This is the age of living in the future with technology catching up in all forms and walks of life. There was graphic design that had all our eyes riveted on them and marketing or what’s left of them that has not gone unexplored. Now the current buzzing topic is Website Trends in 2020. From the onset of the technological revolution, websites have undergone a cluster of changes with many innovations making the cut. The newest and the latest in web trends 2020 is as per latest buzzfeed and grapevine doing industry rounds.

We have listed 11 exciting web trends that the industry is expecting to take hold in year 2020, and beyond!

• Making Use of Minimalism
• Using A Lot of White Space In Layout
• Use of Large Typeface In Design
• Strong Shading Squares To Enhance Design Elements
• Use of Motion Design
• Placing Video To Make Your Website More Interactive
• Placing Split Screen Content
• Using Push Notifications Extensively
• Placing Chat Bots To Automate Client Engagement
• Incorporate Progressive Web Apps
• Augmented Reality- Isn’t The Future. It Is Now!

Let’s understand all the contemporary trends in detail

Making Use of Minimalism:

Minimalism, the modern designing approach. Experimenting with transitions, navigation, colors, removing elements, there are many ways to use minimalism than you can imagine.The basics of minimalism includes user-friendly designs, hidden navigation, not using more than three colors, lots of white space & of course no extra buttons. Minimalism is all about simplifying web design where there is no further need of removing design elements. This makes the design clutterless and makes it easy to navigate. It helps communicating the core message with minimum of fuss.

When designs are reduced to their simplest forms, you’re allowing more whitespace in the design. So when there are less elements, they will surely grab users’ attention. Minimalism allows for more to be showcase in very little, that is to show the elements with highest priority only, so users are not distracted!

Using A Lot of White Space In Layout:

White space is also known as negative space and is basically unmarked space in the design. White space or negative space around the content in large quantities gives a balanced feel to the layout and is a ranking factor in the race towards white hat Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Between web design elements, there should be a finite white space. The space need not be white in color. They can be any color, texture, pattern or background image. The basic of the whitespace every designer should know is that there are two types of white space

Active: It is used to create space between the elements
Passive: It is used to improve the appearance of the page.

Use of Large Typeface In Design:

Large typeface has caught the fancy of the audience and the bigger the better with oversized screen elements making the grade. This is not limited to the typeface alone but anything from images to videos and even giant website icons that are a must-have, cover your entire screen. Giant icons and oversized elements provide the information to the readers without any sense of ambiguity. That they capture the readers imagination in a split-second is just one of those things that come to the eye of the reader quickly. This also limits the number of elements on a webpage keeping in mind that too many grand features staring at you in the face is simply not wanted.

These are some of the ways it affects your end users:

• Gives your brand a voice
• Encourages reading
• Improves accessibility
• Establishes emotion

Strong Shading Squares To Enhance Design Elements:

Strong shading squares is like black & white, going to darker shade starting from lighter variation. But you have to be sure that it should be applied in a balanced way; too much can be just as bad as none & too less will not be eye-catching. In a nutshell, use tints and shades of base color to enhance your design elements. Tints and shades are for lighter and darker variations of the same color.

An example can be using white color for tints and black color for shades to a base color. This will give your website a polished, cohesive look since they’re created from the same base color.

Use of Motion Design:

As digital technologies are advancing in the realm of experiential visual computerization, motion design is turning into an intuitive and everlasting visual experience. Basically, motion design is a discipline that applies visual depiction standards to filmmaking and video generation to describe how an object ought to be represented in space in relation to a reference object. Things that can be represented by motion design gives the user a very engaging experience in comparison to traditional elements. Motion design incorporates movies, recordings, web-based animation content and apps.

21st century has surely made us impatient, and it can be considered in terms of surfing the internet as well, where users want instant exposure to the things they are searching for. CSS animations – widely used motion design. There is nothing wrong in adding a bit of fun on the web. What’s great here is you don’t have to put a lot of effort, this little thing can do wonders & bring users’ attention especially while having a new product announcement or for a how-to-use video.

Here are 5 innovative ways to include animation in your website:

• Manipulating Logo
• Kinetic Typography
• Hover Effects
• Animated Map
• Animated Documentaries

Placing Video To Make Your Website More Interactive:

Video, though not very new to content creation, is the most used idea to intersperse the content when there is a time-crunch and some deadlines have to be met. There is no substitute for this media option. Users rarely have time for textual content but give their nod to video by spending some time on video content for a longer span.

Here are some statistics to convince you more on video content:

• 96% of users watch video to know more about product details
• 94% of managers reveals video makes very easy to understand the project idea
• 87% of websites which have videos on them are having more traffic as compared to the ones who are not having
• 79% of the users says, video convinced them to buy product online
• 68% of them prefer videos over documentation to learn new skills

Were these numbers enough to convince you to have a video content on your website? We’re sure they were.

