With 2023 in full-swing, we’ve entered a period of change and have probably begun fulfilling some of those New Year’s resolutions that we made almost three months ago. Just like eating healthier and working out help our body perform optimally, your brand’s website can be equally important to the health of your business. So if your website is looking a bit dated, now is the perfect time for a refresh with some of these awesome website trends.
Nostalgia
Design is such a revolving door, with trends coming back full circle. And this time it’s the 80’s and 90’s Y2K aesthetic in fashion.
Think retro fonts, pixel imagery, strong contrasting colours and arcade game influences like Space Invaders. Visiting the Web Design Museum is a great place for inspiration, or this old Mac-inspired landing page designed by Attentive which absolutely nails this aesthetic, or more recently the online magazine, The Workback by Asana which has a more contemporary take on this Y2K aesthetic.
This old call-back can invoke curiosity, create a playful image to your brand and bring back childhood memories for your site visitors.
Accessibility
Everyone is different, from personal preference to actually having certain visual requirements. Just like we do in society, we need to carry this accessibility awareness into our website design too.
We’ve all heard about Dark Mode, but for those with colour blindness or other visual impairments, colour plays a huge role in website design. For example colour needs to have a high-ratio of contrast to ensure all elements are distinguishable on a page – tools such as Contrast Checker can help you check if your text is accessible enough.
Adding Alt Text to your images is another important thing you can do to help with accessibility, it allows users that are unable to load or see images understand the meaning of the image. An added bonus is that it also helps your site to be more visible in search results.
Organising your text in a set heading hierarchy can help those with cognitive disabilities clearly follow the content on your website.
Lastly, remember that not everyone will view your website on desktop, in fact more people will view it on mobile, so mobile-responsiveness is critical to improve your overall website accessibility. Your site should be able to adapt to different device sizes, catering to all visitors.
Premium Content
With a growing number of premium subscriptions cropping up all over social platforms such as Instagram and even YouTube, there’s a feeling that creating premium content will continue strongly into 2023.
Creating this exclusive content will help add more value to your website and provide an extra revenue stream. But, it’s not just about that, it’s also about being able to give back to your site visitors, for example the site Ladies Get Paid gives subscribers access to all their educational resources and forums for community networking.
Because It’s Fun
One more trend that will continue headstrong into 2023 is adding design or animation elements to your website… just for the fun of it (as long as it doesn’t affect usability).
One thing you can do is add scrolling effects to create a more immersive experience on your website, encouraging visitors to continue scrolling down the page.
Kinetic Typography is another fun thing that can really add dimension to your website, not only does it look great, you can use it to help create a journey for your customers. You can highlight important text, or reveal sections as customers scroll down the page, which tech company Arcadia has done on their website.
Why not add animations just for the fun of it. This page designed by Fuse.kiwi does just that. Designer, Pretty Cool Strangers has also added some simple animations to his portfolio website that just gives it a little more depth and immersion for site visitors.
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