In a Nutshell: Web Design and Development Trends

 

There will always be aspects of web design that will never go away, such as user-friendly navigation, data security, and fast load times. You can, however, keep your site at the forefront of design and search engine optimization by incorporating some of these innovative website features and elements that are expected to be popular in 2023.

1. Parallax scrolling

Parallax scrolling is a popular web effect for making sections of a website more dynamic. It is most commonly used in full-width applications with image, video, or texture imagery to add depth to a page. As the user scrolls past the image or video, the scrolling behaviour appears to place the image behind the neighbouring sections. This subtle behaviour improves the content's engagement.

2. Page speed and website load time reign supreme

Ultra-fast load time is one of the most important web design standards. For years, quick loading times have been critical factors in UX and SEO, and they remain a top priority for websites that want to rank well and convert better.

According to studies, more than half of internet browsers expect a website to load quickly and within two seconds of clicking a link. If it takes more than three seconds for your site to load, your visitors will most likely leave, never to return!

3. Cursors That Move

Another enjoyable way to personalise your website's user experience is to design how they interact with your web elements, including their cursor! This 2023 web design trend is surprising users with its subtlety. Visitors can interact with different scrolling behaviours or on-click commands by changing the shape of the cursor or implementing cursor-triggered animations.

4. Intelligent content loading

Many of us may be guilty of having resource-intensive websites with a lot of graphical elements and third-party integrations that slow down our sites. Fortunately, there are numerous approaches to developing smart websites that download only the content that you see and require.

Lazy loading and infinite scrolling are not novel concepts. For years, the top social networks have used this, particularly when it comes to infinity scrolls. This method is also popular with long (one-page) websites. All websites should think about how implementing one or two technological approaches can help them outrank or outperform their competitors.

5. Browser-Based Content and Geolocation

Perhaps you've visited a website and returned a few hours or days later to find that the content has changed. When you open it on your phone or another browser for the first time, you see the same content you saw the first time you visited the website.

It's no secret that most sophisticated websites track your browsing history and know where you are. However, forward-thinking web agencies will advise their clients to display dynamic content, which is content based on past user behaviour or what we know about a user. Not generic content designed to appeal to everyone.

6. Grid System

In 2023, modern website designers will favour an asymmetric design. CSS Grid Layout is widely used to extend the power of print layout to the web. Grid Layout is a 2D grid layout method that uses cascading style sheets.Grids enable website designers to create complex responsive web design layouts. It also gives websites a clean appearance.

7. Linked Progressive Lead Nurturing Forms to Your CRM Tool

One of the most important components of a marketing website is its online lead generation forms. We want to learn a lot about our website visitors, but we can't ask too many questions at once. On the landing pages, we use progressive/dynamic contact forms that display fields based on the lead's journey.

We don't want to display too many fields in a form, but we can always adjust the form fields based on the information we already have about our leads. We could ask for the name, company, and email address at the first conversion and then the phone number, title, company size, and company revenue fields at the second conversion.

8. Voice-Activated User Interface

We no longer type into Google to find information; instead, we ask a question or make a demand. This means that web design is evolving to keep up with the growing popularity of voice chatbots and virtual assistants. While voice-activated interfaces aren't common on most websites, this emerging trend isn't going away anytime soon.

We can expect to see more websites incorporate voice search as an alternative to traditional text search.

9. Conversational interfaces

Chatbots are another feature that has been popular in recent years and will remain so in 2023. We expect chatbots to become the norm for simple customer service requests and "personal shopping" as artificial intelligence and machine learning become more sophisticated.

10. Availability and accessibility

Inclusivity and accessibility are more than a passing fad, but there is an increasing need for web design to consider the needs of people with disabilities. Having a site that every visitor can navigate and interact with is more than just part of providing excellent customer service. It can help you increase conversions, improve your SEO, and reach a larger audience.

Elements that improve accessibility include:

• Creating a strong colour contrast between text and backgrounds;

• Adding focus indicators, such as the rectangular outline that shows up around links when using keyboard navigation;

• Using labels and instructions with form fields rather than low-context placeholder text;

• Using functional alt tags for images;

11. Interactive

Including interactive sections on your website is an excellent way to provide value to visitors, encourage them to interact with your site, and learn more about them. Assume you're a realtor who has a mortgage calculator on his website. You're providing value to your visitors while also learning more about them thanks to the information you entered into your calculator.

