Every­thing goes in and out of fash­ion at some point – web design included.

When design­ing web­sites, new styles and fea­tures emerge as con­sumer needs change and bet­ter func­tion­al­i­ties are discovered.

Web design­ers, web devel­op­ers, busi­ness own­ers, and brand­ing experts must stay on top of the lat­est trends, so they can give the best pos­si­ble ser­vice to web­site users and earn mod­ern, user-friend­ly, and trust­wor­thy reputations.

To make it eas­i­er for you, we’ve round­ed up the top 10 web design trends that are ris­ing in pop­u­lar­i­ty and are expect­ed to become com­mon­place in 2023. Let’s dive in:

10 web design trends for 2023

1. Investing in SEO-friendly web design

In the past, web design was pri­mar­i­ly focused on mak­ing web­sites look visu­al­ly appeal­ing. How­ev­er, with the rise of SEO, busi­ness­es know (now more than ever) the impor­tance of opti­mis­ing every aspect of their web­sites. In just a few years, SEO-friend­li­ness has formed a fun­da­men­tal part of mod­ern web design.

With each of Google’s algo­rithm updates, web­sites strive to become more user-friend­ly and acces­si­ble – web design includ­ed. Increas­ing num­bers of web design­ers are becom­ing aware of SEO best prac­tices, adopt­ing new meth­ods to suit the needs of their clients.

New tech­nolo­gies have also made SEO-friend­ly web design more com­mon­place, with design soft­ware and tools mak­ing it eas­i­er for web­sites to rank well in the SERPs.

The shift from desk­top-based inter­net brows­ing to mobile brows­ing has influ­enced web design also, with web­sites invest­ing in mobile-friend­ly design to suit the needs of their users.

Cur­rent­ly, most inter­net traf­fic comes from mobile devices, and this trend will only grow. This change has act­ed as a cat­a­lyst for mobile-friend­ly design to be a cru­cial aspect of SEO best prac­tice, form­ing a con­tin­u­ing­ly grow­ing trend in web design for the year 2023.

2. Accessible web design

Acces­si­ble web design refers to the prac­tice of design­ing web­sites and dig­i­tal con­tent in a way that is acces­si­ble to peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties. This includes design fea­tures usable by peo­ple with visu­al, audi­to­ry, phys­i­cal, and cog­ni­tive impair­ments and those using assis­tive tech­nolo­gies such as screen read­ers or magnifiers.

One rea­son for the growth of this prac­tice is the increas­ing pres­sure on busi­ness­es and organ­i­sa­tions to make their web­sites and online con­tent acces­si­ble to all users. Plus, there are sev­er­al laws and reg­u­la­tions, such as the Amer­i­cans with Dis­abil­i­ties Act (ADA) and the Web Con­tent Acces­si­bil­i­ty Guide­lines (WCAG), that require web­sites to be acces­si­ble to peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties.

Acces­si­ble web design is impor­tant because it helps ensure every­one can use and access the inter­net regard­less of their abil­i­ties. In today’s dig­i­tal world, when the inter­net is a huge part of our dai­ly lives, this could­n’t be more prudent.

Web design­ers are find­ing acces­si­ble design eas­i­er and eas­i­er to imple­ment due to the increas­ing num­ber of tools and resources that help with this specif­i­cal­ly. There’s now a wide range of design soft­ware pro­grams and online resources that pro­vide guid­ance and best prac­tices for cre­at­ing acces­si­ble web­sites, which is why we’ll see more of this in 2023.

3. Smart loading

Smart load­ing is the process of only load­ing the con­tent a user needs at a giv­en moment rather than load­ing the entire web­site all at once. By reduc­ing the amount of data that needs to be processed, the over­all per­for­mance of a web­site can be improved, and it feels more respon­sive to users.

Google loves fast-load­ing web­sites since users are more like­ly to find them help­ful and less like­ly to bounce off the page.

There are sev­er­al ways to imple­ment smart load­ing in web design. One com­mon tech­nique is lazy load­ing, which only loads images and oth­er con­tent as the user scrolls down the page. This can help to reduce the ini­tial load time of a web­site and improve the over­all per­for­mance of the site.

Anoth­er tech­nique for imple­ment­ing smart load­ing is to use pro­gres­sive load­ing, which involves load­ing con­tent in stages as the user inter­acts with the web­site. This can help to improve the user expe­ri­ence by allow­ing the user to start inter­act­ing with the web­site as soon as possible.

