UX / UI Design trends for 2018.

2018 is here it’s time to look at UX / UI design. What big trends will we see impacting it over the coming year.

Over the last few years web design, UX & UI design has seen many changes as it continuously evolves to keep up with the technology in our devices. Some trends have come and gone while some have stayed and settled into the design landscape. Here are some trends that you’ll know and likely be seeing much more of over the next few months.

Continue simplifying user journeys.

Cut to the chase! Time, as always, is more valuable than ever and you must make your website a fluid and enjoyable experience for your customers. With all design projects it begins with research and strategy. What is your business, who are your customers, what do they want and how can you present that in the most attractive and efficient way.  It’s easy to think that you should try and sell everything to your customers but by using the proper UX research practices you can better understand what they want and how to engage with them. Allowing your customers to easily and quickly get want they want from your website is key. If that’s getting contact details or making a purchase, it should be as straight forward as possible. Hurdles should be removed and a clear pathway should be present for them to complete they’re tasks.

Content centered design.

It’s easy to design a beautiful page when content is an afterthought. When you can simply drop in some dummy Latin text to fit your design. But in the real world you’ll not have that luxury of using the perfect amount of dummy text to fill your design. No, you’ll have to display all your required content and trying to force it into a limited design layout will start to cause you headaches. That short paragraph of dummy text that fitted perfectly no longer looks good when it has to display 3 paragraphs of text and a bullet-point list does it?

Knowing and understanding your content is one of the first aspects in design. Many people think backwards, focusing on a sexy design with they’re content being an afterthought. These project are doomed to fail. Now more than ever content is the most important aspect you will be offering on your website. Your content is what makes you different, it’s what will keep the users on your website. Planning it from the start and designing specifically for your content will result in your best possible design.  So remember, content first, then design second.

Full-screen experiences.

Using the full extent of the available screen space can provide your website with much more impact and a lasting impression over the competition. Websites should be responsively designed to look their best on any screen, regardless of size or resolution. So why wouldn’t you want to take full advantage of your users screen and showcase your brand in it’s best possible light. More and more websites are making use of the full screen and no longer confining themselves to a narrow middle section based on years old resolution standards.

Fullscreen is a perfect way to wow users with a large impressive showcase of your products or services.

Dominance of video.

Video has continued to grow exponentially over the last few years. In 2017, according to Hubspot, 78% of people watched videos online every week, with 55% watching videos every day. Video content is a great way to make your content stand out and your website look more professional. You don’t necessarily need to be on camera yourself or even do a voice over if your shy. 85% of Facebook videos are watched without sound. You’ll likely have watch one recently yourself with the sound muted and reading captions while on your daily commute. People are so used to this now, you can create video without ever appearing on screen or voicing any narration yourself.

In your face typography.

There are literally millions of fonts available for use in your website via access to Google Fonts and Adobe Typekit for example and more and more people are experimenting with different types & sizes. As with full-screen experiences, design has also taken to the use of extreme, big, bold fonts that grab your attention. It can be a great way to quickly and confidently say what you offer and let the user know they’re in the right place.

Maybe cut down on the burgers.

Hamburger menus as they’re know have become quite popular in recent years. They are a great way of saving screen space by not cluttering it up with a big navigational list of text links. However designer have recently started using these “hamburger” menus on desktops which allows them to save screen space and keep their designs minimal and uncluttered. While this can work for making a design look modern and impressive, it can have a negative effect on the users experience.

You are effectively adding an extra step for the user in finding what they might want on your website. They must open a hamburger menu and look for what they want, as oppose to a traditional navigation list. There is however a grey area or a middle ground to this aspect. What we’ve learned through the use of hamburger menus on desktop screens is that it adds an extra hurdle for the user, so to reverse this, we’d go back to a traditional navigation list. But such lists in the past had a tendency to be long and bloated, offering too much needless choice. This created an altogether different hurdle for the users.

The acceptable middle ground would be a slimmed down traditional navigation focusing on the 3-5 main links which users would want to locate. Song websites have even tried a combination of the two to some success. This of course is very specific and highly individualized to each business or website. So it would tie back into the early planning stages and basis of UX design. Understanding your users, their goals and providing the most efficient journey for them to reach those goals.

Do you have a upcoming design project or are looking to update your current website design?.  Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. We’d love to work with you and help provide a great user experience to your customers.