Interactive marketing examples include:

• Quizzes are examples of assessments

• Surveys and polls

• Calculators

• Contests

12. Virtual reality (VR)

VR experiences on websites will become more prevalent in the coming years. Consider sites like Airbnb, which allow you to tour a rental before making a reservation. Or the furniture retailer IKEA's ability to show how a sofa would look in your space.

VR can be a powerful tool for a website in terms of serving useful, meaningful content to visitors and assisting them in making purchasing decisions.

13. Micro-Interactions

Micro-interactions are small animations that provide users with subtle feedback on a website. Seeing a link change colours when a user mouses over it is one of the most common micro-interactions. With the emphasis on microinteractions, the same experience may be given more attention in order to stand out. Consider a gradient that gradually shifts hues as you scroll down a page or a splash of colour that explodes from your mouse after you click an element. These are prime examples of elevated micro-interactions, which will become more prevalent.

14. Art Deco Inspiration

Art Deco is expected to be popular in website design aesthetics in 2023. Art Deco makes extensive use of symmetrical and geometric shapes. This design is frequently patterned, decorative, and ornamental. Geometric shapes will aid in the reduction of visual stress.

15. Micro-Animation

Micro Animations, as you might have guessed from their name, are small animations. However, in this case, "small" does not imply "insignificant." When it comes to guiding users through their interactions with your website, micro animations are extremely useful.

16. Organic Forms

Geometric shapes were a popular website design trend in 2020, but organic shapes will take over in 2023. Anything that does not involve straight lines is considered organic or fluid. Consider the shapes that occur in nature, such as hills and edges.

17. Mobile Navigation with Thumbs

Responsive design is no longer sufficient. Your website should be functional and user-friendly on all mobile devices, regardless of size! However, in 2023, web design will continue to be focused on creating thumb-friendly websites.

We're discussing how we use our phones. Look at how you're holding your phone right now if you're reading this on it. Your fingers are most likely wrapped around the back of your phone (or around a phone grip), leaving your thumb to do the majority of the work. Not at all. Most of us use our smartphones in this manner, which is why thumb-friendly navigation is critical. Placing the navigation bar, menu, and even contact buttons where your thumb can reach (the centre of the screen)

18. Intelligent Video

Video has long been touted as an essential feature for websites. People enjoy watching videos! The video is interesting! It is the most powerful online marketing tool!

While the video is fantastic, it must be carefully planned. That is what smart video is all about: purposeful and meaningful video. The days of embedding a YouTube video on your website just to have one are over. One well-planned, high-quality video is preferable to a dozen haphazardly assembled ones.

19. Material Design

Material Design is a design language that Google introduced in 2014. Traditional web design appears to be flat. Color and shadow are used to mimic the physical world and its textures in material design. The shadows on the Gmail envelope and calendar are particularly effective examples of material design. It's subtle, but it helps to make the icons appear three-dimensional. In 2023, we can expect to see a lot more material design!

20. Only Text Hero Images

To increase sales, newspapers always place the most eye-catching, important information "above the fold." The website equivalent of this is the "hero section," which appears at the top of a page. To capture the attention of internet users, who are bombarded with different web pages every day, a current trend is to remove the typical background image in the hero section and replace it with eye-catching typography. A bold, one-of-a-kind font could be just what you need to capture a user's attention quickly.

Conclusion

The world of software development changes every year, making it difficult for some businesses to thrive in this digital age. As a result, businesses must keep up with web development trends in order to remain competitive. To maintain your position in this competitive digital market, you must have a strong web or mobile product.

Failure to keep up with current trends can have serious consequences for the performance and user experience of your product. You run the risk of falling behind your competitors and losing users to websites that offer better user experiences. The best way to stay competitive in your industry is to create or update your application based on current trends. We, at DesignLab, hope you find this blog useful, and you are welcome to contact us if you have any questions.

Digital Marketing Strategies: The Easy Way

 

A digital marketing strategy is a plan for establishing an online presence through online channels such as organic search, social media, paid advertisements, and other web-based mediums such as your website. The goal of digital marketing strategies is to raise brand awareness and attract new customers.

Digital marketing campaigns are the building blocks and actions that comprise your digital marketing strategy and lead you to a specific end goal.

For example, if your overall goal for your digital marketing strategy is to generate more leads through social media, you could run a digital marketing campaign on Twitter.

What role does digital marketing play?

Since 2015, marketing professionals have reported spending an increasing proportion of their budgets on digital marketing methods while decreasing their spending on traditional marketing channels. This is due to the increasing presence of consumers on online channels, which provides businesses with more opportunities to reach their ideal customers all day, every day.

