Web Design Trends to Try in 2018 — Open Designs India

The internet world began decades back and there have been as many competitors who survived, died and still struggling. All that they were have been striving for is to capture the minds of the millions of users and make browsing, the UI, and the process in short, the web design as efficient as it could be.

The design keeps changing. It’s minute and sometimes negligible that you never notice it distinctly, but every day there is some background changes that keeps going on. But you may be unable to list out the differences all of a sudden, but try comparing with a 1995 version and the 2005 version. In a massive comparison, it’s certain that drastic changes have been made in the gap. But if you look at the actual change graph, it will be very subtle that the one that worked 5 years back would no more be efficient right now.

Though the shifts are slow paced, paying heed to it is worth it. In fact, you could even understand the shifts in the user’s expectations and minds.

Well, if you aren’t the sort of a great web designer rather a plain and incapable of predetermining the outcomes of your design, sadly you might have to regret that your website might die anytime. But, you can save yourself from the end point by going through the web design trends of 2018.

It’s the old formula that surprisingly still works only because it’s the predominant factor that is responsible for users’ experience.

How nice your website talks back and please the users?

- Is it mobile friendly

• Desktop users are very scanty compared to the mobile users. Fast paced people wouldn’t stick around your site if it’s got a poor mobile performance.
• Provide mobile app facility making it easier for the users to be in touch with you.
• Make it as responsive as it could be. Even the new users should find the navigation to be very simple.

- Business oriented approach

Intimidated by the amount of work t be done in the backstage? Then buy responsive templates from a third party and half your work is done.

It’s not new, in fact it’s parent, the auto-play video feature, as part of the web page had already made its history. But instead of using them, you could rather use animations in your page.

• Eye catchy animation
• Try something humorous that matches the site content
• Make sure it’s not distracting the main content

This has high chances of driving interest in the users to do some research with the product.

This is an extended concept of animation. Focus on the possible smallest movement reflex actions for which you can add some animated functionalities.

• Opening of a link
• Think of mouse actions like mouse hovering.
• Submit buttons — once the user submits form pages, the popups like “thank you” or any other greeting message can be made with some animation.
• Waiting time lapse- Sometimes, the search load may take some time. In that time delay, you could add animated stuffs that fill the time delay.

Even though it’s a minor change that you bring about, the animation triggers will enhance the user experience.

Let them know your success stories. Don’t make it look like you are boasting, rather let the content create trust among the visitors. It’s good that you tell them how great your works are and let them know you are worth the time they spent at your site.

• Share your past works
• Let them know your style — Provide sample works

By showing your works, they will gain confidence to approach you.

It was long back a conventional design pattern to have sharp perfect corners. But now, edges are more pleasing.

• Softer design- Straight cuts look more professional whereas the edge curves are more casual.
• Edge shape — The 2018 trend setting design pattern is anything that would not be too plain and straight. Curvy edges for whatever portion is adapted.

Yes, the personality of your website depends on various factors one of which being the illustrations.

The most easiest way is using Stock Photography. But this is not going to anything unique. It would rather be simple and more like just another website.

• So what should you do?
• Go for Original Illustrations — This definitely pays you in the long run
• Customize the illustrations — Make it unique to your business
• Hire an artist — This might be a little expensive but worth spending for you have surprising benefits.

Instead of a very professional font like Times New Roman, you may try something that’s a bit funky, stylish and legible. Choose the best and distinct color palette for your site.

• Should be legible
• Shouldn’t be cozy
• Consistency of Font

The style shouldn’t be the spoiler of the site. Make it classy and trendy.

One such font is the “Comic Sans MS” which is a very subtle font that suits even mobile architectures.

This is a peculiar use in websites to have an asymmetric design. Since this isn’t common yet, you can show some uniqueness in your website.

But this choice may give complications to the responsive capabilities. Yet, this is an interesting way of showcasing your page.

This design indeed gives a surprise not to the first time visitors but the ones who left and came back after a while. A while could be ranging from days to months.

This has got a lot of work for the designers to carry out during design period but once the homework is done, it’s certain that the audience who left and came back are going to have a feel of attachment towards your site and eventually start venturing.

Why should the navigation pane be fixed?

Make it available at places where it may be required. Choose areas where the content requires the navigation pane and include the menu there.

This will be visible even when scrolled. This is another distinctive way of keeping your website stand out amidst the crowd.

Originally published at https://www.opendesignsin.com on November 7, 2018.