2017 was a year for bold, brutalist web design.
Take a brand like Balenciaga.
The use of negative space and clean lines makes for a highly functional web environment. It looks immaculate on all devices.
However, this year, trends are evolving towards the bold and immersive. Picture bright, saturated colors, pattern, and artful typography.
Whether you?re looking to draw users into your opt-in pages, or show off your products, this post will talk you through five web design trends for new ecommerce sites in 2018.
Making The Most Of Customer Reviews
88% of customers check out reviews online before deciding to buy. You need to make sure that you are doing what you can to maximize the increased traffic customer reviews can bring.
Sites like AO.com use layered review options, optimizing for the user?s preferences in the features of the products. Dynamic bars also animate to show the ratings. This is a useful design feature that adds a sense of authenticity to the user-generated reviews.
The data collected in survey content can help you structure your data for easier consumption on your website. Highly technical reviews can be separated from everyday ?happy customer? comments, satisfying different audience segments.
Reviews can also be thought of as a form of social proof. Developments over the last year within Facebook have enabled business pages to leverage all social media interactions towards their star rating. All comments, likes, and check-ins can count towards your site?s online clout. And so to encourage interaction across platforms, social plugins can help draw in new responses.
One-On-One Recommendations
Chatbots and voice command A.I are starting to become mainstream. In the year ahead, ecommerce brands should be looking for ways to incorporate machine learning wherever there?s a fit. Chatbots are one of the easiest ways to make your site feel more personable and customer-service oriented.
There?s a lot that goes into marrying UX, personalization and live chat, and it starts with a brainstorming session. List all of the possible commands and questions your website could pose. Next, consider how they may be rephrased using different terms and start creating your own chatbot responses to common questions.
On-site chatbots are commonly seen on the bottom right-hand side of a website. However, the best ecommerce brands are using Facebook Messenger and unique hooks to encourage the user to interact long-term.
Typefaces: The Bolder The Better
Many brands are embracing the bold, serif typeface trend. In many cases, the header text spans across the length of the hero banner.
However, for a fresh new look, headers are also being scattered throughout landing page designs.
Left, right, center justification, or entirely animated ? bold text is being used in modern designs to create more immersive scanning patterns across the landing page copy.
Unconventional scanning patterns can keep visitors interested and reduce bounce rates.
Further, bolding certain words and phrases can help your messages sink in and trigger specific emotions in the reader.
In all of your on-page copy, you can use exciting typefaces to draw attention to the subheadings and keywords that you want your customers to focus on.
Easy-To-Scale Social-Friendly Sites
The number of selling channels is ever-increasing. Running a website that can evolve with the ecommerce trends is key to staying afloat in the saturated online market.
Open source CMS systems are enabling more brands to experiment with bespoke design elements, while maintaining scalable functionality.
Subscription as Service (SaaS) models allow you to create an online store, customize it, and access all of the backend features to keep it running it smoothly.? For those who are new to ecommerce and web design SaaS hosts offer useful 24/7 support. You can even buy one that?s already set up & running.
As a reflection of the domination of social media in ecommerce marketing, many sales sites are mirroring the aesthetics of networks like Instagram. A simple product grid can easily match that of an Instagram profile, in the case of the Nick Mayer art store site:
Homepages that focus on the products make for a layout that?s easy-on-the-eye for smartphone users. The nested menu options are also easy to navigate on any device..
Inclusive Design
Designing websites for accessibility is not a new thing. But, it is undoubtedly becoming more normalized as awareness of Inclusive Design Principles grows.
?The days of making assumptions about how, where, and why people consume content in the ways they do, are over. The need for inclusion is now ubiquitous.? ?? Leonie Watson, Brand Consultant @ Heydon Pickering?
Accessible Design gives people of all ages and abilities a clear path to conversion on any given webpage. As just one small example, if you are supplying video, you must ensure you include closed caption subtitles.
Bold and graphically exciting landing pages may look interesting. But, if the mix of fonts and colors is inconsistent, many users may have difficulty finding what they need from you.
Also, trends like parallax screens may have been trendy in the past. However, according to the outlined principles for web designers to follow, parallax sites can make some users feel nauseous.
Bear this in mind when considering your scroll options, on-screen animations, and use of video. You also need to present controls for turning these features off.
There you have five web design trends for new ecommerce sellers to look out for in 2018. One of the key takeaway points to consider is how you can use your layout, typography, and imagery to create a visual brand narrative. As long as your site is accessible and scaleable with the latest customer interaction trends, there?s plenty of creative leeway for businesses looking to push the aesthetic envelope.
