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Website design is constantly evolving and opening up new opportunities for forward-thinking brands to take advantage of trends to better tell their story. Here we look at some expected trends for 2022 and how you can benefit from them.
Let’s start simple. In a world of ever growing digital complexity, it’s easy for users to feel overwhelmed. As a result, simple, single page websites, where you only need to scroll down to see all the content, are becoming increasingly popular. These types of sites work particularly well for portfolio websites such as this resume website for Indi Harris or Joshua Kaplan’s portfolio website.
Having looked at those examples though you might be wondering how something so simple can be translated to benefit your business? Well, that depends on how you want to represent your business and what information your customers need from you.
If you’re launching a new product or service then a single-page minisite can be a real winner. By directing customers to a new website which focuses solely on a single product or subject, you are minimising distractions, really showcasing your latest offering and increasing the likelihood of casual visitors actually taking the time to understand your new product fully
However, all this doesn’t mean that you can’t sum up your entire business on one page. When you’re trying to attract new customers, being able to convey, simply and effectively, what your company is about and how it can benefit them is essential. It’s entirely possible that with a multi-page website your visitors are being overwhelmed with choices, not finding the information they’re looking for and ultimately looking elsewhere. You don’t need me to tell you that’s bad for your business. Sometimes simplicity is the most elegant and effective solution.
This single page website for Sawdust Art Festival is a great example of only needing one page to convey all the information your visitors need.
Previously I’ve written about the value of storytelling to your business and how to do this effectively using video. An alternative and more interactive way of telling your story is through a long-form online story, a concept commonly referred to as ‘scrollytelling’.
So what exactly is scrollytelling? Per Jeff Cardello ‘scrollytelling transforms a longform story into an interactive experience’ using audio and visual content to add ‘a deeper layer of meaning, communicating what can’t be captured with words alone.’
A good example of this can be found in this longform article by Michael Hobbes for The Huffington Post. Beginning with a garish, animated splash, before taking you through this lengthy and in-depth look at the economic issues facing millennials via side scrolling animations, graphs, captions and animated maps, ‘Millenials are Screwed’ is a brilliant example of the power of scrollytelling. Without making use of the creative tools available, this article reads like a 2,145 word sob story. Instead it's a vibrant, engaging and thought-provoking piece.
So… how can you make use of this for your business? All businesses have a story to tell, and all businesses have customers who are not only interested in what you sell, but also who you are and what your business represents. Sharing your brand story is engaging, relatable, builds customer empathy and can develop a strong sense of brand loyalty.
Telling your story is something we specialise in - and we’ve got the creative toolset to deliver your story in the most exciting and interesting way possible. So why not get in touch with us and see how your business can use scrollytelling to reach new customers?
Leading neatly on… A lot of scrollytelling makes use of side-scrolling to give the audience a different and engaging experience that makes them pay more attention. We’re all familiar with scrolling vertically, in-fact if you’re still reading this then you’ve already done plenty on this page, so scrolling horizontally feels like a surprisingly different experience.
This break from convention is great if you’re looking to highlight a certain section of your website or make a particular page stand out. Used effectively it can be a great tool and also opens up new possibilities for conveying information or difficult to understand concepts, as this brilliant example by Josh Worth demonstrates.
Of course you don’t need to be visualising a concept as large as the solar system to make great use of side-scrolling. If you feel like your business needs to stand out from the crowd in a simple but dynamic way, then taking advantage of horizontal scrolling might be just what you need.
Once again Google is at the centre of leading design trends within the field of web development, owing to its dominance of the web search landscape. Google’s 2021 search algorithm update has increased the importance of website loading times in it’s search ranking factors.
You probably won’t be surprised to learn that people………… don’t…………. like…………. waiting. A delay of only one second in loading time can decrease conversion rates by 7% and 53% of (mobile) visits are likely to be abandoned if pages take longer than 3 seconds to load.
This is an area of website design that might not come to mind immediately when you think about the design of your business’ website - but it’s critically important to ensure you are ranked ahead of your competitors within search results and maintain visitor attention when they do visit your website.
I’ve only focused on a handful of trends in this article and there’s plenty more exciting and interesting trends you can take advantage of to make your website stand out and generate more business. So if you’re looking for some help in taking your business website to the next level….