With the increased use of technology, digital marketing platforms have become indispensable in the world of digital marketing. AI and machine learning provide marketers with the marketing technology they need to reach consumers on digital devices at just the right time, as opposed to traditional marketing methods, which must be planned and placed well in advance.

10 Different Types of Digital Marketing Platforms and Their Strategies

1. Platforms for social media marketing

Social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, LinkedIn, and Snapchat are heavily used by today's consumers. This is why it is critical for brands to be present on multiple social media platforms. Consider the following statistics:

• Consumers have an average of eight social media accounts.

• The average adult spends 2 hours and 22 minutes per day on social media—that's nearly 2 and a half hours per day for businesses to interact with and convert customers.

Marketers can reach their prospects through social media platforms in a variety of ways.To begin, marketing departments can use these channels to distribute paid advertisements and sponsored content. Each platform allows marketing teams to create paid ad campaigns and segment users so that these ads appear in the feeds of members of the target audience. While each platform is unique, most allow marketing teams to place ads based on location, job title, interests, age, and other factors to ensure that a company's social media posts reach the right audience for maximum conversion potential.

2. Marketing Through Influencers

Influencer marketing is another effective way to use digital marketing channels to reach out to specific audiences. Brands can collaborate with celebrities, websites, or others who are thought to be experts in their field and share similar values. Brands can then reach out to the followers of these influencers with branded content and offers. Many marketers have found success with influencer marketing, with nine out of 10 saying it is as good as or better than other channels.

Furthermore, one in every two women made a purchase decision based on a recommendation from an influencer. With nearly half of social media users relying on brand recommendations from influencers, influencer marketing could be an extremely effective way for your business to increase engagement—and sales.

3. Email Promotion

Email marketing campaigns enable businesses to stay in touch with prospects and customers by sending them personalised newsletters or offers based on previous purchases or brand engagements. If a person has interacted with a few of your brand touchpoints, such as an email offering 10% off the items they've been considering or free shipping, that little extra incentive could easily tip the scales from "abandoned cart" to "completed purchase."

Almost 60% of consumers say email influences their purchasing decisions. Furthermore, transactional emails (emails that assist a customer in doing something, such as completing a purchase or resetting a password), are more likely to be opened by subscribers.

4. Content Promotion

Content marketing enables marketing teams to be proactive in educating consumers about current and new products in a relaxed and unhurried manner, as well as in responding to their users' questions. Throughout the three stages of the buyer's journey, digital marketing teams create written content, videos, and other marketing assets to answer questions or provide context to consumers.

• The buyer realises they have a need during the awareness stage.

• The buyer decides on a course of action to meet this need during the consideration stage.

• The decision stage: The buyer chooses a product or service to meet a need.

For example, a customer may realise they require new gym shoes. A running shoe's digital marketing team may create a piece about what features you need from a running shoe, as opposed to what features you need if you focus on strength training. Based on this information, the buyer determines that they require a pair of running shoes that meet the criteria. Another piece of content could show the most popular running shoes as well as their prices. They make their decision after being educated on these factors.

5. Marketing through Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization, or "SEO," is frequently associated with content marketing. Content created by the company for their website, blog, or other digital marketing platforms can be written and posted online in such a way that prospective buyers searching for information on a specific topic are more likely to see it than similar content created by their competitors. Because the customer is using a search engine, such as Google, to find information about a product or service, this writing and posting strategy, along with all the techniques and considerations it entails, is known as SEO, or "search engine optimization."

When done correctly, SEO can be a very effective part of a company's marketing strategy. In fact, 53% of consumers say they use a search engine to research potential purchases before making a purchase decision, and 51% of smartphone users have discovered a new product or service through a search engine on their phones.

6. Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a type of paid advertising that allows marketing teams to buy traffic to their website. Marketers place advertisements on websites or search engines like Google and Microsoft Bing and pay a fee each time their ad is clicked. These ads typically appear at the top of the search results page and are determined by bids on specific keywords, whereas banner ads on websites typically have set prices.

Using the consumer buying athletic shoes as an example, if the shoe company had used a PPC ad campaign as part of their digital marketing strategy, the potential customer could have just as easily clicked on the company's ad on the first page of Google instead of the company's website.

