So, that day it was a peer discussion where we were spearheading our point of view regarding the website design and the impact it leaves on the customer/visitor. The three of us opened different websites and the game began. The trio thoroughly examined the web pages, the loading time, buffering time of video content, template/color usage, and some more things that caught our sight. It was a hell amazing debate among us regarding some key changes websites should make in their visual appearance that attracts more organic traffic. After coming back home, I was pondering over the changes required by multiple websites across the internet.
Today, more than 93% of the global population uses smartphones. Even I and you also belong to the same barn because there are higher chances for you to reading this stuff on the cell phone. Since handheld technology is advancing, the bar for owning better UI and web design in being raised frequently. I'm a website designing maven and have been gathering some inquisitive facts that advocate why there's a need to redesign website front-end for making it big in 2020. This is a must because a whole new set of expectations will arrive from all customers in the New Year.
Keep a Preemptive Design
To sustain in the ever-evolving race of website ranking, companies require making frequent changes on their website. I agree with this because dull websites fail to make it among the top search results on Google's Page 1. Whenever someone approaches me regarding the website design, I suggest reconsidering the responsive design, parallax scrolling, and multimedia. Let's shed some light on them.
- Responsive Design- It refers to the device compatibility on which the website is being viewed. When the webpages of your website can be viewed according to the right screen size, it is the best form of responsive designing done right.
- Parallax Scrolling- The parallax scrolling offers a cutting edge visual experience to all visitors. Just like the precise overlaying of two elements blending on the same page at different speed while scrolling. The official website of Apple, Samsung, RedMi etc., are the best examples.
- Multimedia- The use of multimedia includes graphics, templates, color schemes, videos, fonts, and images. Overuse of these slows down the buffering pace of the website by making it heavy unnecessarily. This also increases the bounce rate of the website. Thus, everything on your website should be balanced, just like a crispy healthy salad. It not just improves user engagement but enhances the website appearance as well.
The Reduced Buffering Time
Personally, I am highly impressed with all websites that open within 3-5 seconds. When I was a web designer, my prime priority was to develop a website with the minimum buffering time. It serves as a key factor for determining the Google ranking scale. Internet users of today prefer all websites that open within a blink of an eye and consume less data. If your website isn't optimized then do not worry, you can be a lateral entry by working over 3 points i.e. halt auto-play feature, image optimization, and subtle white space. Heavy imagery and auto-play media aren't a preference anymore and wouldn't be in 2020. Hence, get them off the website. With subtle white space, the content of your site will be readable and won't use much user data.
Voice ID Login
Website development is ever-evolving and with the boon of voice search, people are making the best use of it. But, I see the voice search a little ahead. To get ready for leaving an everlasting impact on website visitors, I suggest the use of voice ID login. Just like Google navigation, this AI will be the perfect password for logging into the account. Just like we use Siri for iOS and Google Assistant for Android, it will be an outstanding step if websites are optimized for accepting the voice module for logging in. And to make it even safe, entering an alpha-numeric password would be like icing on the cake.
Immediate Response to Users
People are impatient and when they face an issue on the website, they become even impatient. Instead of facing an outburst of rage over the call, focus on the website design so that the client/user is able to lodge a complaint/issue there itself. The reasons fuelling this fire include not being able to buy products if you run an e-commerce website, no customer support information, cannot access your website on mobiles/tabloids, cannot chat or find product-related information etc. Thus, you are prone to losing a fair share of customers.
Optimized Chat-bots
Keep your user engaged by activating chat-bots for customer support. Since chat-bots offer instant reply to visitors, the user remains engaged and doesn't hang up the query. This gradually eliminates the bounce rate and assures the customer of the resolution of the complaint/query.
Ready For 2020?
Age, expectations, technology (and tummy sometimes) continue to grow. Similarly, web designing and development continues to grow. The website trends that ruled 2019 might evolve or the new ones will emanate. I'm optimistic and feel that new technology and trends for a fantastic front-end design will emerge that will make the user experience smooth.