Design­ers can also use a com­bi­na­tion of these tech­niques to cre­ate a more seam­less and effi­cient user expe­ri­ence. For exam­ple, a design­er might use lazy load­ing for images and pro­gres­sive load­ing for text con­tent in order to strike a bal­ance between per­for­mance and usability.

If you want to jump on this web design trend in 2023, there are lots of tools that can help. Some soft­ware can help with image and media file opti­mi­sa­tion, whilst oth­er tools can mon­i­tor per­for­mance and load­ing time and iden­ti­fy dif­fer­ent prob­lem areas.

The com­pe­ti­tion out there is fierce. One way web­sites can bounce back and become key indus­try play­ers is to invest in web­site opti­mi­sa­tion. Many of the trends on this list will apply to this issue, but load­ing speed is a vital one.

4. Better chatbots

Chat­bots have been around for some time, but they haven’t always been help­ful. Mil­lions of cus­tomers have had to deal with tem­plate answers from chat­bots that hard­ly pick up on their queries. Then, when peo­ple inevitably become frus­trat­ed, they ask to speak to a human, which defeats the point of chat­bots in the first place.

For­tu­nate­ly, new AI tech­nol­o­gy is help­ing chat­bots become more effi­cient every day. It’s even expect­ed that by 2024, 75–90% of cus­tomer queries will be han­dled by chat­bots.

Chat­bots won’t be dif­fi­cult to use for much longer. For a while, they’ve been becom­ing more con­ver­sa­tion­al and human-like in tone, and this is like­ly to con­tin­ue. Plus, chat­bots are even learn­ing to deci­pher cus­tomer emo­tions and adjust their respons­es (sen­ti­ment analy­sis). Soon, it won’t be uncom­mon to see chat­bots with voice tech­nol­o­gy like Siri and Alexa.

With these improve­ments, chat­bots can pro­vide cus­tomers with the infor­ma­tion they need in a mat­ter of sec­onds and be a very help­ful aspect of cus­tomer ser­vice. Bet­ter chat­bots mean more stream­lined cus­tomer sup­port and hap­pi­er businesses.

If your busi­ness con­sid­ers any of these web design trends this year, it will be chat­bots that dis­play the most growth and change. This fast-grow­ing indus­try will prove to be extreme­ly use­ful in the very near future.

5. Thumb-friendly mobile optimisation

Mobile opti­mi­sa­tion is becom­ing more pop­u­lar in web design as com­pa­nies become more aware of its sig­nif­i­cance. Nowa­days, any spe­cial­ist in SEO, UX, and web design would tell you of its impor­tance as web­sites that aren’t mobile-opti­mised will be miss­ing out on vital search engine queries (around 60% of which are made on mobiles).

Though your web­site can still be accessed from a mobile, 61% of con­sumers will leave the page if the site isn’t mobile-friend­ly.

Thumb-friend­ly web design is a spe­cif­ic part of mobile opti­mi­sa­tion that con­sid­ers how indi­vid­u­als use their fin­gers and thumbs to nav­i­gate web pages. For instance, it will take into account areas of mobile screens that could be more dif­fi­cult to reach.

Though mobile opti­mi­sa­tion has been on the rise since Google made it a vital part of their index­ing process, it’s like­ly to remain a key play­er in pop­u­lar web design trends.

6. Virtual reality integrations

Vir­tu­al real­i­ty (VR) tech­nol­o­gy has been around for decades, but it has only recent­ly start­ed to become more wide­ly inte­grat­ed into web design. VR allows users to expe­ri­ence immer­sive, inter­ac­tive envi­ron­ments in a way that was pre­vi­ous­ly not pos­si­ble through tra­di­tion­al web design techniques.

One of the main dri­vers behind the rise of VR in web design is the increas­ing avail­abil­i­ty of VR hard­ware and software.

In recent years, there has been a pro­lif­er­a­tion of VR head­sets and con­trollers that have made it eas­i­er for users to access and inter­act with vir­tu­al envi­ron­ments and made it pos­si­ble for com­pa­nies to offer these kinds of immer­sive online experiences.

Com­pa­nies that can ben­e­fit most from VR web design fea­tures include those sell­ing hous­es, rent­ing Airbnbs, or adver­tis­ing inte­ri­or design services.

Inter­net users con­stant­ly want more engag­ing and inter­ac­tive expe­ri­ences, and VR is anoth­er way to sell prod­ucts, engage users, and com­mu­ni­cate your message.

