Wondering what will be the biggest web design trends for 2022? One way to approach design goes far beyond visuals. Rather than just identifying en vogue colors, adding in white space, or proposing bold typography, we’re focused on the behind-the scenes trends in web design that contribute to better business through more effective marketing. Here are our Top 5 web design predictions for next year:
Web Design Trend #1: Illuminated Journey Pathways (or as the kids say, lit)
Identifying your audience is trick number one in building up your site. Who are the users that are coming to your website? What will be the best flow, focused on that individual? This UX-meets-segmentation-type trend is all about avoiding dead ends, ensuring the website is usable, and creating content that is the best for your customer using an effective journey map. When a specific user is targeted while creating your website design, the pathways can become illuminated (like a lightbulb!) and suddenly there’s a purpose for everything on your website.
Web Design Trend #2: Break Up with Sameness (he’s no good for you anyways)
Once upon a time, when templates had just come on the scene, they were beautiful–and they still are. But suddenly every website looked the same. It was great for small businesses with fewer resources, but over time, there were diminishing returns because no one stood out from the crowd. Here are three ways to avoid sameness in your web design:
Custom Layouts: Start from scratch. Think about who you’re targeting (see web design trend #1 above) and what goes on the page; create something unique for that customer, and utilize best practices for website layouts. When you’re readying your business for a website redesign, you don’t want everything to look the same as your competitor–set yourself apart! Web templates are hurting companies because there is no human element deciding what information needs to be showcased–only prescribed blocks of text and precisely located images, with little to no room for visual creativity.
Visual or Artistic Layering: An image, a pattern, and a hand-drawn element walk into a bar, er, a website layout. This creative (and difficult) layout concept creates a unique look and feel, in part because it relies on three distinct, unique elements placed in overlapping ways that practically defies duplication. It’s attractive, creative, and fun, all in a sweet little package. Welcome Software’s website redesign features unique illustrations playing on the “orchestration” of “marketing orchestration” that not only add an element of fun, but make it memorable in a competitive space.
Clear + Relatable Messaging: Even if you’re the 101st brand saying the same thing, you don’t want to actually say the same exact thing. Curse words and jargon are cool now; the reader feels like they’re speaking with a friend who “gets it”. Beyond cussing and technical terminology, giving a high-level of understanding also invites your website visitor to continue exploring to the next page (and the next and so on).. When a page is overloaded with info, the visitor isn’t engaged or validated. Prove to them that your website and your business is what they’ve been looking for.
If longform writing is still something you want to offer, give it a particular place in the Resources or Blog section of your site. As for everything else? Less fluff. More punch.
Web Design Trend #3: Premium Content As Lead Generation
This is yet another audience-oriented trend in website design. Knowing what will be of value to your website visitor will allow you to create a whitepaper, an e-book, or another vital resource that your audience will want. They’ll want it so much that they’ll be willing to give you their email address for it. (We’ve likely all given out our email at some point to be entered to win a drawing. Free stuff is great.) But you might have figured out that it’s not necessarily free; it’s more of a trade. The user gets something valuable, and the marketing team obtains a lead, allowing them to continue the conversation or build business with that individual. That’s a textbook definition of a win-win. At Solid Digital, we use it for offering Guides for Marketing Directors that speak director to things we hear they are challenged with such as website content.
Web Design Trend #4: Accessibility
This trend shouldn’t really be a trend. Instead, it’s just the right way to design, with web visitors in mind–all website visitors, including those with disabilities. Accessibility on websites seeks to serve individuals with disabilities in regard to the text, images, structure and presentation portions of web design. There are several different ways to accomplish accessibility, which is rated at three levels: A, AA, and AAA, with “A” being minimal compliance and “AAA” being optimal compliance. With tools like AccessiBe that can help your website stay compliant, it’s easier than ever before. Many companies are spending more time and money to create a website that is at optimal compliance. Though some of these decisions are based on avoidance of litigation, the ideal website design should take into account every one of its possible readers proactively, not reactively.
What is Solid Digital’s philosophy on accessibility? It’s included as a matter of course in every web design; our designers take extra time with color contrast, title tags, meta tags, and color scales, and all pages are navigable with a keyboard. For more information on Web Content Accessibility, visit the WCAG website, or r scroll to the bottom of The Florida Bar’s website to see how many controls are available to anyone who needs them:
Web Design Trend #5: Information + Data Visualization
According to Pew Research Center, about one-quarter of all American adults haven’t read a book (or even part of one) in the past year. So this final web design trend makes sense for the decrease in readership out there. Visualizing data and information through a graphic helps the website visitor understand a concept in a glance. This type of tactic has been around for a bit, but now these info and data visualizations have gone fully custom to line up with a company’s identity. Colors, fonts, and styles all play a part to showcase product highlights with graphs and charts. Rather than a generic pie chart, for instance, it’s a graph or chart that has some other concepts or graphics layered with it. (Here’s an example of making good use of charts that I particularly appreciate).
Within this trend lies a secondary one: product recreations. Instead of utilizing screenshots, the recreation shows bits and pieces of the product or an artist’s rendering of a customer view to communicate specific ideas or purposes. Without relying on screenshots, the recreations hold up, even as the product may get minor visual updates.
Conclusion
Looking forward to a new website for 2022? Don’t miss out on these upcoming web design trends that tackle the “why” behind specific choices, with marketing at the heart. When employed, these trends create a unique and user-friendly web experience that gives the customer the content they need, while encouraging them to dig in deeper and helping them move further down the sales funnel.
Curious how to work these trends into your next website overhaul? Drop us a line.
