Web Design Trends to Watch in 2024

Overview of web design trends in 2024: AI, minimalist futurism, 3D immersive experience, dark mode and more

Core points:

• The web design trends in 2024 include: the use of AI tools, minimalist futuristic style, 3D immersive experience, dark mode, mimicry design, artistic typography, micro-interaction, and brutalism.
• Although AI is becoming more and more popular in web design, it will not completely replace human designers. Instead, AI tools are used to enhance design processes, increase efficiency and creativity.
• Dark mode is becoming more and more popular for its aesthetics and potential to reduce eye fatigue and save battery power. However, designers should offer options to switch between dark mode and bright mode to meet all user preferences.

This article will outline the latest web design trends, including artificial intelligence, minimalist futurism, 3D immersive experience, dark mode, mimicry design, artistic typography and microinteraction.

Technical development, progress and new trends continue to emerge in the field of web design. Web design involves creating websites that are visually engaging and functional, so it is crucial for web designers to keep up and even be ahead of trends.

Like other fields, some trendy concepts have appeared in web design in 2023, and they have continued to this day. This article will explore some of these more noteworthy trends.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI will replace designers, developers, writers and other technical professionals.

You may have heard similar statements last year. I'm a little tired of seeing these claims on social media, but no matter how compelling it seems, I'm not entirely convinced that AI will completely replace tech professionals, especially creatives.

The use of AI tools and AI design tools has surged. It is no surprise that businesses are now using ChatBox AI as a virtual assistant on their websites. Chat assistants are usually located in the lower right corner of the website, guiding users to enter product/service inquiries, navigation questions, suggestions, etc.

Although these tools are very efficient, they have not yet reached the perfect level of what people expect from them. However, web designers are effectively leveraging these technologies to improve performance, enhance creativity, and presumably make smarter design decisions.

Some web design tools that have been popular among web designers in recent years include (but are not limited to):

• Dall-E: Created by OpenAI, Dall-E 2 has become increasingly popular as an AI tool in recent years, which can generate realistic digital images and works of art based on text descriptions. The following figure is an image generated using Dall-E.

  

• Khroma: An AI color matching tool that can be trained to choose colors for you.

• Vance AI: An image enhancement, generation and editing tool that designers use to improve the images used in their designs.

• Postcards AI: Can be used to design email templates.

These are just a small part of AI-powered web design tools available during the design process.

Minimal futurism

Minimalism is a timeless concept in web design. It focuses on simplifying the web interface, making it simple and clear, and allowing users to focus on the essence of the website content. It basically means creating "simple" and "functional" web designs.

Minimalism also means prioritizing the basic elements in web design, which means using only the basic elements required for the design.

The following image shows a minimalist design from Pinterest.

You can explore more minimalist designs from Pinterest and Dribble here and here.

Simple aesthetics, such as simple lines, plenty of white space and limited colors, make your website look simple, stylish and refined.

All the discussion about the appearance of a minimalist website is not to say that minimalist futurism does not prioritize user experience, because it does, while also adopting a simple, cutting-edge aesthetic.

3D Immersive Experience

If you noticed that your website feels more immersive recently, it is most likely due to the increasing use of 3D features and VR in web design. The 3D immersive experience of web design refers to the design of a website that allows users to create an illusion of depth and reality. This trend has become more and more popular over the past year or so.

Imagine browsing a website instead of seeing flat photos and texts, you feel like you are entering a virtual environment, or staring through AR/VR Google's lens. This can be achieved by including 3D visual effects, special effects and animations. The 3D immersive experience creates a sense of depth that makes elements on the web look more interactive and real.

Check out the Avir 3D scrolling website. You will notice that scrolling through this homepage creates a sense of reality. It's like the user is not just browsing this page, but "experience" it.

The video below provides snapshots of the Avir website.

Web designers use technologies such as zoom, rotation, horizontal scrolling and parallax scrolling to achieve a 3D immersive experience. They can also include 3D models that allow viewers to interact with objects on the screen.

This trend of 3D immersive experience enhances user engagement and creates an unforgettable virtual world browsing experience. It's like adding a touch of virtual reality to the web, making the web pages both interactive and visually appealing.

Of course, the downside is that users on lower-performance devices may find their devices running slow or the fans running at high speed, so choose this path with caution unless the reward is really worth it.