Over­all, the rise of VR in web design rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant shift in the way that we inter­act with the inter­net. As VR tech­nol­o­gy con­tin­ues to evolve and become more wide­ly avail­able, it is like­ly that we will see even more VR inte­gra­tions in web design in the future.

7. 3D textured elements

The use of 3D tex­tured ele­ments in web design has been on the rise for a few years but is still grow­ing in popularity.

3D tex­tured ele­ments can add depth and real­ism to a web­site, mak­ing it more visu­al­ly appeal­ing and engag­ing for users. They can be used in a wide range of ways to con­vey a brand’s artis­tic vision and seduce par­tic­u­lar demographics.

With web design tools and soft­ware con­stant­ly devel­op­ing new fea­tures and tech­niques, web design­ers have a vast range of cre­ative pos­si­bil­i­ties at their fin­ger­tips, mak­ing it eas­i­er for them to incor­po­rate 3D graph­ics into their designs.

Grow­ing cre­ative pos­si­bil­i­ties mean that design­ers can keep cre­at­ing more dynam­ic and inter­ac­tive web­sites that cap­ture the atten­tion of users and keep them engaged – which is of the utmost impor­tance in today’s dig­i­tal world.

8. Non-traditional (and parallax) scrolling

Par­al­lax scrolling could be a lit­tle too out of the box for some brands, but this non-tra­di­tion­al design fea­ture will cer­tain­ly cap­ture the atten­tion of mod­ern audi­ences and help web­sites to stand out.

Par­al­lax scrolling is a design tech­nique that cre­ates an illu­sion of depth in a 2D space. Oth­er forms of non-tra­di­tion­al scrolling include long scrolling, fixed scrolling, and hor­i­zon­tal scrolling.

Each of these types solves a cer­tain prob­lem on a web page. Whether your web­page has too much infor­ma­tion or it’s just quite com­plex, non-tra­di­tion­al scrolling can help trans­late your con­tent in an acces­si­ble and fun way with­out over­whelm­ing the user.

With the con­stant demand for more user-friend­ly dig­i­tal expe­ri­ences, we’ll be see­ing more of this web design fea­ture in the com­ing months.

9. Dark modes

Did you know that 81.9% of smart­phone users enable dark mode, and 64.6% of peo­ple expect web­sites to apply dark mode automatically?

Dark Modes are becom­ing more pop­u­lar because they’re eas­i­er on the eyes, can help reduce eye strain, and are more inclu­sive of peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties. Since they’re evi­dent­ly so use­ful and pop­u­lar, we’re sure that they’ll be increas­ing­ly com­mon in 2023.

In order to embrace this change, user inter­faces will need to be devel­oped from a usabil­i­ty stand­point and opti­mised for colour-blind­ness, or at least take enough pre­cau­tions to not pre­vent colour-blind users from reach­ing their goals.

10. Micro-interactions

Micro-inter­ac­tions are small, sub­tle ani­ma­tions or effects that help to improve user expe­ri­ence on web­sites. Although they’re designed to be brief and unob­tru­sive, they can have a big impact on the feel of a web­site and its functions.

Micro-inter­ac­tions can:

• Pro­vide feed­back to users
• Help with navigation
• High­light impor­tant information
• Sim­ply add a touch of whim­sy and personality

The use of micro-inter­ac­tions in web design (and app design) has risen in recent years as more and more design­ers recog­nise the impact of these small details.

Plus, as the inter­net becomes an increas­ing­ly impor­tant part of our dai­ly lives, peo­ple are look­ing for web­sites that are easy to use and nav­i­gate. Micro-inter­ac­tions can help design­ers cre­ate web­sites that feel more respon­sive and intu­itive, mak­ing them more enjoy­able to use.

Nowa­days, there’s a wide vari­ety of ani­ma­tion and design soft­ware pro­grams and tools that allow design­ers to eas­i­ly cre­ate and imple­ment micro-inter­ac­tions into their web designs.

Over­all, the ris­ing use of micro-inter­ac­tions in web design rep­re­sents a shift towards a more user-cen­tred approach to design. As design­ers con­tin­ue to focus on cre­at­ing bet­ter user expe­ri­ences, it is like­ly that we will see even more micro-inter­ac­tions being used in web design in the future.

purpleplanet web design

If you want cus­tom web design ser­vices that update and refresh your web­site, con­tact us at pur­ple­plan­et for help.

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