7 Best Web Design Practices for 2019

2018 was a big year for website design.

Apps and websites began to overhaul their user interfaces, reflecting a more modern, clean-cut look audiences loved.

Themes from 2018 are rolling into 2019, with a lot of exciting new adaptations.

Companies and brands are learning more about their users than ever before, creating highly developed designs based on consumer preferences.

In 2019, website design has a stronger focus on accessibility than ever before. Designers are working hard to make mobile apps and websites more user-friendly for everyone, regardless of their physical limitations.

With so many incredible website design concepts dominating today’s market, it’s easy to believe we’ve achieved the pinnacle of creating beautiful apps and websites. But 2019 is proving that wrong – just look at Facebook’s new design, for example.

In this guide, we’ll take a look at some of our favorite website design tips for 2019 that will help you stay on trend with your audience. Some of these are similar to trends from 2018, but there are notable differences between common practices of last year and today.

Let’s dive in.

Use Flat Design

It looks like flat website design is here to stay in 2019.

Google popularized flat design years ago and today it’s one of the most widely used standards for website design. In fact, many mobile applications and sites without flat website design look dated and less user-friendly. By implementing bright colors, simple illustrations, and open space in your websites or apps, you create a modern look audiences love.

Flat website design works for a wide variety of reasons. Looking good is only one benefit of using flat design – it’s also more suitable for users from the UX perspective.

When you incorporate flat design, you can reduce clutter on your web page, helping your audience navigate more easily and focus on the most important content.

The simple two-dimensional illustrations that characterize flat website design require much less data to load than high-resolution images. For this reason, many designers and brands prefer them to speed up the user’s experience.

Ultimately, we recommend flat website design because it more than just a trend – it’s functional and it can greatly improve a brand’s online presence.

Embrace Bright and Lively Colors During Website Development

Color preference for website design and mobile applications changes as regularly as seasonal colors in the fashion industry.

One year, website design may emphasize soft, neutral tones and the next use pastels or bold colors.

In 2019, we recommend using bright and lively colors in your website design scheme. Users are responding well to vibrant looks with high-contrast imagery, as opposed to the one-dimensional monotone schemes of the mid-2010’s.

Don’t believe us?

Look around you: brands everywhere are using bold colors on their commercials and websites to stand out from the competition.

We also recommend looking at 2019’s most popular fashion collections. You’ll notice an abundance of metallic colors, vibrant neon, and angular shapes.

Consider reading about color psychology and incorporating some of the information into your website development plan.

Depending on your goal and your vision, you may choose blue tones to evoke trust or yellow imagery to build credibility. It’s up to you – that’s the beauty of website development and creating your website from scratch.

It can be challenging to work with bright colors at first, especially if you’re used to neutral tones. But working with vibrant designs can be a fun challenge and a great way to express your creativity.

Include Micro-Interactions

The term “micro-interactions” speaks for itself: they’re the tiny animations on websites that make all the difference

They’ve been a major part of website development trends for years and remain important in 2019. They give your website design life, capturing users’ attention and keeping them interested

When you feature micro interactions correctly, they can be a powerful tool for driving engagement. They play an important role in the user experience and make the high-quality website and mobile applications stand apart from their competitors

Generally, websites integrate micro-interactions with their clickable elements. Think about hovering your mouse over a menu, only to see the menu open automatically with a smooth transition.
However, you can be creative with your website development strategy and use micro interactions in many unique ways

If you’re using micro-interactions, remember less is more. The key is to let these elements complement the page, not dominate the experience. If you make them too drastic or obvious and they make the user experience more complex, you make drive away users.

Make Your Web Design Mobile-Friendly

If you’ve been designing or managing websites for a while, you already know how important mobile-friendly experiences are for the user. In fact, mobile friendliness plays a major role in modern website development trends.

Today, mobile-friendly websites set the bar for expectations – it’s no longer a luxury for brands to optimize their site for smartphone and tablet browsers.

But in 2019, designing mobile-friendly websites is more important than ever.

Mobile-friendliness is more than a courtesy for your site visitor – it’s a requirement for Google.

That’s right: Google considers a website’s mobile performance when it ranks search results pages.

According to CIODive, 70% of all internet traffic is generated on mobile devices. If your website isn’t optimized for these devices, you’re losing a lot of potential traffic.

Google wants its users to have the best experience possible from their most highly ranked results, so pages with mobile-friendly features are more likely to reach the first page.

How can you make a website mobile-friendly?

  • Use responsive design so it will automatically adapt to whichever device the person is using to access the site
  • Make key information easier for users to see
  • Replace Flash with HTML5 media (Flash isn’t relevant anymore because it doesn’t play well with SEO)
  • Include a viewport meta tag
  • Turn off autocorrect for your email/address forms where uncommon words may be corrected, slowing down the sign-up process
  • Make buttons large enough to use on mobile and include tappable elements
  • Use large fonts
  • Feature a quick way to access ‘desktop view’

For beginner designers, tools like Squarespace and Wix include specialized tools for mobile optimization.

Feature Chatbots on Your Website

When you design A website, one of the most important things you should ask yourself is why are people coming to your website and what are they searching for?

In many cases, your visitors have one or 2 questions when they visit your website that you can answer in a few moments.