7. Affiliate Promotion

Affiliate marketing is similar to referral programmes in that it involves working with outside individuals or companies in exchange for a commission on each sale that can be attributed to their efforts. This is a cost-effective way to outsource some of the heavy lifting of promotion; however, you are entrusting your brand's reputation to someone else, so this type of marketing often necessitates more extensive monitoring and tracking.

Affiliate marketing has proven to be so effective at attracting customers and increasing sales that, in a survey, 90% of businesses that run an affiliate programme said it was an important part of their digital marketing strategy.

8. Mobile Marketing

Many of the digital marketing strategies mentioned above can be included in mobile marketing initiatives, which typically use a combination of text messages, social media, email, push notifications, and mobile applications. Mobile marketing is becoming increasingly important, with the number of mobile shoppers expected to reach 187.5 million by 2024. With the clear shift to mobile, digital marketers must consider how to optimise their current marketing efforts for mobile in order to provide a seamless and user-friendly experience.

Consider the coffee alternative purchase we mentioned earlier; chances are that it was made on a mobile device. In fact, statistics show that a mobile device, such as a cell phone or tablet, accounts for nearly 75% of total funds spent on online purchases. This means that if your company isn't already optimising all of its digital marketing methods for use on mobile devices, now is a great time to start.

9. Platforms for Marketing Automation

Platforms for marketing automation can be extremely beneficial to any digital marketing strategy. Marketing automation, like so many other digital marketing strategies, can be "stacked" on top of other digital marketing platforms to multiply and increase their effects.

To put it simply, marketing automation platforms are software that can perform routine marketing actions on behalf of a business without the need for human intervention. This lack of reliance on human intervention is a key advantage of marketing automation platforms, as it allows the platform to essentially "run" parts of a company's marketing strategy on its own without increasing staff requirements or payroll costs.

10. Platforms for Marketing Analytics

Marketing analytics platforms enable businesses to collect and analyse data from their digital marketing campaigns in order to determine how effective their campaigns have been, what ROI they can expect from them, and what can be done in the future to increase revenue from their marketing.

The value of marketing analytics platforms to a company is analogous to the utility of a report card to a student: if you don't know what results your digital marketing campaigns are producing, you won't know how to improve them in the future. In fact, 21% of businesses cite marketing analytics as the single most effective way to gain and keep a competitive advantage over competitors.

Conclusion

A strong digital marketing strategy is critical to organisational success in the modern age of business and technology. Companies that thrive in the digital world typically invest heavily in developing digital marketing strategies. As a result, organisations can reach customers across multiple digital platforms, resulting in increased revenue and lower conversion rates.

A digital marketing strategy entails assessing specific goals that can be achieved through online channels. A well-executed digital marketing strategy can be critical to organisational success in an era when many consumers transact business on their mobile devices. If you have any questions, please contact DesignLab.

How Can You Improve Your Corporate Branding Activities?

 

Branding is one of the most important activities that your company can undertake. Building a strong, recognisable brand will assist you in connecting with current customers, selling to new ones, and encouraging loyalty and recognition. However, successful branding, like any other business task, necessitates careful planning and a sound strategy.

This informative article from DesignLab will help you improve your corporate branding activities.

Why is it critical to enhance your corporate branding efforts?

To remain relevant, organisations of all sizes, regardless of size, must invest in branding. If you're still wondering why, you should brand your company, consider the following advantages:

1) Make your company stand out from the crowd

With so many companies offering similar services or products, it can be difficult to stand out. This is where branding comes into play. Your values, story, brand promise, and other assets allow you to demonstrate your uniqueness. Using these to create a point of difference could help you stand out from the crowd.

2) Increase your visibility

Another advantage of investing in consistent branding is that it makes your brand more memorable. Customers become more familiar with your company when they can identify it based on physical, visual, and auditory cues. This builds trust, which 81% of customers rely on when making a purchasing decision. Customers' recall and engagement with your content, emails, or advertisements may also be influenced by brand recognition.

3) Increase customer loyalty

Powerful brands frequently have a devoted following, but this does not happen by chance. It stems from providing unique experiences and messaging to their audiences that they can relate to in order to form a bond. You will have more customers who will support your business and share their positive experiences as a result of this emotional connection. This advantage may result in repeat business.

4) Attract and keep employees

According to LinkedIn, companies with a strong employer brand will attract 50% more qualified candidates 1-2 times faster than others.They will also recruit at a 50% lower cost per hire. Moving down the line, your current and former employees' experiences, as well as how they spread the word, have an impact on your workplace reputation and employee retention rates.

