Hottest Web Design & Web Development trends of 2018

Web design and development go hand in hand. Startup marketing in Canada has exploded in the last year with hundreds of design and development studios cropping up to meet the growing need from the startup market. If you are looking for a web developer in Toronto, you wouldn’t have to look very far! However, not all web designers are created the same.

Find an individual developer or a team that also has web design and UX design skills. Having design and development under the same roof will mean less hassle for you and a seamless experience while collaborating on your website.

Web design and web development also require a sound understanding of UI & UX principles. Your website needs appealing visuals and solid copy that resonates with your target audience. Someone with strong UI & UX experience can help you accomplish this.

Web design is also subject to far more shifts in technology than its traditional print forbearers. So, you want a design and development team or professional who has the right knowledge base as well as the field experience and knows all the latest trends because web development is a fast-moving, dynamic industry. Talk about a tall order!

Below, we have listed some of the hottest website design trends our team noticed in the first half on 2018.

Vibrant Colors

There has been an increase in the use of bold colors across digital platforms. Earlier, web designers used to stick to limited web safe colors. However, contemporary designers are becoming bold and courageous in their approach to color because there are a ton of choices available on the RGB (the color spectrum adapted for web usage) color spectrum today. More and more designers are experimenting with highly saturated, vibrant shades paired in striking and unusual ways. Such striking combinations are eye-catching, trendy and appeal to a large mass of users, millennial and otherwise. If you ask us, this trend is here to stay!

Integrated Animation

As web technology matures, more websites are drifting away from static images to find new ways to engage users using interactive elements. To this end, web designers have come up with smaller animations and illustrated elements integrated onto the web page. With the shorter loading times, even simple animations can now be easily used to hook your audience and keep their attention while your page is loading. Note that more user attention also means a lower bounce rate.

Responsive Design

So, you’re thinking responsive has been around for a decade, how is this a new trend, right? Responsive has been around for a few years now, but the design thinking approach that developers are using to present web pages on different screens has really picked up in the last couple of years. As Google has now shifted to mobile-first search, web developers are really honing on responsive web designs for mobile devices that can be used on-the-go. The world has already moved towards mobile technology such as smartphones and tablets. So, it only makes sense that beefing up your mobile presence via responsive design will help you reach - and keep - more mobile users.

Chatbots

A chatbot is a computer program designed to simulate conversations with human users over the internet. Advanced chatbots based on artificial intelligence will play a vital role in coming years as they will be able to understand live speech and create meaningful interactions with human users via deep learning. Chatbots created on the basis of artificial intelligence and neural networks continue to pioneer a new era of digital communication and user engagement. Rudimentary chatbots have cropped up on websites over the last year but this frontier still remains largely unexplored. We believe that with new developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning, chatbots will remain a hot topic for the rest of 2018 and beyond.

Push notifications for websites

Yes, this concept was borrowed from the mobile application world and adapted to web applications! Mobile app notifications have been highly effective in driving user engagement and improving retention. Since this concept has worked so well on mobile technology, web developers predict that push notifications for the web will likely help to increase web engagement as well! For the rest of 2018, we expect that this trend will pick up even more momentum.

Progressive Web Apps

So, the mobile application market is already saturated and quickly losing appeal for users looking up to free up space on their mobile devices by getting rid of cumbersome mobile apps. Cue the entry for progressive web applications! These are basically traditional web apps that have been beefed up with interactive web technology. You can think of these as a collection of design concepts, web APIs and technology that work together to simulate the interactivity mobile apps - but on the web! The best part is that PWAs have the ability to work instantly even when you have no internet connection. We seriously think that PWAs, like chatbots are going to be the next big thing in website design and development!

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