Humans are visual learners. The criticality of aesthetically appealing, modern, eye-catching, and engaging design cannot be ignored, especially when it comes to websites.

If you want to capture and retain the attention of your target audience, make sure your website is a visual treat through and through.

When businesses hear about the importance of good web design, they often put all their eggs in the web design basket and end up going overboard. When it comes to web design, less is more. If you deck your website out with too many colours, crazy fonts, visual media, and pop-ups, your audience will get overwhelmed and head towards the nearest exit.

Master the art of creating balanced web design that resonates with your audience. In this blog, we’ll offer a closer look at five web design trends that have been the talk of the digital marketing town in 2023. They’re expected to concretise as the year continues.

As a business owner, make sure you incorporate these trends into your web design for optimal site performance, a low bounce rate, high conversions, and audience retention.

Let’s begin!

1. Unorthodox Navigation

At TocToc, we’re sticklers for simple navigation. However, simplicity doesn’t mean boring. While your website should be easy to navigate, the design should be outside the box and something new.

We’re seeing a lot of experimental navigation in 2023. When pulled off correctly, this trend is nothing short of genius. Sit with your web design team and start brainstorming. Look into pre-existing navigation patterns that stand out from the crowd.

Kim Kneipp is a great example. The menu beautifully and magically pops up from the bottom of the screen. When you go back, it gently slides back into place. Joshua’s World and Panasonic Connect also pull this trend off to perfection.

Let your creative juices flow! The goal is to bring something new to the table. Before you roll out your new-and-improved navigation, make sure you A/B test it to understand which variation works best.

Present it to a select portion of your target audience to understand how they respond to it. While something may appear exciting and novel to you, it’s possible that it fails to resonate with your audience. Frequent testing will help you get things just right.

Recommended Read: Follow These 6 Landing Page Design Practices for Greater Conversions

2. Parallax Scrolling

Fun, exciting, and interactive, parallax scrolling is the next big thing in the web design world. It’s a popular animation technique that makes sections of webpages appear more dynamic.

How does it work? Elements in the foreground move a lot faster than elements in the background, resulting in an imaginative journey. Web users enjoy a sense of greater visual depth and realism.

Parallax scrolling has been around for several years. However, it has started picking up momentum in 2023. Walter Sophia, Recap After Use, Dockyard Social, Weglot, and OK Alpha are some great examples. Inspired by 2D vintage video games, this power-packed technique is a visual treat.

If you want to incorporate parallax scrolling into your website, start by designing two layers that move at different speeds. This will pique your audience’s curiosity and lower your bounce rate.

3. Scrapbook-Style Design

The scrapbook aesthetic has been all over Instagram this year. It has also made its way to the web design world. Plantarium is known for its doodle drawings, sticker visuals, handwritten text, and quirky collages. These elements make modern websites appear a lot more trendy, cool, and hip.

If your business is more formal in nature than informal (e.g., healthcare, law, etc.), this approach isn’t for you. However, if your industry enjoys greater creative freedom (e.g., tech, retail, travel, food and beverages, etc.), you have free rein here!

Weave scrapbook-style text and visuals into your web design to capture your audience’s attention like a seasoned pro.

4. Kinetic Typography

Kinetic typography is essentially moving text. At first, this may sound like a bad approach. When elements move too quickly and erratically, they cause visual disturbance. However, a well-executed kinetic typography plan is your golden ticket to keeping your audience engaged on your website.

This technique first started gaining traction in the 1960s. Kinetic typography was used in the opening of feature films. Fast forward to the 2020s, and this trend has made its way back to the digital world.

Use this technique artistically and strategically for headings or subheadings (never both). When closely placed text moves together, it can overwhelm readers. Once you get the hang of this, you’ll provide a phenomenal browsing experience to your audience!

Recommended Read: 5 Critical Web Design Mistakes That Are Increasing Your Bounce Rate + How to Fix Them

5. Concept Illustrations

In 2023, we’re seeing a lot of websites with simple, clean, and refreshing concept illustrations (often animated). Chrono.tech is a great example.

Illustrations convey complex ideas and instructions that standalone images cannot communicate. In some cases, the illustrations are animated for increased interactivity. When you hover over the illustration, it’ll start moving and take you on a journey.

Add a dash of personality to your site by equipping it with clean, high-quality, and engaging concept illustrations designed by professionals. This is where many businesses take shortcuts. If you hand this project over to your in-house design team, you’ll struggle to achieve a good outcome. Hire the crème de la crème of web design and illustration experts to achieve stellar results that help your website succeed.

Pro tip: If you have distinct brand colours, use them for the animations. People will start associating the illustrations with your brand. The outcome? You’ll strengthen your brand identity and increase brand recall. If you don’t have a defined colour palette, start building one.

Elevate Your Web Design with TocToc

If you want your web design to stand out for all the right reasons, launch a power-packed web design plan that checks off all the boxes. At TocToc, we provide professional web design and development services to clients across Canberra and Sydney.

Our web specialists understand your audience’s unique requirements and preferences to launch a website that appeals to them and earns maximum conversions. Schedule a consultation with our team to get started.

We also specialise in search engine optimisation (SEO), content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, and app development. If you have any questions, feel free to contact our team without hesitation. We’re always happy to help!