Gone are the days when keeping the pace with the latest and futuristic web development and design trends used to be a matter of personal preference only. Today, a successful business cannot afford to ignore the most current web design best practices because these are impacting user experiences, conversion rates, and even SERP rankings!
Here are some of the most advanced and useful features/standards to incorporate in your website development in 2018 and going forward:
Micro Interaction
Micro-interactions are the minute animations or visible graphical responses that users may inadvertently invoke when they perform specific actions on websites, web software, or mobile app interfaces. These visual system reactions may seem a small detail, but they are a decisive user-engagement and retention factor, and they can spell the difference between an excellent website and a dull, off-putting online experience. For example, an animated check-mark (✓) may appear just when the user has completed a download.
More than ever before, UI/UX web designers will increasingly incorporate micro-interactions in their designs to provide:
- Control: Immediate visual feedback lets the user know that their action is successful or has been approved, paving the way for further engagements.
- Intuition: Little visual interactions can make a platform more intuitive, such as when a smartphone icon reacts to touch, letting the user know what tab is on.
- Visual gratification: A micro interaction can have a visually rewarding effect on the user, stimulating interest in further engagement.
Data-Driven Stories
Marketers already know that they need to use accurate data to drive and seal deals in record time. However, many of them are not optimising animated visualisations and 3D-data representations to convey information in a more precise, compelling, and visually-attractive way.
Enter data-driven storytelling, and more web designers and developers will be using animation to present actionable-data in an easy-to-digest form. Advancements in augmented/virtual reality technologies continue to pose opportunities for the simulated sampling of virtual models, and keeping data at the core of such endeavours could help in many ways, including creating powerful data analytics.
The line between data science and web design will get thinner with time. Consequently, the possibilities for creating informative data visualisations based on accurate business intelligence will increase. Making such visualisations more interactive will undoubtedly spur user engagement and consumption of the information being conveyed.
AI and Machine Learning Development
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been making inroads into mainstream web design off late. Thanks to AI, more and more website designers will be seeking to enhance the UX by providing conversational interfaces, also called chatbots. Machine learning is going to play an increasingly important role in "user intelligence" gathering, going forward. These efforts will enable e-commerce operators to provide more personalised shopping experiences.
It's highly likely that AI design will seek to achieve a better understanding of user pain points and preferences. Still, more mainstream web designers are going to work toward delivering a superior UX while making any AI involvement seem natural (or even unnoticeable) to the user.
It's not always easy for enterprises to pinpoint the specific forward-looking web design advancements they need to implement right away and maintain their competitiveness while boosting customer engagements and driving sales. We can lend a hand when you need to upgrade your online platform to the latest industry standards and trends.
