Top 5 Web Design Trends for 2023

The start of a new year leads to innovative and significantly better website design practices. The year 2023 will feature a fascinating variety of new website trends, including those targeting larger-scale scenarios and challenges such as accessibility, user experience, and responsive design.

In the following piece, we’ll take a look at the five latest trends in website design and pre-built BeTheme websites that show you how to put these trends into practice.

BeTheme is one of the most widely used and most accepted WordPress themes, with over 268,000 sales and an overall rating of 4.83 out of 5.

5 emerging trends in web design for 2023

Web designers need to consider a wider range of factors, including those that have an impact (both positive and negative) on their clients’ experiences interacting with digital platforms. The following trends in website design for 2023 will address these more fundamental concerns:

1. Hoverable iconography

When it comes to web design, one of the most important goals is to develop user interfaces that are simple and straightforward enough for almost anyone to use. However, adopting certain shortcuts in web design, especially when it comes to iconography, can create challenges and reduce accessibility for some users.

There are certain symbols that can only be interpreted one way. For example, icons used in the headers of websites have become so common that most, if not all, users are aware of the function they serve and what happens when they click on the icons.

For example, on the BeBiker 4 website, there are three icons on the left side of the page for: shopping bag/basket, search, and account.

As long as all sites use the same iconography, users won’t be confused about how to use this component of a website header.

However, when it comes to other lesser-used icons, you need to consider the diversity of your users and the fact that they may interpret these icons in different ways. In 2023, web designers will start adding helper text triggered by hovering over symbols as needed to increase user confidence when interacting with website iconography. This will be done to improve the overall user experience.

You can see an example of this trend on the BeJeweler 2 website:

Customers receive additional information as they move their mouse cursor over product icons and swatches to see the available options. This removes any ambiguity and from this point forward all visitors can safely use the site content.

2. More social proof

Whether these relationships are personal or professional, building relationships based on trust is as essential in businesses and their interactions with their respective audiences.

Because of the importance of the website as the first point of contact between customers and companies, building trust must begin here. In 2023, site designers will use social proof and trust signs as a way to do this.

These trust builders can be implemented on websites in a variety of ways. One of the most typical approaches is to add a page on the website as well as a section dedicated to actual customer testimonials and/or reviews on the homepage, as on the BeDoctor website:

In this example, we’ll look at three types of material that can help build trust among website visitors:

• Percentage of happy customers as a whole
• a customer confirmation
• An overall user rating that can be linked to an external rating service such as Google or Yelp.

For some businesses, it’s too early to collect a sizable amount of social proof; therefore, you currently have nothing to display on the site. Trust signs are the way to go in this situation.

Security seals, such as a symbol placed next to the “Checkout” button, are a form of trust that can reassure customers that their transactions on your site are protected. Providing background information to support claims made on a website is another option to increase credibility and trust, as demonstrated by BeMarketing 2:

The claim indicated with an asterisk in the title is detailed in the following paragraphs. You can use this place to provide a disclaimer or use this area to add a link to a page that shows the claim is supported by evidence.

3. Mobile-specific features

With each passing year, the core ideas that underpin responsive design are becoming more well-known, making the design easier to implement. In addition, most WordPress themes are designed with responsive design in mind, which removes a lot of guesswork in the design process.

On the other hand, this has caused a complacency regarding the design of mobile websites. Although responsive websites provide a positive experience for users, web designers are not particularly encouraged to come up with unique ways to make responsive websites even greater.

This will change by 2023 as a result of a greater focus on the quality of the mobile experience. More specifically, the process designers use to develop features that overcome the challenges and frictions inherent in mobile devices.

This will be reflected in the way the navigation design is rendered, for example. Take, for example, the prebuilt website that ships with BeLanguage 4:

All page URLs from the standard website not optimized for mobile are available here. On the other hand, the button labeled “Call us” is at the top of the list of links when viewed from mobile devices. It is displayed at the bottom of the desktop version.

When designers examine the data they have about user behavior and goals for the many devices they use, we’ll see slight differences in the way key components like navigation are built. These differences will arise as a direct result of the assessment.

In 2023, an increasing number of websites will have features reminiscent of mobile apps. This process was made by BeFurnitureStore. Instead of keeping the multi-level header style on the desktop site, the top bar with links to the account, shopping cart, and favorite pages now displays as a sticky bottom bar:

In the coming years, web designers who can change and revolutionize the experience of using the web on mobile devices will be in a position to position their websites as superior services.

4. Texturing of forms

Skeuomorphism is best known for bringing various real-world textures to the screens of our computers and mobile devices years ago. But as time went on, people began to see these textured backgrounds as unnecessary and intrusive, and as a result, the trend in design began to fade.

However, the fact that one particular approach to web design has recently fallen out of favor doesn’t in itself make the idea of ​​digital texturing off to a bad start.

In 2023, web designers will experiment with using organic shapes to provide subtle and, more importantly, strategic textures to their designs. These textures will be added using organic shapes. The inclusion of organic forms will result in the creation of these textured elements. You can view a similar example of this on the BeRenovate 5 website as follows:

Each page of the website features rounded shapes and lines in various configurations in the background. They add visual appeal to the UI without drawing too much attention from the overall design.

Digitally rendered texturing can also be used for strategic purposes. BeCoaching 3 is a great example of how to focus readers’ attention on specific parts of your pages, including but not limited to:

The one-page website takes advantage of two different ways throughout. Because of the textured uniformity, it will be much easier for you to direct the attention of your visitors where you want them.

Forms are usually placed closer to the right edge of the page, but this is not always the case. Because users’ eyes tend to be drawn to the left side of the screen, these shapes are designed to increase the amount of content users see and interact with by taking advantage of the fact that users’ eyes are drawn to the left edge.

5. Additional video

Users have various preferences regarding the way they consume content while using the internet. People who want to read anything but don’t have much time may find it helpful, for example, to read blogs. On the other hand, video posts, sometimes known as vlogs, are great options for readers who love to watch or listen.

However, it is unrealistic to assume that you can provide an audio-visual alternative to every single piece of material you upload to your website. For starters, design can easily get out of hand if you’re trying to give the user a more personalized experience while consuming materials. Additionally, videos are often large files, and the more videos you add to a website, the more likely it is to take longer to load times.

In 2023, designers will only include an additional or alternative video when the situation warrants it, called a “video only when it matters”.

For example, the home page of the BeBusiness 6 website has a full-width video area about half the page. It is almost impossible to ignore the following:

This video clip can be used in a wide variety of media and for many different reasons. to view video references. to provide a summary of all materials presented in the previous stages. It should provide a clear and concise description of the product’s most complex technical features and at the same time be easy to understand. And this continues to happen.

In addition, the usefulness of additional video does not require it to take up large amounts of storage space. For example, the “hero” section of the BePregnancy website has a very small cutout that leads to the video’s location:

Visitors who click the instantly identifiable button labeled “Play” are informed that there is content to watch (if that’s their intention). Once again, this content is useful for a wide variety of applications.

In addition, web designers can help speed up the loading speed of web pages by using video selectively and wisely, while also avoiding the use of auto-playing video backgrounds and tracks.

What are your thoughts on current trends in website design?

Often times, web design trend lists focus on superficial changes that will happen to websites, such as exciting color trends, experimental use of fonts, animation, and special effects. However, in 2023, web designers are likely to devote more of their time to focusing on trends leading to more significant user engagement and overall improvements to the web.

Accessibility, responsiveness and trust building are not simple issues. However, the websites you build with BeTheme will look simple as most of its components are already included in the 650+ pre-built sites available with the WordPress theme.