Are you planning to launch a new website this year? Or maybe to redesign your existing one, or just make some tweaks to stay current and improve site performance? Or perhaps you just want to know if your site’s falling behind the times in significant ways. Whichever may be the case, it’s helpful to be familiar with the major web design trends for 2021.
Here’s a quick look at some of the key things happening in web design right now, and that will play major roles in the development of new sites in the coming year.
2021 Web Design Trends
- Optimism – Yeah, 2020 was a rough year for everyone. As we head into 2021, people are looking for hope and positivity, and this is already being reflected in new web design trends for 2021. Bright colors, happy images, uplifting copy, and other elements have always been heavily used, of course, but now’s the time for even greater reliance on making people feel good and optimistic. Increased use of playfulness and humor go along with this, too.
- Experimental fonts – Recently, there have been real improvements in the digital rendering of fonts, particularly on mobile devices and their smaller screens. This is opening up more experimentation with typefaces as a way to grab attention and create a particular feel. Of course, it’s still crucial not to lose sight of readability; all fonts should be large, clear, and easily legible, and it’s almost never a good design move to mix more than two or three fonts on a page.
- Interactivity – Adding interactive elements to your website makes it more engaging and potentially useful to its visitors. It increases time spent on your site, makes your website more memorable, and helps build stronger relationships with users. There are so many ways to add interactivity to your site; just a few examples include polls, surveys, quizzes, assessments, and calculators. Ideally, they’re relevant to your brand and visitors, as a health assessment would be for a medical practice website or a mortgage calculator for a real estate agency website.
- Increased emphasis on accessibility – Ensuring that your website is user-friendly for people with various disabilities is one of the most essential web design trends for 2021. This includes elements like captions on videos, highly descriptive alt-text, and a lot more. For a fairly thorough look at what types of web design components affect accessibility and a better idea of how to make your site more inclusive, see the Vox Accessibility Guidelines Checklist.
- Highlighting social responsibility – This one also made our list of important social media marketing trends for 2021 because yes, it’s a big topic for the times. More than ever, consumers look to support brands that act with environmental and social responsibility. This can even include taking a public stand on controversial political issues. Whether or not your brand goes that far, it’s helpful to adopt greener and more socially responsible policies and processes, and then to spotlight them in your web design.