Actively managing your brand is not an option if you want to hire skilled developers and other specialists or keep your best talent away from competitors. It is a requirement.

Steps to Branding Your Business

So, how do you go about establishing a consistent personality and style for your company? Let's divide it into seven steps.

1. Determine your target audience

The first step in branding your business is to identify who your potential customers are.This procedure consists of several steps.

- Examine your current clientele

Existing customers are a goldmine of information because they know what makes your brand stand out and what it lacks. Find out what their interests and needs are.

• What is their most pressing issue?

• Which companies do they buy from and trust?

• What do they want to see from your brand?

- Conduct market research

Market research can assist you in identifying industry trends, opportunities, customer preferences, purchasing habits, and discussions about your brand or others'. It's also an efficient way to gather information about your competitors. Take note of who their customers are, preferred channels, interests, and so on. Start your research with relevant social media channels, review sites, industry forums, or Q&A sites like Reddit.

- Develop buyer personas

Customers should be grouped into personas based on patterns or common traits discovered. Incorporate demographic, psychographic, behavioural, and geographic information.

2. Develop your value proposition

Your brand promise is your value proposition. It is more than a catchphrase or a slogan. A UVP describes how your solution is better than competitors' at solving the problems of your ideal customers. Consider the following when developing a strong value proposition:

• What does your ideal customer truly desire?

• How does your product or service address their issue(s)?

• What factors influence their purchasing decisions?

• Why do your current customers prefer your company to your competitors?

Using the voice of your customers, create a unique selling proposition based on the answers to these questions. Benefits, what you intend to deliver, and why they should choose you over competitors should all be communicated. Stick to the facts and avoid unnecessary embellishment.

3. Determine your mission statement and core values

What is the purpose of your company? This question is addressed by your mission. To create an effective mission statement, describe your company's purpose, who your customers are, the products or services you provide, and how you do it. To make it memorable, summarise it in a few words.

Your core values come next. They are the guiding principles for your goals, mission, and vision. These beliefs shape your company culture, which in turn influences the perceptions of stakeholders. Using generic words that do not define what your company stands for will result in a conflicting brand image. Instead, be specific, use your own words, and ensure that these principles are shared throughout the organisation.

4. Identify your brand's personality

Your brand's personality, like that of an individual, is a collection of qualities that your company possesses. Ideally, these characteristics will attract customers and shape their perceptions of your company. As a result, having a personality that connects with your customers can help you build an emotional connection and differentiate yourself from competitors.

Consider the qualities you want your brand to be associated with. Do you want to be known for your vision, competence, or charisma? Choose your characteristics and the voice with which you will communicate. If your brand personality is rugged, for example, your brand voice could be confident and strong.

 

5) Outline the key features and benefits your brand provides

The key to developing a strong brand is to emphasise the key qualities and benefits that your company provides to customers. There will almost certainly be larger brands in your industry than yours, which is why your primary goal should be to differentiate your business and brand from the competition.

If you can identify aspects of your products or services that no other company in your industry provides, you should be able to begin developing a memorable brand. Perhaps your company offers a more affordable product than others or is known for providing excellent customer service. Avoid making a simple list of the features that your services or products offer to customers.

6) Think about who your customers are

If you want your brand to succeed, it's critical that your target audience finds it appealing. It is recommended that you revisit who your customers are by conducting extensive customer research to ensure that you create the right brand. After completing this research, you should have a better understanding of your customers and what they want.

If your primary audience consists of young adults who have recently graduated from college and are entering the job market, they will most likely want a brand that is modern, bold, and takes a stand, which can range from being at the forefront of sustainability to combating income inequality. Create buyer personas to identify your target audience. These personas can help you learn more about your customers and their points of view. Buyer personas should identify customer goals, challenges, and likes based on the data you've gathered.

7) Increase the visibility of your website in search results

After you've created a strong and memorable logo, as well as other branding elements, it's critical that prospective and current customers see and become familiar with your branding. It is recommended that you improve your site's visibility in search results to accomplish this. Approximately 75% of internet users will never look past the first page of search engine results. If you want to attract visitors to your website, you must improve your ranking in relevant search results.

If you can get your website to appear among the first three results for relevant queries, you should notice a significant increase in the number of visitors to your website. You can increase the visibility of your website by implementing search engine optimization throughout it. You can increase site traffic and organic traffic by increasing the speed of your site and incorporating keywords into blog articles.

