What Did Web Design Used To Be Like?
Web design has been around for as long as websites have themselves. From HTML and CSS to CMSs and front-end builders, web design has continuously evolved over time and is now more crucial than it has ever been. In part 3 of this 3-part blog series, we’ll go over what web design could be like in the future as well as how you can improve on your web design.
Did you know? Roughly 30% of small businesses still don’t have a website in 2022. This mean that all these small businesses are losing out to competitors who do have a well designed and well optimised website. On top of this, a new website is built every 3 seconds!
What Could Web Design Be Like In The Future?
A.I
In recent years, A.I has taken the world by storm and it’s already started to be integrated with web design. For example, the front-end builder Elementor has A.I built-in to write custom CSS code. Not only this, but A.I has already demonstrated that it can build basic websites from scratch, although there are flaws. As A.I evolves and becomes even more advanced, it will become much more integrated with web design and digital marketing in general. However, it is important to remember that A.I is only a tool just like front-end builders.
New Technologies
Technology is always evolving and reaching new heights. In recent years, foldable phones have made a comeback, Apple has announced their Vision pro, and phones/technology in general are becoming more powerful. It’s interesting to think about how all these new advancements will effect web design. Perhaps someday phones will be powerful enough and have a large enough screen size (with foldable phones) to design a website. Combining this possibility with the potential of A.I and the impacts to web design could be huge. Apple’s Vision Pro could also impact web design to an unparalleled degree. The Vision Pro aims to blend digital content with your physical surroundings, allowing a 360-degree digital space that you can navigate with simple gestures. The Vision Pro is essentially a 360-degree UI that users have complete control over.
How To Improve Your Web Design
Web design is all about the user and making your site as aesthetically pleasing as possible while keeping it as easy to navigate as possible. It’s also about understanding how the visual hierarchy of a website works (i.e where your eyes immediately go and where they go after) and how you can use/adjust that. For example, bold H1 headings grab attention first before plain, small body text. Here are some quick tips that can improve your web design in order to be better for users:
Layout
Don’t always go for basic layouts, be more unique and varied in your web design. Try different types of modules like tab modules, blurb modules, etc. Perhaps multiple columns within a row. On top of different module/column layouts, you can also adjust and experiment with dividers between sections in order to have it ‘flow’ a little better. It may be worth also mentioning hover effects so the website is more dynamic and responsive. For example, on mouse hover, you can make certain modules change colour, grow, shrink, move, etc.
Font
Always experiment with fonts to see which suits your business best. It may even be worth using a different font for headings and a different one for body text. On top of this, you can drop shadow to headings to make them stand out even more. Drop shadows don’t have to always be grey/black either, you could have a navy blue drop shadow on white headings.
Imagery
Investing in some high-quality imagery of your products or services is much more beneficial than using stock imagery as it gives more of a personal touch to your website. Stock imagery is also very generic so while it can be a huge help in some areas, it’s important to have your own imagery.
Colours
It may be worth looking into colour psychology and understanding what each colour represents. For example, the colour blue is said to communicate security and responsibility, green represents nature and health, and yellow is associated with hope, laughter and happiness. The colours of your website should also match the colours of your logo. If your logo is blue, your website colours can be different shades of blue or other complimentary colours like certain shades of green or purple. However, when doing this, it is important to not have too many colours. Roughly 3-5 colours is enough for a site, including a shade of black and white. For example, Angry Apple’s site only has 3 colours; black, white and a shade of red.
Final Thoughts
The future of web design is very promising with all of these new technologies. Just as web design has changed massively in the last 20 years, it could change massively 20 years from now. It could even change to a large extent only 5 years from now, considering the rapid growth of A.I and it’s integration with digital marketing as a whole.
Thanks for tuning in for this 3-part blog series!
