7-minute read
Every year, there are a different set of trends that overtake the web design industry and become the most in-demand qualities for websites to have. Staying on top of these trends is vital because otherwise your website can quickly fall into obscurity and become plagued with outdated techniques that harm its performance. So make sure that your website is up to speed on all the test best practices by reading about these four biggest web design trends of 2020.
Site Accessibility
Many people who aren’t web designers by trade tend to think that they only need to ensure that their website looks good to the average person and is easy for them to use. However, there is an entire group of people that they are ignoring by only following this specific guideline.
Disabled individuals make up about 26 percent of adults throughout the United States. Whether this includes mobility issues, cognitive issues, hearing issues, vision issues, or other common disabilities, they are all things that could prevent someone from having full access to a website. If you are not taking note of the needs of these individuals when developing your website, then you will be alienating a large number of potential customers.
Making your site more accessible to everyone has become a rallying cry in 2020 and is something that involves taking a large number of steps. Some of the most common steps for increasing site accessibility include adding good alt text to your images, adding significant contrast between the text and background colors used throughout the site, and so much more. By following these various steps, you can help make sure that your site can be used by anyone at any time, no matter what disabilities they might have. We have also partnered with a company (AccessiBe) who are experts in this field and have developed an incredible tool to help keep your site ADA compliant at all times.
No-Code Tools
If you were wanting to build a website even 15 or 20 years ago, then it was something that usually required you to have an intimate knowledge of coding. However, the landscape of web design has since gone through some very drastic changes and is much more accessible to even those who do not have any experience with coding.
These are known as no-code tools and are something that has become a big resource for anyone looking to build a website for their business. These services allow you to go into their program and create an entire functioning website or app by simply dragging and dropping various elements. By using one of these visual builders, you can create a website much faster and it will end up being consequently cheaper as well.
Even though these tools have existed in large numbers for several years, they are really starting to ramp up in popularity now due to the number of options that they now offer users. Trying to use a lot of these no-code tools five or six years ago meant that you had very few elements and styles to choose between. But any of the big resources now have a seemingly endless number of options available.
More Marquees
Just like any other industry, some of the web design trends include bringing back an element or practice that was once popular but has since fallen out of favor. The perfect example of this is the resurgence of marquees on websites in 2020.
This web design element was once popular several years ago but was then phased out by the majority of designers. However, the pendulum has now swung back and marquees are being used on a fairly significant number of websites, and not just for the nostalgia element.
Incorporating nostalgia into your website can be useful because it is able to help attract the attention of the viewer, they allow longer text to be easily fitted into a smaller space, they can help fill out thin spaces, and they have a distinctive retro vibe to them.
Emphasize Transparency
Transparency has always been an important part of running a business. However, now that we are in a post-fake news world, it has become even more vital. In fact, 90 percent of Americans believe that it is more important for a company to be transparent now than ever before. This practice of transparency is something that should extend to all elements of their operations, including the website. This means that you need to develop your website in a way that helps your company be as transparent as possible.
There are many different ways that this can be accomplished. For example, you should try and put some text directly underneath any sponsored posts saying that it is sponsored content. This will allow readers to know that there is going to be a partial bias in the content contained in the article.
Another strategy that you might want to consider is making your sources very easy to find. If you state a fact within any of your web content, whether it is a landing page or a blog post, then you should say who or what you got it from. You should even think about linking directly to it to help make tracking down the source easier for the viewer. When someone is able to follow your train of thought and see exactly where you got the information from, it makes them much more likely to see you as transparent and trustworthy.
And speaking of blog posts, another practice that you should be incorporating to help make your website more transparent is adding a quick blurb explaining what the author’s credentials are. This will allow visitors to better understand why this person is qualified to talk about the topic and will make them more likely to trust what the author says.
If you really want your website to stand out and be competitive in 2020, then you’ll want to make sure that you incorporate most, if not all, of these elements into your website today.
