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We talk a lot about the behind-the-scenes parts of your website: the importance of website maintenance and security updates, how a custom-built site improves performance, and the risks of skimping on website development.
But let’s get real. Most business owners and marketers focus on the looks of their website first. First impressions ARE everything. A beautifully designed site that draws visitors in while supporting your brand and conveying your offerings is absolutely a top priority.
If you have your eye on a website redesign or new build in 2023, here’s what you can expect to see in design trends.
#1 – Neumorphism
Neumorphism is a new trend in UI (user interface) design. It’s an interesting blend of skeuomorphism (ultra-realistic, 3D elements) and flat design (simple, 2D elements). With neumorphism, the goal is to create subtle contrast and dimensionality using solid colors and shadowing. Clickable elements appear to either protrude from, or sink into, the background. See some examples of neumorphic design on Dribble.
#2 – Productivity Indicators
Expect to see more productivity-type elements, like progress bars, tooltips, rollover effects, and slide-out menu bars this year. Productivity indicators serve multiple purposes: They help users navigate a website more confidently, improve interactivity and increase session duration, and support clean, minimalist design with fewer words and more iconography.
The HubSpot blog is known for using a progress bar so readers can gauge how long it’s going to take to get through a post. It’s a practical feature that tells your visitors you respect their time.
For stock market watchers, FinViz.com’s homepage appears overwhelming at first. But the site uses rollover effects to pop out graphs for each stock and tooltips to define market terms.
#3 – Creative Scrolling
This website combines immersive parallax scrolling with horizontal scrolling and animated cursors and font. It’s a simple, one-page site that uses just three colors, but the creative scrolling and animated elements entice visitors to stick around to see what comes next.
Moooi’s Paper Play site takes visitors deep into the world of luxury home design with every scroll.
While some of these effects might be overkill for the average business site, these examples can be used for inspiration to add unique interactivity to smaller elements of a more “standard” web page.
#4 – Animated Cursors
Cursors were originally animated as an accessibility feature to help computer users visually track where their cursor was on the screen.
They can still be that, but many websites use animated cursors because they’re just plain fun! Even professional brands can use a simple animated cursor to spark interest and interactivity. This website uses a ton of animated elements, but watch what happens when you click and drag the spinning cursor.
#5 – Y2K Style
Think bright, bold, fun, and youthful — pixelated images, custom icons and animated cursors (hearts, stars, smileys, and unicorns), retro style fonts, and distorted ‘glitch art.’ Colors like icy pastel blue, lilac, and powderpuff pink combined with metallic pleather-like textures to lend the 00’s vibes to modern gradients.
This style is the opposite of the clean, minimalist, neutral-colored trends of the past decade, which is still absolutely appropriate for many professional brands! But if you’re trying to attract a demographic in their late 20’s bringing back ‘the good old days’ of Y2K, this trend could be right up your alley.
To get inspired from actual sites from the 00’s, check out the Web Design Museum‘s ode to the era.
#6 – Custom Iconography
This is another trend that isn’t completely new, but we can expect to see it continue to grow. While endless options for ‘stock’ icons exist, they can become dull and redundant. Having custom icons designed can truly represent your brand and help your website stand apart from competitors.
Keep in mind when using icons, the meaning should be clear. While many navigational icons are universal, if you’re using an icon that could be interpreted in different ways, consider using hover helper text or tooltips over icons.
Ready To Build A Beautiful And Engaging Website This Year?
It’s what we do here at PixelPeople! We specialize in custom web design that represents your brand while providing an outstanding user experience for visitors. Contact us today to start the conversation.
