The appearance of websites is shifting. The requirement for timely, relevant, and exciting content is constant, but new factors that can increase website impact are constantly being developed.
While some of these features work to quickly capture user attention or improve their experience across all devices, others help tell stories and describe the spirit of your business. It’s not needed to use every feature at once (doing so can result in a crowded and confusing experience), but picking particular pieces that are in line with the objectives of your brand and website can help boost overall impact.
We’re breaking down the most critical elements of modern website design you can use to improve the functionality of your site to assist you in focusing on and selecting the best components for your site.
1- Original Font
Most businesses employ a specific font or font so that clients can quickly identify them from their competitors. Since designers already have access to a wider variety of fonts, companies may more simply and correctly communicate their brands through font.
Why is original font important for modern web design?
Fonts is a single design feature that gives each page on a website a unified design. For instance, The Writer website’s font and font sizes guide users from one part to another.
Your choice of font while developing your company’s identity can convey subtleties about who you are. Is your company serious or humorous? Is it informational or practical? Whatever font you decide on, ensure your designer considers its compatibility with different browsers and machines. Your website may display uncomfortably on various devices if you select a font not supported by popular browsers and desktops.
2- Speed Improvement
Even if your website is exciting and has a lot of material, conversions won’t increase if users leave and go elsewhere. To reduce the time between a click and the content, it’s essential to speed up all parts of your website.
In actuality, this includes improving each photo to achieve a balance between file size and image quality. For example, JPEG photos often offer the highest speed/quality balance, while PNG images provide higher quality and transparency but are much more significant. On the other hand, GIFs are better suited for moving images but employ fewer colors, making them less than perfect for still photos.
Additionally, it’s a great idea to compress any files hosted on your website. Many modern compression technologies may significantly decrease file size without sacrificing productivity. Further, website owners should consider their hosting environment: For instance, specialized or VPS hosting often offers quicker site loading times than shared hosting.
How does it help?
Google studies show that visitor bounce rates increase by 123 percent when page load times rise from one second to ten seconds. The search engine behemoth adds that “the majority of mobile sites are still slow and bloated with too many features” despite the change to more secure 4G connections.
Therefore, even modest increases in website performance optimization can significantly impact, especially now that Google uses landing page speed as a ranking factor for mobile searches and Google Ads.
3- Responsive and engaging hero images
You don’t need to look very far to find an excellent hero image example outside of the well-known publishing platform Medium.
The idea of above and below the fold is eliminated in images like this one in favor of a single point of view. Medium provides an excellent visual experience that entices you to scroll down to read more by focusing on simply the image with content rather than a CTA or social buttons.
Her photos are usually in the background and covered with text and other material. Regardless of your approach, large images can help you visually express your tale instead of only using a reader.
How does it help?
Hero photos set the tone for your website without using text or video. The correct picture may instantly explain to visitors your brand, what you do, or what makes you unique. To see which image has the most significant effect, generating concepts for hero photos and soliciting feedback from various people is a good idea.
4- Video backgrounds
Videos that play automatically in the background can significantly increase a page’s intrigue. They can be utilized to tell a narrative and greatly minimize the quantity of additional text required to describe your company.
Take the website for Almond Solutions as an example. An extensive video automatically begins playing in the background when you visit their homepage. By clicking the play button, you may learn more about the business:
The great use of this background video encourages the user to click through and stay on the website longer.
How does it help?
Background videos aim to draw viewers in as soon as they arrive on your page. Without ever having to read a single word of text, the movie lets your visitor realize the most important details about your business.
In addition, our brains process video 60,000 times more quickly than text. Videos appear effortless and can be rapidly digested, yet people are usually reluctant to read lengthy blocks of text. Better video experiences are also made possible by increased mobile device sizes and connection speeds.
5- White Space
Although white space is frequently employed in minimalist web design, it is now an essential element of successful current site frameworks. Users have pulled to important parts of your site automatically when you balance different types of information, such as links, text, and videos, with comparable levels of white space. Although there isn’t a rule for how much white space you need, it’s a good practice to leave at least some space between each content piece.
How does it help?
User pleasure is strongly influenced by website navigation. Visitors are much less likely to click through and start the conversion process if they have trouble finding your contact or product pages.