8) Multi-Channel Marketing Can Help You Build Your Brand Online

Multi-channel marketing, which involves reaching potential customers through a variety of online channels, is an excellent way to build your brand digitally. Social media, email marketing, and display ads are the most common online marketing platforms.

It's critical to understand that some social media platforms differ significantly from one another when marketing on them. Certain channels may be more effective than others at reaching customers at the beginning of the buyer's journey. While Instagram and Facebook serve very similar markets, being in multiple locations will almost always allow you to reach a larger number of customers.

It is recommended that you create company profiles on the major social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, to get started with multi-channel marketing. Following the creation of these accounts, you should conduct extensive research on each platform to determine what users typically look for. Before you begin, it is critical that you understand how to communicate with customers via social media platforms. If you can successfully build your brand digitally, you should begin to see significant returns on your investment.

9) Create a brand style guide

Consider developing a written style guide for your brand, which can be addressed in the future and distributed to your employees. This document can assist you in aligning your future digital branding strategies. A style guide is most likely required.

Your colour palette, font sizes, font styles, logo, slogans, outreach channels, patterns and backgrounds, a standard call to action, animation and video styles, and language style should all be included in this guide. This style guide can be used to ensure consistency in your branding across all digital materials and future marketing campaigns. If you can't refer back to this guide, you might find yourself straying from consistent branding too often.

10) Include Your Brand

After you've fully established your brand, it's critical to begin incorporating it into all aspects of business. When customers read, hear, or see something about your company, your brand should be prominent. For example, any video you post on Facebook or YouTube should clearly display your logo and other distinguishing brand elements.

The same is true for any social media profiles you create on sites like Twitter and Facebook. Your logo and company name should appear on business cards, packaging, and physical products.

Defining and Developing Your Brand for Commercial Success

The brand you create should encompass everything about your company. Once you've established your brand and begun to incorporate it into everything your company does, you'll be able to influence how people perceive your company. A strong brand is one that customers remember even when they aren't looking at your marketing materials. There are numerous effective ways to build and improve a brand, ranging from creating branded content to designing a brand logo.

While following each of the aforementioned steps for building a strong brand can take time, it will pay dividends and should help you increase customer conversion rates as well as overall profits. If you've recently begun to grow your brand through financing and product development, building a brand will be critical to your future success. We hope you learned something new from this blog, and please contact DesignLab if you have any concerns.

The most significant trends in website design and development this year

 

Failure to keep up with new trends can have serious consequences for the performance and user experience of your website. You risk falling behind your competitors and losing traffic to websites that provide better user experiences.

The best way to stay competitive in your business niche is to develop and maintain your website in accordance with current trends.

1) THE BEST PERFORMANCE WEB APPS (PWA)

Progressive web apps (or PWAs) are not a new phenomenon. However, the technology drew the attention of modern developers and investors due to its ability to provide a high-quality user experience comparable to that of a native app.

In 2019, mobile devices accounted for 65% of online shopping orders placed through the website. PWA's rising website trend allows users to view their favourite websites on a mobile web browser or desktop without the need to download special apps or computer programs. PWAs will be written in HTML and CSS, JavaScript, React, or Angular in 2021. In addition to providing a great user experience and eliminating the need for programs, a PWA could send push notifications and provide users with offline access to cached content.

2) BOTS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

How will web development evolve in the future? Many people believe that next year, bots will become more self-learning and will be able to easily match specific user needs and behaviours. That means that 24/7-operational bots will be able to replace support managers, saving many businesses money.

Official-page chatbots inside Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Skype are just a few examples of how large B2C companies are already using the technology to serve their customers. A bot could also be integrated into a PWA, regular website, professional or household equipment, or any commercially developed Internet-connected app. The rise of bots will have an impact on web design trends, particularly UX trends.

3) IMPROVED MOBILE PAGES (AMP)

Another web development trend is Accelerated Mobile Pages (or AMP). The idea is to improve page performance and reduce the likelihood of a user leaving it. AMP technology is similar to PWA technology. The difference is that pages are now accelerated thanks to an open-source plugin developed recently by Twitter and Google.

When compared to full-scope web products, AMPs are optimised pages that can operate quickly and have a simplified, yet convenient, design with only basic features. These pages are also mobile-friendly, with always-readable content. New web design trends, such as AMP development, demonstrate that the Internet is becoming more user-friendly.

4) SINGLE-PAGE APPLICATION (SPA)

SINGLE-PAGE APPLICATION (SPA) With today's high-speed Internet standards, there's no need to be stuck on an approach in which every action on the page, such as clicking on various buttons, leads to another web page being downloaded from a server.

