The new year just about the corner, Web Design and UX Design Trends to Boost Conversions in 2017 are looking toward 2017. Every year brings new design trends. But while it’s nice to see what’s happening design-wise, are any of these trends actually useful? It turns out that some things we can expect to see in 2017 have some serious potential to increase conversions on almost any website.
The old saying ‘a picture paints a thousand words’ still remains true today, and in the world of UI design is still a great way to quickly grab the user’s attention. Vision is said to be the strongest of all human senses, and a large, single image is quickly able to summaries both message and tone of voice in a more efficient, succinct way. Images has long been a staple of UI and web design, and its success has slowly paved the way for its natural successor – video. We’re seeing video used more and more in digital design, and for good reason. Where traditional photography is static, video is dynamic. It’s great at catching the eye of users and as a means of visual storytelling.
That’s the topic of this info graphic from the team at Abhishek Graphics, revealing trends for 2017 that will ensure success.
#1. ANTICIPATORY DESIGN:
Strictly speaking, the anticipatory functionality has been around for ages. However, a more intelligent implementation is turning it into a relatively-New UX design pattern. In fact, anticipatory design is already being successfully integrated in certain websites and applications.
The objective remains the same – to anticipate user decisions in order to further simplify a particular process for the user (by reducing cognitive load).
Traditionally, you may have encountered it when you opt to fill up a form on a site or app and you get an auto-fill option that states your address, full name and other important details.
This is the anticipation feature essentially working well, providing you the ease to fill a form without any hassle. In fact, we are all familiar with basic anticipatory features like in-app notifications, geo-location, pop-up boxes and recommendations. But these are very simplistic implementations.
#2. DESIGNING USER-DRIVEN STORIES :
Storytelling designs are one of the most effective techniques to grab attention. If you need to deliver a particular pitch to your target audience that also includes investors or need to get approval for your idea’s execution, then a user-driven short story of around 2 minutes will work well.
User-driven storytelling helps develop better understanding of cutting-edge concepts in your target audience. Sometimes it is difficult to create a story, but not always. You will need to pay attention to details and use your creative skills to develop and design a compelling story for your brand, products, service, concept, etc.
#3 THE RISE OF RESPONSIVE WITH THE BACKING OF PROGRESSIVE WEB APPS AND ACCELERATED WEB PAGES :
With smartphone sales breaking records every year, speed and experience on mobile will continue to be a defining factor in 2017. Responsive design that adjusts content and looks based on the size of devices with the help of CSS, media queries and flexible grids, will continue to gain strong footholds in the web design. Many companies will still opt for the mobile-first approach, but their options will not be limited to just mobile apps and will also include progressive web apps and accelerated web pages.
Google’s another darling, accelerated web pages will also help in taking care of the slow loading mobile sites, by providing lightening fast sites to mobile users.
#4 VIDEO IS ALREADY BIG, IT WILL BE HUGE :
High quality big visuals still dominate the imagery on websites, but in 2017, we will see a lot of originals in terms of images and not the stock images which are currently in abundance. Brands will hire professional photographers to take their original product shots. But static images will take a backseat in 2017, making way for VIDEOS. Moving images on a page instantly grabs users attention and helps in delivering the brand message more effectively.
#5. PROACTIVELY DESIGNING FOR FUTURE DEVICE :
Your next big step will be to provide a smooth user experience on new devices, especially wearable devices. As stated on a Forbes article, by the year 2019, 245 million wearable devices will be purchased by users globally. This is why we are stressing the fact that you need to be sure that your website or app can operate with or within wearable devices. But this does not stop there. You need to make sure that your design is future-proof. The most prominent UX design trend to haunt you in 2016 is providing a smooth user experience on an ever-increasing range of new devices.
As mentioned earlier, technology evolves at a fast pace. This is why today we have such advanced hardware and software. This is also why we are seeing new advances and increased mainstream use of artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR) which have led to the development of distinct interactive devices and new ways of interaction. Interestingly enough, with advances in speech recognition software, namely in the form of Siri, Cortana and Google Now, speech interaction is taking over from gesture as it presents a more natural and easier way to interact with devices.
#6. INCORPORATING DESIGN ANIMATIONS FOR BETTER UX :
Design animations keep users focused on a certain thing, which you want every user to notice whenever they use your app or site. You can use them to guide users on how to move forward on your website or to perform a specific action.
For example, when you chat on WhatsApp with your friends, you can see an in-built message animation ‘XYZ is typing…’
This assurance is perfect to keep you waiting and manage time. Similarly, if you integrate interactive animations, your users are less-likely to get bored.
Conclusion :
Trends will come and go, but whatever new trends we see in 2017, remember to first test them on a single web page instead of rolling out on entire website. This way you can ensure whether a UX trend you are following has any affect on your key performance indicators or not. This will also prevent you from following trends that later turn out to be a fad. It is not necessary to follow all the trends that are discussed above.
