The Latest Trends Reveal the Best Web Design Ideas Available in 2015

Consumers are always seeking new online experiences, whether in the form of engaging content, unique social media opportunities, or simple visual beauty. As a result, businesses constantly provide these experiences, and it has become more important than ever for companies to stay on the cutting edge of digital innovation.

When you want exceptional website design, it is important to work with a company that understands your need for beautiful, engaging content. This means a company that keeps a close watch on current web design trends and can offer new, unique ideas that are relevant to your brand. Here are some of the trends the designers and web experts at Pixelcarve have noted for 2015.

1) Continued emphasis on responsive website design

Companies working with a web design company throughout Canada need to understand the opportunities afforded by responsive website design.

• Between 2009 and 2013, the percentage of smartphone owners accessing the Internet via their phones doubled, skyrocketing to 63% from 31%.
• 52% of online retail traffic that occurred from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday was via mobile devices.
• Customers who can’t shop mobile will drift: they are 5 times more likely to go to a competitor if they have trouble using your mobile site.

With this continued uptick of mobile usage, it is vital for companies to use responsive website designs that provide an enhanced mobile browsing experience. Whether you are trying to reach millennial shoppers who are browsing online, or busy professionals who might be perusing your company website during a long commute, responsive designs are an effective solution to try.

2) Respect for privacy concerns

Part of design is usability and how a customer feels when perusing your site. Is someone likely to be put off by the constant requests for contact information? Are there pop-ups every few minutes asking for email addresses and other personal information?

It is important to temper your company’s need for information with the customer’s desire for an engaging and uninterrupted experience. When handled properly, most customers are more than willing to provide their information when they feel comfortable. In fact, 67% of adults on the Internet are willing to provide basic personal information to companies they browse if it means getting better products or services,

On the other hand, only 16% of adults are willing to reveal their online habits to companies, even if it means they get a better overall experience. Up to 39% of Internet users indicate that they would never want their web history shared with a company.

This trend reveals a need for balance when it comes to the pursuit of information. Rather than aggressively pursuing a user’s contact information or requiring them to turn over every inch of data available when they register through a social media platform, it is a good idea to limit requests at first.

Making it clear that users can register for a newsletter or mailing through a bold, easy-to-find design is a better option. Discuss this with your team when working on your website design so that it is clear you want to respect your users with your content, not aggressively pursue their data.

3) Big, bold, clean design choices

The days of busy, textured backgrounds, constantly moving graphics, and distracting flashing text are long gone. These days, designs are clean and simple, often with a simple but bold focal point.

Some options we have seen include a large, static background picture over which clear, easy-to-read text can scroll; effective use of tiles for a clean, unique viewing experience; and vibrant contrasting and complementary colors for an appealing, dynamic look.

4) Don’t sell, storytell

The element of storytelling is key when dealing with younger generations, who are often turned off by the hard sell. The cause for this is obvious, with information saturation making it difficult to be heard above the noise. Consider:

• Collectively, Internet users are exposed to 5.3 trillion advertisements every year.
• On average, consumers end up processing up to 100,500 words in the digital sphere on a daily basis.

So, to catch a consumer’s attention, there must be something compelling about your content that other brands don’t have.

As a web design agency in Toronto, we advocate that you tell the story of your brand and your business, rather than trying to push a particular product or service,. This draws users in, enhances engagement and interaction, and starts to cultivate the loyalty that turns prospects into customers.

Storytelling may seem difficult when you are dealing with certain physical products or more abstract services, but it can be done both with your content as well as with your design choices.

A recent case study highlights this point using a major healthy food brand as an example: which do you find more appealing? A list of hearty, healthy, natural ingredients, or the story of sitting down to a warming breakfast of fragrant oatmeal before the start of a long, busy day?

You have similar power with your own brand, and it usually begins with analyzing your company’s values and mission. These should be an integral part of the discussion when you sit down with your web design company in Toronto to start developing your comprehensive digital strategy.

5) Ongoing efforts to draw the eye

Studies have always continually sought to identify how to best reach customers on the Internet. As marketers, we examine what draws the eye, how most people end up using most web pages, and what designs work best for capturing and holding attention.

Through these studies, we’ve learned a number of useful things:

• Users typically scan a website using an F pattern.
• If a website takes more than 3 seconds to load, 40% of people will abandon it.
• A user typically spends 10 seconds formulating an impression of your site, which is how long you have to reach them before they leave.
• Only ¼ of the content that appears on a website actually gets read.

While this may seem like a random amalgamation of facts, they are all imperative to finding the best web design possible. It tells us where the best placement is for your eye-catching graphic or photo, and why we should focus more on interactive elements while keeping text clean and simple.

It also lets us know that designs need to be quick and agile, not cumbersome and not hogging resources. Otherwise, your beautiful website is likely to go unnoticed due to the number of people trying to load it, then abandoning their efforts when it takes far too long.

Conclusion

When you are trying to pinpoint the best trends to adopt for your digital presence, it is important to work with a great web design company capable of understanding your needs. At Pixelcarve, a Toronto based web design company, we keep track of the latest in website design and innovation, building on our years in serving premium brands and best-in-class businesses. Let us help you discover the web design innovations that work best for your brand.