The longer your visitors need to wait for these simple answers, the more frustrated they’ll be. The more quickly you can answer them, the more satisfied they’ll be with your website in your brand.’
This is where chatbots come in.

Many digital marketers and eCommerce store owners believe that chatbots are the way of the future. They give website administrators a chance to interact with visitors in real time without hiring extensive customer service staff.

Let’s say one of your site visitors wants to know about your refund policy.

Your refund policy probably isn’t on the first page of your website. Most likely, it’s buried under other pages your visitors need to click through to find answers.

Now think about how chatbots and clever website development can solve this problem.

Your customers can enter simple queries and get immediate answers.’
For example, visitors can ask the chatbot about your brand’s refund policy and get help without navigating through multiple pages of your website.

Ideally, chatbots should make informational searches easier for users. Instead of browsing your site for a few minutes, looking for answers and moving on when they don’t find them, your site visitors can get the information they need right away.

This could positively impact your conversions, as your site visitors stay on your website longer once they’ve gotten the information, they need from the chatbot.

Chatbots are relatively easy to set up and are available from dozens of developers. Consider adding one to your website to improve the user experience and streamline their informational and navigational searches.

Make Your Website Accessible

As a website owner, you want to attract as many visitors as you can. However, you might not think about ways your website excludes visitors with certain disabilities or special needs.

There are millions of people using the web who rely on accessibility to navigate the internet, and if you don’t address their needs, you’re both missing out.

In an ideal world, everyone would be able to use every website on the internet. It wouldn’t matter if they had chronic health conditions that impact their capabilities – It would be possible for everyone to enjoy the web without limitations.

This drives the web accessibility concept. Today, thousands of designers and brands are considering accessibility when they plan their website development strategy.

By leaving out the millions of Internet users with impairments and special needs that makes using the web challenging, you’re missing out on a key part of your audience.

The most common conditions that affect the way people use web sites include

  • Vision impairments like blindness or inability to perceive colors and color contrasts
  • Hearing impairment, like deafness
  • Difficulties using motor skills
  • Epilepsy and photosensitive seizure
  • Cognitive conditions like dyslexia

These conditions might seem rare to you, but there real to countless people. They want to use the web as easily as those without impairments, and if you use all the tools at your disposal, you can make that a reality.

Making your website accessible means addressing each of these common conditions through smart website development. Start by making your site keyboard friendly.

Many assistive technologies use keyboard navigation as opposed to a mouse Fort ease of use. For this reason, all your websites important teachers should be accessible via keyboard if a mouse isn’t present. This includes your content, links, web pages, etc.

If your website or content features images, use alternative text or alternative descriptions to help your visitors ‘read’ the picture. when a person with vision impairments visit your website, this alternative text can give them context where they would otherwise miss out.

Speaking of vision impairments and website development, it’s important to choose your color scheme carefully.

Color blindness is a common Condition that affects the spectrum of color a person perceives. If the colors in your website don’t contrast well enough, it may be difficult for some individuals to distinguish between different elements on your page.

Fortunately, the Internet features plenty of tools to help website designers test color combinations for audiences with vision impairments. Contrast checker is one of the most popular, giving more website a real-time score based on your color choices. It also lets you see your website in a monochrome scheme to get a clearer idea of how well your color combinations work together.

Emphasize Speed and Performance

Think about when you surf the web or shop online. How long are you willing to wait for a web page to load before you go back to the search results page and choose another site?

If you’re like most people, you won’t wait long. In fact, more than half of all consumers expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or fewer. If you aren’t meeting these expectations, you could lose site visitors before they ever see your content.

Speed is also important for ranking high on Google’s search engine results pages. The experts at Google know that users like websites that load quickly. If your page has a high bounce rate, Google is less likely to rank it highly in its index compared to competitors with better loading times.

Fortunately, with expert website development, you can make this work in your favor.

If you want your website to be faster, there are a few things you can do to make it happen:

  • Use WordPress plug-ins sparingly. Try to avoid them when possible because they can have a significant impact on your site’s load times. If there’s an easy way to use a feature without a plugin, opt for the alternative.
  • Cut down on external scripts that could slow down your website. These include some icon sets, external commenting systems, pop-up lead capturing tools, website analytic services, and external fonts. You don’t need to eliminate these completely for your website to load quickly but re-evaluate them if you’re struggling with a high bounce rate.
  • Use page caching to store static files and improve your loading times for repeat visitors. First-time visitors won’t take advantage of this feature, but it can be an excellent way to speed up your site for consistent users.
  • Find and eliminate any webpage baggage that could be slowing down your site during website development. This may include excessively large databases, backups, and old code that’s accumulated on your website.
  • Use simple imagery and make visual content internet friendly. Don’t upload your highest resolution photos – compress them into a smaller size and crop the image as necessary before uploading it to your site. If you don’t optimize your images, you may slow down your website significantly.

Final Thoughts

Website development is ever-changing, but there are a few trends in 2019 you can follow to guarantee your website will resonate with visitors and turn casual users into long-term brand loyalists.

What are your tips for website development in 2019? What suggestions do you have for other brands to improve their website design? Let us know in the comments below!

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D2 Branding provides exceptional website development in Tulsa, Oklahoma and the surrounding areas. For a complimentary 15-minute marketing consultation with D2 Branding, call us today at 918-520-8012 or visit our website at www.D2Branding.com.

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