Dark Mode

Dark mode is not new, but many people who are used to it cannot imagine what would have happened without it. Take me as an example: Every time I visit a website, I almost always look for the Dark Mode toggle button. Many modern websites now offer the Dark Mode option, which optimizes the Dark Mode settings for the website's layout and design. Many other sites simply decided to turn directly to Dark Mode without any other options.

Dark mode is not a new concept in web design, but in recent years it has become increasingly popular as more people realize the benefits of dark mode (due to the contrast between web content and background). The Hyre website provides a good example as shown in the following figure.

The reasons why web designers implement dark mode in their design are as follows:

• Reduce eye fatigue for users. (Note that Dark Mode may increase eye fatigue for some users, which is why it is best to offer the option to turn it off.)
Its aesthetics.
Save battery power. Research shows that using dark mode can save battery power compared to using bright mode.

Dark mode design also enhances visibility in low-light environments. Suppose you pick up your phone early in the morning and turn it on; the bright light can be dazzling. Using Dark Mode in this case can provide a much easier experience.

Given the impact of dark mode on most users, it has become a trend for web designers to include it in their design, which shows that it is more than just a flash in the pan trend.

Remember that the Dark Mode design may be preferable for some, but not for others. To design an easy-to-access website, it is best to have the designer include a dark mode/theme switch so that the user can choose the theme that best suits them.

A good example with dark mode switching options is the ProfileMe.dev website, as shown in the following image.

Reading through Tara's articles can better understand the design of the dark pattern.

Miscellaneous Design

While mimicry design is not a new web design trend, it has become increasingly popular among web designers in recent years. The mimicry design creates a soft and realistic UI that is visually pleasing to the user. Mimic designs usually have soft shadows and subtle gradients that make their appearance soft.

The above image shows Sayim Abdullah's mimicking design toolkit from the Figma community. It shows some mimicry elements such as buttons, icons and search inputs.

Now, check out Sourasith's music application design to see how to apply mimic design to the design of a web page or web application.

Artistic typography

Typography plays a crucial role in the aesthetics of web design. Web designers are becoming increasingly bold and experimental in typography selection, including font type, style, spacing, color and contrast, zoom, alignment, and text arrangement.

Web designers are experimenting with typography and beautiful fonts to improve user experience and communicate with their target audience. They also use creative typography and fonts to create brand identity.

Picture source: Freepik

When seeking to design web pages with artistic text, designers must take care to ensure that the layout is easy to read, clear, and consistent throughout the page.

Want to learn more about typesetting? Check out Jennifer Farley's first and second articles on typography readability and clarity.

Micro-interaction

When you visit the website, you may notice some smooth and subtle movements. These interactions are called micro-interactions and are intended to provide an interesting user experience. These subtle interactions appear in the form of animation effects, notification pop-ups, floating items, carousels, etc.

Whether it is an animation button or the toggle animation below, all these micro-interactions are web design elements that respond to user activities, providing visual feedback, guiding users, and enhancing the user experience of the website.

Pictures are from: Koru UX design, Dribbble

Web designers use micro-interactions to create a more engaging and enjoyable browsing experience.

For example, new delete animations in Telegram mobile app. When a user deletes a message, a flashing effect animation is displayed before the message is deleted from the view. In my opinion, this is a good use of microinteraction (makes deleting content interesting?).

Microinteraction consists of four parts: triggers, rules, feedback, and loops/modes, all of which web designers must pay attention to when applying microinteractions to website design.

Brutalism

Maybe you're overwhelmed by all the new design trends, just hope you can do something easier? Perhaps the “brutalism” trend is more in line with your preferences.

The Brutalist movement in web design – inspired by Brutalism in other areas such as architecture – takes simplicity and functionality to the extreme, focusing essentially on content and the minimum HTML that makes it as accessible and accessible as possible. and CSS.

Brutalism brings many radical—some people would say odd—concepts to web design, such as making content easy to read and access on all devices, allowing only hyperlinks and buttons to respond to clicks, back button presses Expected work, etc. If you like radical counterculture, check out these guides for brutalism web design.

Conclusion

Scroll through websites like MA True Cannabis and you will find various web design trends such as micro-interaction, artistic typography, mimicry design and images.

Web designers can cleverly combine some of these web trends to create modern and innovative web experiences, but they must be careful not to overuse them in order to design visually engaging, interactive and functional designs. Essentially, they must learn to strike a balance between using these trends and not abuse them.

Web designers must do the proper research, experimentation, and creativity to create truly engaging and powerful designs for the web.

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