How much does the design of your website affect its conversion rate? A lot, of course.
New design trends come out each year. And some of these trends are not there to stay.
Which design trends become mainstream in the long run? Usually the trends that positively affect conversion. After all, converting visitors is the main purpose of a website, right?
In that spirit, I have picked 7 of this year's best design trends that demand your attention. These design trends are chosen based on the following criteria:
- These trends are relatively new (I.e., gaining popularity in 2017)
- They are proven to increase conversion
- And they are likely to become mainstream
So let’s begin:
1. Design Your Site to Be Age Responsive
Now we all know about responsive websites that fit with any screen size. But what about age responsiveness?
It’s not really difficult to guess a person’s age when they visit your site. An age responsive website should adjust itself depending on the age of the viewer. As more and more people are moving online, it’s obvious that we shouldn’t ignore any age group while designing our website.
Age responsive design should focus on the following things:
- Font size and spacing: Senior users prefer different typography than the younger generation. Easy to read fonts and ample kerning is usually the best choice. You can even consider using larger fonts for senior visitors.
- Colour: Vivid colours generally appeal to younger visitors, while seniors usually prefer matte tones. Design elements with blazing colors are not really suitable for everyone. You can test different types of colour variations to find out which works best.
- Navigation: A site could be designed in such a way that it presents a simpler navigation system for people with less technical experience. While tech-savvy young people will never mind much about experimental design elements, better avoid that for your senior visitors.
2. Speed Up Your Site By Loading The Page at Multi-Step
Modern websites are getting heavy. Loading every page element at once may make the site very slow.
A multi-step loading process loads a skeleton of the page first, then it loads the text and then the images. Skeleton screen allows your visitors to anticipate the contents and thus the page appears to load faster than it actually does.
While many of us may not like the idea of a site getting loaded in multiple steps, it’s gaining popularity because infinite scrolling is really becoming popular. Many sites nowadays don’t have a traditional homepage. Instead, they have a page that goes on and on as the visitor scrolls. To build sites like this, multi-step loading is a must.
3. Use Chatbots to Assist Potential Customers
Though AI is not yet strong enough to continue intelligent discussions with your customers, chatbots can really help. Think of chatbot as a responsive FAQ for your site. If properly customized, chatbots can make it easy for your customers to find products. Plus you can also get useful data about customer preference from chat history stored by the bot.
As voice is becoming the new way to access internet and search, there is no doubt that AI based chatbots are going to bring you more customers in the future. However, implement the chatbots wisely, and don’t push it onto your visitors unless they are interested.
4. Include Value Based Offers at Exit
In a brick and mortar store, you can feel when a customer is about to leave your shop. At that moment, an expert salesperson can offer something to finally persuade the customer. Most of the times that works.
You should deploy the same technique on your ecommerce site. Just as a potential customer is leaving your site, present a value based exit offer to grab the final chance of conversion. A value based exit offer may consist of -
- A discount
- A free product upon purchase
- Free shipping
Always make sure not to annoy your customers. Instead, try to come up with offers that they can’t refuse.
5. Use Videos to Persuade Your Customers
Including videos where real people say good things about your products work very well to convert your potential customers. However, the videos must be authentic and also remember to be age responsive while presenting the videos to a particular visitor.
You can also try including general product videos that explain how it works. Customers always like the how-to videos. The videos must have very high production value. It’s better not to include any video at all, rather than some poorly produced ones.
6. Pique Customers’ Interest with Cinemagraphs
Cinemagraphs are a great way to captivate your visitors. The subtle movements make these otherwise static photos come alive. Proven to gain customers’ interest, you can try using cinemagraphs on your homepage displaying your premium product, or as your site’s hero image.
Cinemagraph is a fairly new trend. But it grabs anyone’s attention very easily.
7. Use Subtle but Rich Animations
Animations, if used properly, can greatly enhance the user experience. Animations can be used in product presentation and to represent micro-interactions on the page. Viewers love meaningful animations. But make sure that the animations are not too distracting.
Animations that add value to user experience are appreciated by the visitors and increase their interaction with your site.
Over to you
Web design in 2017 and onwards is going to be more about user experience and conversion than anything else. Designers no longer design with a focus on aesthetics. Ultimately, if your site can't engage visitors, it’s going to be lost in the crowd.
