This article was published 5 years ago, therefore the contents of this post may be out of date.

2019 is here! And with it comes new digital trends, such as the ever-changing world of web design. I’m sure if you take a minute to think back through the last couple months of 2018 and the experience you have with websites, you would probably be able to think of a bunch of sites that stuck out to you based on their user friendly interface and appealing layout but it also goes the same way for the sites you’ve visited that offers you a terrible user experience, they stick with you and leave a negative connotation with the brand.

1. More Video Content

Video not only broadens the page but it caters to an on the go audience who don’t have time to scan through a lot of text.

We’ve already seen it over on Google as they have made toward mixed search page results, featuring video content above standard web pages. That has led websites to prioritise video production to make themselves easily searchable and offer content in the most efficient, shareable way.

2. Serif fonts

We’ve all heard the rule that serifs are for print and sans serifs are for screen. With MailChimp’s significant redesign a late last year, and one of the things everyone noticed about it was its use of serif fonts.

When every self-respecting web presence from Airbnb to Google has their custom made and not at all identical sans serif typeface, we can rest assured that the style of choice for UI will continue to be sans serif. It makes for better readability in menus and buttons and takes up less valuable space.

3. Chatbots

Chatbots have been up-and-coming for a while but it will finally make a move into the spotlight in 2019.

This is due to the advancements in AI and machine learning, making them more intelligent and efficient. Businesses will benefit from an chatbot feature on their site as it allows customers to ask questions and get a real time and quick response. It also removes the need to hire a full-time customer service employee to field online questions.

These new chatbots will be showing up more and more on web pages with higher levels of customisation than we’ve seen in past iterations. Bright colours will make them not only more prominent on the page but more inviting. We can also predict an influx of friendly mascots to represent brands and give these bots a personable face.

4. Micro-interactions

User experience experts recognise that micro-interactions play an important role in user engagement and usability. Taking the time to understand and fine-tune particular interactions can make your website feel alive.

Typically, micro-interactions been used on clickable elements like buttons and navigation. The key is to not over-design these effects but your intention should be augmenting the user experience, not making it more complicated.

5. Card based layouts

Card layouts are a component of the material design. It is a simplified layout for news magazine sites, portfolios and blogs. Cards allow you to present content to your users in a compartmentalised shot. Most card layouts use images and some text in addition to an image or a video. Cards layouts allow you to view large amounts of copy or images in a way that readily lends itself better to an organisation.

You’ve likely seen card based layouts before like on this blog, as they have been around for a while.

What you will start seeing is more sites adopting this format for their content, where before they used something else as an abstraction.

6. Bright Colours and Gradients

Bright colours are naturally at home on the web as this trend has not lost popularity for years. In combination with a well-developed design, they visually make a website more expensive.

But also the use of gradients in web design can also be used to make a page more fresh and unique no matter how much or little you include.

Having the background of the page with gradient creates the impression of uniqueness and freshness. But be careful. A gradient is a very complex element its use to requires experience and professionalism.

7. Natural, Organic Shapes

Web pages are typically setup for systematic grids; designers are turning towards natural shapes and smooth lines as there are no straight lines in nature itself.

Geometric structures such as squares, rectangles & triangles with their sharp corners do create a sense of stability, but in 2019 web design trends they are more concerned with a feeling of accessibility and comfort.

As organic shapes are naturally flawed and asymmetrical, they can provide depth to a design that makes page elements stand out. They are based in nature, but free-drawn elements can capture the spontaneity of man-made accidents such as paint splatter. The purpose here is for web designs to feel human and alive through the illusion of movement.

8. Bold Typography

Any list of web design trends always should include “bold typography.” Seeing as typography has been around since 1439 so when choosing the right typography can be the difference in having a low bounce rate rather than a high one.

Choosing a bold typography, especially in a big font size, can really grab the attention of your site user.

9. Glitch art

Glitch art, it’s retro gone wrong you know those moments when crinkled film or a slow dial-up connection led to a distorted, if unintentionally striking image.

Glitches are significant in modern times when computers are so pervasive. It’s a strange, futuristic time we live in, and no one is quite sure where it is all heading. Glitch art amplifies this feeling of disorientation by giving websites a distinctly psychedelic look.

10. Static Website Generators

Static website generators becoming more popular as people discover that by going back to the roots of the web aka using static HTML, where you can gain speed, increase security, customise and make your website more accessible.

Static website generators is less of a trend in web design, and got more to do with the backend of websites and development. What these tools provide site owners with, is the ability to design and emphasise quicker, which in return, speed up the rate at which web trends are adopted and recycled.

you can use examples such as:

Jekyll

Jekyll is a simple, blog-aware, static site generator. You create your content as text files (Markdown), and organise them into folders. Then, you build the shell of your site using Liquid-enhanced HTML templates.

Jekyll automatically stitches the content and templates together, generating a website made entirely of static assets, suitable for uploading to any server.

Jekyll happens to be the engine behind GitHub Pages, so you can host your project’s Jekyll site on GitHub’s servers for free.

GatsbyJS

Gatsby is a blazing-fast static site generator for React. Gatsby pulls in data from any data source, whether it’s Markdown files, a headless CMS like Contentful or WordPress, or a REST or GraphQL API. Use source plugins to load your data, then develop using Gatsby’s uniform GraphQL interface.

Gatsby sites don’t require servers so you can host your entire site on a CDN for a fraction of the cost of a server-rendered site. Many Gatsby sites can be hosted entirely free on services like GitHub Pages and Netlify.

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Web Design Trends for 2019