings, sub-sub-headings, and paragraph information. All fonts should be easily readable. Very decorative fonts and very small fonts make it hard for users to read the information on a website. Having good color contrast between backgrounds and the text over top also goes to have good readability. Like using poor fonts, using poor color contrast makes it difficult for users to read the information on a website. Properly labeling buttons and links also helps the user experience. Simply having a button say ‘Click here’ is not enough information to let the user know what they are clicking on. If a user doesn’t know what will happen when they click on a button or link, they are less likely to click. All images need to have alt text. This issue is 2-fold. Adding descriptive alt text to images is a great way to include more information on the website for extra searchability. It also allows people with visual impairments and using a screen reader to be told what is in the image. Contact 2 Dogs and a Laptop to book your website optimizations and accessibility check.
Frosted Glass Effect (Glassmorphism)
This is the hottest trend in web design at the moment. It started to be used with more frequency in 2021, and in the last 2 years, web designers have experimented with and expanded the use of the frosted glass effect in website design. The frosted glass effect uses a combination of gaussian blur, shadow, and transparency to mimic frosted glass. There are so many good applications for this – backgrounds, highlighting design elements, icons, and making certain pieces of information pop. This effect goes a long way in adding dimension to otherwise simple designs.
Good Use of White Space
As with any good design, less is more. Making good use of white space tells the eyes what information is important. It allows the website user to be led from one element on a page to another and adds balance to a page. Good web design should be simple and uncluttered so that the user can easily find the important information they are looking for.
Privacy and Security
Internet privacy and security are more important now than ever before. Users want to know what information they are sharing, who is seeing that information, and what is being done with the information. All websites must now have an SSL certificate. How can you tell if your website has an SSL certificate? If your website is secure it will have the https:// the (s) is what tells you that your site is secure. If you don’t have an SSL certificate most browsers will no longer let users access your website. You definitely won’t be appearing in any Google searches.
Why do you need internet privacy policies, terms and conditions, end-user license agreements, disclaimers, and cookie policies? They limit your company’s online liability. There are 6 new internet privacy laws coming out in 2023 in addition to the ones that already exist. A website is not only bound by the internet privacy laws in the state of the owner of the website, but by the privacy laws of the state or country, the website user is coming from. More and more websites are displaying cookie policies. A cookie policy tells users how they are being tracked on a website and asks the user if they consent to be tracked on a given website. If a website uses any kind of analytics tracker, which most do these days, then the website needs a cookie policy because it is tracking user data. If your website is in need of policies, you can get 10% off your first year of policies with Termageddon.
Conclusion of Website Design Trends 2023
Your website is a living asset for your business. Technology and design practices are ever-evolving, so your website should never be a set-it-and-forget-it marketing tool. It is best to look at updating your website every 2-3 years, especially if your business has gone through big growth or changes.
Remember to use these website design trends of 2023 to update your website:
- Dynamic Scrolling
- Chatbots
- Fast load times
- Accessible
- Frosted glass effect
- Good use of white space
- Privacy and security
Book an appointment today with 2 Dogs and a Laptop Website Design & Development to find out if your website is keeping up with the 2023 website design trends.
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