SPAs are becoming more popular as JavaScript frameworks gain popularity. Working with them entails intercepting specific browser events and requesting JSON, which appears to be working with a web application. Google pages such as Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Maps, as well as social networking platforms such as Facebook, fall into this category. Current web trends indicate that most functional websites will be built as SPAs in the future.

5) VOICE SEARCH OPTIMIZATION

The future of web development appears to be less textual and more vocal, and it isn't just about virtual multifunctional home assistants like Siri, Google Home, or Amazon's Alexa. By 2021, more than half of all smart and IoT devices will be able to hear and respond to voice commands. Furthermore, they will be able to recognise different people's voices and provide a personalised AI-based experience for everyone.

Voice search is just one of the most notable examples of technology that was introduced more than a decade ago. People would prefer to spend less time typing commands in 2021 because devices could clearly understand them. As a result, most businesses are now perplexed about how to optimise their physical and digital products.

6) UI FOR MOTION

Innovation Web design is another popular trend in the digital world. Startups are increasingly focusing on the user experience and investing fewer resources in aesthetics. Beautifully designed websites and apps, on the other hand, have a higher chance of being noticed by potential users and going viral. In this context, visual design becomes a matter of marketing strategy rather than engineering.

MVPs will most likely remain minimalistic in 2021. At the same time, experts predict a surge in demand for novel design approaches such as motion UI. Although motion user interface design has been popular since 2018, it is only now that SASS library technology has made it widely available to all device users.

7) AUTOMATION TESTING

Most emerging web technologies aim to reduce development costs while providing the best possible user experience. The tool for achieving the first goal is development-stage automation. Machine learning and AI approaches enable us to build complex projects with a small team or fewer development experts, while product test automation assists us in determining whether or not our product is ready for deployment.

The approach also assists the development team in collecting and learning from test cases, lowering development costs (up to 20%), and shortening the test cycle time in general. In other words, test automation allows you to produce a higher-quality end product while spending less money.

8) JAVASCRIPT FRAMEWORKS

Although JavaScript was not invented yesterday, it is now one of the most widely used programming languages in the world, making any innovation in this area highly debated. New website trends in 2022 will include the rise and development of JavaScript frameworks.

Technically, JavaScript frameworks are still application frameworks built with the JavaScript programming language and based on the integration of libraries (both visual and functional). This web trend has numerous advantages. Immediate feedback to users without page reloads, high efficiency and fast performance, and coding simplicity are just a few examples.

9). ARCHITECTURE AND APPLICATIONS WITHOUT SERVERS

What does the future of web development look like? Serverless technology arose as a result of the search for a way to avoid system overloading, data loss, and costly development. Serverless algorithms, which are supported by major vendors such as AWS, were recently developed as a cloud computing execution model. Regular servers, according to the concept, could be replaced by clouds that manage machine resource consumption.

Current web trends in serverless app architecture aid in the reduction of development and ongoing support budgets, the strengthening of apps with flexibility potential, and the sustainability of the Internet environment. The technology is based on the use of "function as a service" (FaaS).

10). BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY

Cryptocurrencies are not the most cutting-edge web development technology. They first appeared in 2004, and the crypto trading market (based on blockchain technology) was explored with investments three years ago. What can we anticipate in 2021? Many people believe that the official authorities cannot ignore blockchain currency trading. Within the last decade, their use has grown significantly, and major payment systems have decided to accept Bitcoin and other currencies.

In 2019, over 34 million blockchain wallets are in use worldwide. Blockchain technology also necessitates hardware and software support, legal oversight, and trading infrastructure. As a result, emerging web technologies are likely to cover those aspects next year. Blockchain operations must be secure and free of hacker attacks and technical errors.

Bottom Line

To meet the needs and expectations of online consumers, web development is constantly evolving. Many of these trends are focused on improving the mobile user experience; others may be focused on improving the UX for smart wearables or other devices we haven't seen yet. Keeping up with web development trends can help you ensure that your website consistently attracts and delights visitors.

Choosing a reputable web development company is one of the most important prerequisites for implementing one of these key web development technologies to achieve your business objectives. Please contact DesignLab if you have any questions about this blog.

Everything you've ever wanted to know about branding for businesses

 

Small businesses, non-profits, and start-ups are among our clients. We make our living by bringing the branding and marketing tools and tricks used by big brands and Fortune 500 companies to organisations that cannot normally afford them.