White space aids in drawing users’ attention to the essential features of your business. For instance, use white space to separate the featured product image or video from the rest of the material on your homepage. This makes it stand out from the rest of your site and highlights its importance. However, attention is quickly lost if it is surrounded by distracting visual components.
6- Modular Design
Any feature that doesn’t feature or provide the effect of three dimensions, such as shadows, is known as a flat design. On websites lacking intricate or technical elements, flat design can load faster and is more straightforward for people to grasp.
Small and large companies alike have moved from realistic skeuomorphism to flat design. However, businesses like Uber have added subtle shadows and dimensionality to look at their special touch.
As you can see in the image below, the shadows around the graphic elements give them a sense of depth without overdone.
How does it help?
Your content will be more clearly understood by the visitor thanks to the flat design, and it will be more engaging if you add some depth. Maintaining uniformity throughout your website is crucial, using shadows and other elements or implementing a flat design. To ensure visitors can quickly grasp what they’re viewing, ensure your homepage, product pages, and any other essential parts of your website use the same design cues.
7- Friendly Layouts for Mobile
Websites from the first generation were designed for desktops. They were designed to support larger monitors and point-and-click mouse control. However, the popularity of mobile phones means that web traffic may originate from a wide range of sources, and your website must offer the same experience regardless of the type of user device.
By applying the concept of responsive web design, which allows website elements like photos, text, and user interfaces (UIs) to dynamically rescale and resize depending on the device used to access the site, it is possible to develop mobile-friendly website layouts.
How does it help?
More than 54% of all web traffic is positive way by mobile devices. Similarly, if your website is not mobile-friendly, you risk losing up to 50% of all potential clients.
Take a look at a smartphone user accessing a desktop-friendly website. It’s nearly complicated for potential clients to locate what they’re looking for on smaller screens if text, photos, and buttons don’t scale to fit touchscreen controls.
8- McDonald’s Menus
Most websites feature extensive menus of options. They typically occupy a lot of valuable screen space, which is a drawback. This is altered by the hidden or hamburger menu. This compact menu is space-efficient and straightforward for customers to utilize. This advantage is that the visitor can browse the menu to their desired location.
Do you know why a hamburger menu is called that?
The three lines placed on top of one another resemble two burger buns and a patty if you use your imagination. Clever.
How does it help?
The user should be able to easily navigate around your website’s pages. A cluttered navigation is eliminated to make the experience more streamlined and distraction-free. This raises the possibility that users will locate the data they need to carry out a specific action.
9- Highlight Videos
Short product or feature videos are also popular since they may be used to emphasize a particular use case in addition to background videos. These brief movies are excellent for bringing your solution to life while sparing visitors from being overburdened by a drawn-out experience they must sit through.
The people at InVision are a good source for examples of this. On their homepage, they show this quick illustration of how simple it is to operate their product by dragging and dropping a design:
How does it help?
Video product explanations enable B2B enterprises positively influence the purchasing decision-making process.
10- Creating Cards
Designers and marketers alike have developed a fascination with cards due to the growth of Pinterest. Individual cards aid in the visual distribution of information so that site users can quickly ingest manageable chunks without feeling overwhelmed.
Users can select which articles to expand by segmenting various pieces of content into cards. Without using a lot of text, this keeps the webpage looking tidy and ordered.
How does it help?
Card design is growing in popularity on B2B and B2C websites because it lets users receive information in manageable portions. This layout might help you highlight several products or solutions side by side on your website.
Remember that your cards should respond when you swipe them. This implies that the quantity and size of cards displayed should change under the screen size.
11- Superior Product Images
B2 B websites increasingly use large product images to promote different aspects or features of their products, and this development is not accidental.
How does it help?
Product designers can more efficiently and effectively showcase various features of a product with the use of high-quality product photos.
This method focuses on a feature’s advantages by giving you the chance to draw attention to its most advantageous qualities.
These large photos can also be easily downloaded. They do this by communicating the functions of the various product features through graphics rather than words, which helps visitors get a clear grasp of what they do.
The Style Elements
Modern web design necessitates continuous examination to guarantee that your website produces captivating graphics and engaging content and provides a consistent user experience across devices. The above factors provide an excellent place to start when building appealing, efficient, and quick websites that pique user interest and promote conversions.