Placing Split Screen Content

From creating a user-friendly website to a responsive communication platform, there are various reasons to join the split-screen revolution. If there is a plethora of ideas to convey but you still wish to keep the UI relatively free, just split the screen down the middle into two halves with each half basking in the limelight for a less inordinate time. If you wish to add some more candidness to the design, add a dash of the unexpected to the content such as asymmetric scrolling effects on either side of the centerhalf.

Why your website should be having Split Screen Content?

• It builds similar experience for mobile & desktop
• Encourages vertical images
• Brings a visual flow
• Boosts users to decide between two content
• Creates a Compelling design pattern

Using Push Notifications Extensively:

Push notifications are annoying we all know, but they are the best to grab users attention in seconds which is faster than any communication medium. A note at the left-most corner of the screen notifying you of tickets coming to a close to your favorite weekend concert does seem unpleasant at first sight but anyways you hate missing concerts for anything in the world, so the small note was a rather timely intervention at your workplace. Push notifications relate to UX design but are a part of web development.

Here are some of our recommendations to have a better push notification for your users:

• Keep it relevant to your niche
• Personalize it
• Keep it short & compelling
• Schedule notification
• Make it actionable

Placing Chat Bots To Automate Client Engagement:

The next emerging design trend of 2020 is chatbots. Chatbots are programs used to mimic a conversation that is being implemented and improved as they turn more like people. They are treated to a barrage of questions and they in turn respond with answers to interested users. There are two types of chatbots. One is fixed database and the other is AI based.The first option is just like an upgraded FAQs section, probably not very effective; the second one (AI based, which is growing) is way more cost-effective & much cheaper than having an in-house support staff for client interaction.

Benefits of using chatbots on your website:

• It is an automated process
• Gives straight-forward and quick service
• Increases customer satisfaction and engagement
• Helps in growth of your business

Incorporate Progressive Web Apps:

We have seen PWAs or Progressive Web Apps gaining ground in years prior to 2020 and now as it gathers steam in 2020 and it is forestalled that PWAs will overtake general-purpose consumer-facing mobile apps next year. It is assumed that PWAs are taking us to the next landing in the technological leap that digital revolution is walking. We have witnessed static web pages to desktop web pages and lately mobile responsive web pages. PWA pages is just toeing the line. This means you can tick off the mobile and leave the rest to the web to access apps in the coming years. PWA has already been embraced by companies including Twitter and Starbucks. Google, Microsoft & Apple – These are a huge fan of Progressive Web Apps.

If you’re thinking to incorporate PWA, then here are some of the benefits:

• Cost-effective
• Easily indexable on search engine giant like Google
• Highly responsive
• Easy to share
• Great speed

In a nutshell, if you’re a start-up or a growing company, PWA infusion would open doors to great opportunities & huge ROI.

Augmented Reality- Isn’t The Future. It Is Now!:

Augmented Reality (AR) has been with us for years and still we are ignorant to its presence. Whenever you are backing your car from the parking lot, you are being assisted by a rear view camera that uses AR. Another instance of AR is when you share an image of yours with a filter on your face, it is AR at work. And this is not the end. You better be kidding if you have witnessed the back of Augmented Reality for its use in Ecommerce is legendary (Examples: Warby Parker and Wayfair).

There is a concerted push in the ecommerce domain where XR (Extended Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality) provide unique opportunities to reach the consumer. Mobile AR is right on top in retail space with products that drive the market. An increasing number of customers are pushing towards a global footprint with AR products using AR and AI engine that provide an exemplary augmented real-like experience.

Let’s be honest, AR has already started making our user-experience better on desktop & mobile. E-commerce websites have been using it for a few years by now.

For Example: In Fashion, “virtual dressing room” is the most used AR technology. Users can easily pick a dress on their smartphone or tablet & point camera on themselves & scroll the entire outfit of their choice with some finger swaps.

We all know about the game Pokemon Go – the mobile game where Pokemon characters were ‘placed’ into the real world.

Using AI in your website:

• Lower costs
• Improves customer experience on website
• Saves resources
• Improves sales performance by data analysis
• Improves Users’ experience with voice search

Wrapping Up:

These are the best web design trends to look for in the year 2020 with making use of minimalism heading the list. All the above listings are attributed with making content larger than life by bringing web design trends to its spellbinding best in the years to come. It’s a good practice to keep your finger on the pulse and know what trends to look for in your industry. Even if you just have a small website and can’t implement the latest trend in your daily operations, you at least need to take note of them. From AR to PWAs, the trends to watch in 2020 are going to make a huge impact on your online presence.