Unfortunately, many people who work with small businesses, non-profits, and start-ups don't seem to understand the principles of branding, and those who do tend to chase money and target big brands and Fortune 500 companies.

Another notable difference I see between marketing professionals who work with big brands and Fortune 500 companies and those who work

Step 1: Research your competitors

Discover what they do well and what they do badly. You need to know what they do well because you want to be at least as good as them. You must understand what they do poorly because this represents an opportunity.

This is referred to as "landscape analysis." It is an understanding of the competitive landscape.

Step 2: After learning about your competitors, articulate what you do differently and better

It's as simple as that. If you can do this, it's just a matter of getting your brand in front of as many people as possible, and there have never been more people or more places to do this in history.

But don't mix up simple and easy. This is similar to the game of Go in that it takes a second to explain but a lifetime to master. This is known as a "value proposition." People will want to work with you, buy your products, or join your organisation because of it.

Step 3: Make it plausible

This is where your story enters the picture. Explain to others why you do things differently and better. However, be cautious: while focusing solely on the story may be interesting and pleasant, if it does not support your value proposition, people will remember you but not buy your products or services or join your organisation.

Most agencies refer to this as a "brand story." That term irritates me because the acronym is BS. We prefer "organisational story" because, when done correctly,

Step 4: Make your name do some of the heavy lifting

Naming is one of the most difficult tasks we face because everyone tries to make it personal. They want the name of their organisation to be meaningful to them. And yes, you can use a personal name. Personal names have certainly been used successfully by organisations such as Walmart and McDonald's, but it's much easier if you make your name meaningful to your customers, as Apple, Nike, and Tesla do.

Step 5: Apply the "different and better" filter to your slogan

A good rule of thumb is that your name is what people remember you by, and your slogan is what sells you. "Think Different," a slogan created by TBWA/Chiat/Day for Apple, is my all-time favourite.

Step 6: Put your logo through it as well

I am not saying a logo isn't necessary. A great logo has the potential to become iconic. It is not your brand, but rather an expression of it. It bears your seal of approval. And when you run the logo through the "different and better" filter, you get something truly unique. Take, for example, the Nike swoosh. When asked what the now-famous swoosh means, Nike co-founder Phil Knight replied, "It's the sound of someone going past you."

Step 7: Create a fantastic website

People frequently ask me why we build websites, and my response is always the same: Because it is frequently the first point of contact people have with your brand, your website is the most important communication tool your organisation has. If you get this wrong, the first six steps are meaningless.

One of the most common mistakes that businesses make with their websites is to use the valuable real estate above the fold to explain what they do or why they are needed.

Treating your website as an infomercial for your brand is an extremely effective strategy. To save space, have the menu at the top tell people what you do, and then use the banner and headline to communicate what you do differently and better. Then, as they scroll down the page, have the next section give another reason why you are different and better, and so on and so forth.

Step 9: Increase your visibility

Another advantage of investing in consistent branding is that it makes your brand more memorable. Customers become more familiar with your company when they can identify it based on physical, visual, and auditory cues. This builds trust, which 81% of customers rely on when making a purchasing decision. Customers' recall and engagement with your content, emails, or advertisements may also be influenced by brand recognition.

Step 10: Employee recruitment and retention

According to LinkedIn, companies with a strong employer brand will attract 50% more qualified candidates 1-2 times faster than others.They will also recruit at a 50% lower cost per hire. Moving down the line, your current and former employees' experiences, as well as how they spread the word, have an impact on your workplace reputation and employee retention rates.

Actively managing your brand is not an option if you want to hire skilled developers and other specialists or keep your best talent away from competitors. It is a

Conclusion

The importance of relatable content cannot be overstated. Understand your target audience and create engaging content that can elicit emotions and help you build a relationship with them.

As you can see, developing your brand does not have to be difficult or expensive. The majority of these suggestions are free or low-cost. You can begin with a small budget and gradually increase your branding efforts as your company grows. To brand your company, follow these seven simple steps:

• Determine your intended audience.

• Develop your value proposition.

• Choose your mission.

• Define the personality of your brand.

• Create brand assets.

• Integrate them into all your channels.

• Maintain consistency.

Brands should be "refreshed" every five years or so, according to marketing industry standards, and your messaging, marketing campaigns, and overall goals will change as your company does. Developing a strong brand, even if it takes time, implies that your target audience can grow and change with you. Please contact DesignLab if you require any additional information or wish to learn more about our services.