Web design changes from one year to another, and it can be confusing at times. Experienced web designers might face these changes without issues by rapidly adapting to the requirements, but beginner web designers may find them a true concern. Because the industry is influenced by demand, designers have to stay up to date with the requirements that govern the market each year.
Fortunately for beginner web designers, they can focus directly on the trends that are appreciated at the moment, forgetting about the ones that are already down the drain.
Wasting time on learning more about trends which may never come back to people’s attention is a struggle that newly-launched designers don’t have to encounter. Of course, the basics are required to perform well in web design, so there are a few steps that one can’t skip.
Considering the latest web development technologies and the desired impact in online trends, here’s what beginner web designers should know in 2019:
Mobile-first design is a MUST
In the past, web designers were mostly focused on developing responsive designs for desktop platforms. Since the number of mobile-exclusive users bounced to the roof in the past year, website design shifted towards mobile-first design. The change is a considerable one because web designers are forced to expand their knowledge about scalability and making a design responsive on all sorts of devices.
The priority of web design changed, currently facing towards mobile. Websites that fully rely on desktop design won’t be as popular anymore, and this is not just a statement. The numbers show it, according to the online market statistics of the past couple of years. Beginner web designers should know how to:
- Adapt website design for mobile (screens of all sizes)
- Improve the loading speed of websites’ mobile version
- Develop progressive enhancement
- Enhance navigation through mobile-friendly menus
- Develop the ideal mobile touchscreen target sizes etc.
All web designers should focus on speed
Web designers should be more concerned about how to improve the functionality of a website through their designs. A slow loading time proved to have a noticeable negative impact on the bounce rate (users that leave a website within the first seconds of accessing it). Beginner web designers should learn how to create designs that encourage a fast loading time.
All webmasters can notice the massive investments that are made for increasing their website’s speeds. For instance, Amazon invested more money in improving their website’s speed and statistics show that they earned 1% more profit for every 100 milliseconds improvement generated through better web design and other optimizing practices. Their efforts ended up spawning 50% more page views.
Beginner web designers should bear in mind:
- To optimize all images
- To pay more attention to JavaScript
- To learn more about lazy loading and how it can improve the loading speed of a website
- To make better use of caching
- To remove tap delays (mobile)
- To get rid of any redundancies that may slow down the website etc.
Personalized content is requested
Internet users desire personalization and many of them are willing to complete adjacent forms to obtain relevant content in the future. Users want to be greeted with the information they truly care about.
In web design, personalization strategies are absolutely required to transform the user experience in a genuine one. The way a website is built should answer four basic questions: what, when, who and how? Users expect to find what they want on the website, and web designers must follow this structure when they build a site to ensure user retention.
According to several studies, the visual effect of a personalized website is 7 times more likely to increase user retention compared to sites that use stock photography or generic illustration. Beginner web designers need to focus on:
- Including personalized illustration design in their projects
- Emphasizing the brand’s image when putting together their projects
- Using original dynamic elements such as background videos
- Following the latest trends in terms of visuals (e.g. gradients in 2019) etc.
CSS3 animation becomes the norm
The direction that web design adopted this year is related to simplicity. Keeping websites simple, yet professional is a shift from complicated web design and intricate elements. One way to offer quality content to users while also keeping the design clean would be through CSS3 animation.
Many beginner web designers don’t know much about CSS3, even though it is the best solution to amplify the impact of a message at the moment while drawing attention to the artistic effect of simplicity. To give them a competitive edge, beginner website designers should learn more about CSS3 dedicated tools and how they can use them to improve their projects, as web design experts like Parxavenue already adopted all the measurements required.
Beginner web designers should learn more about CSS3 animation because:
- It provides better efficiency
- It leads to faster loading times
- Is faster to learn and quicker to use
- It is friendlier when it comes to making changes
- It is platform-independent and cross-browser-compatible etc.
Typography skills on point
There are many turning points in web design that are worth people’s attention, but beginner designers should focus on the importance of typography in this domain. Typography and fonts are often overlooked because not all online users consider them relevant. Their power starts to emerge once the right combinations are used and the overall web design becomes much more effective all of a sudden. Choosing the right font to express a message is not that simple and it requires a lot of documentation.
The basic facts about typography that you should know as a beginner web designer are:
- The contrast rule – the background of a website must provide a visually-pleasing contrast to the text on the site
- One font is enough – use only one base font and a decorative one for the titles or other elements that need to stand out
- Always align fonts by axis (vertical and horizontal)
- Use grids to create hierarchy etc.