To make a long-lasting impression on your visitors your website should look elegant and follow the latest trends. Not all trends live a long life but trends that are stable and offer better usability stays for longer periods. Following a list of web design trends 2023 that will stay for many years to come.

Minimalism

As a design movement, minimalism is in web design trends for many years and even today, you can see a lot of minimalist UI designs. It’s “less is more” aspect helps a lot in terms of great user experience. It is a design philosophy that focuses on the simplification of form, achieved by making use of the simplest, most essential elements in a design.

This minimalist design UX should encourage UI and UX designers to be very selective to keep things simple, clutter-free, and less stressful for end users. If the focus is on engagement and longer screen time, then UI UX design professionals should start applying minimalism in the user interface with a focus on the most essential elements only.

Design trends come and go; however, minimalism is a design language that has been present through time and it’s going to stay for many years from now.

Mondee Ltd.
Mondee Ltd. website redesigned by Realmonkey

Squisito.co
Squisito LLC website redesigned by Realmonkey

Tutoreye Minimal design Realmonkey
TutorEye website Redesigned by Realmonkey

UX writing and microcopy

Users have gotten bored with the old sales copies targeting the same emotions. A great way to get your visitors more engaged with your product is by making the written content on your site more informal, more unique, more provoking. Improving the copy on the website to make it more user-friendly is getting better and entrepreneurs and designers giving more attention to it.

Microcopy has become a new profession of UX designers. Many companies have started to add a little humor into the conversation on websites. It gives a unique tone to the website and allows brands to get even closer to the users. In 2023, UX writers will focus on delightful informative microcopy and ways to balance brand personality with precision.

These small bits of text need to be closely brand-related to make an impact, otherwise, visitors might even fail to register them. Thus, copywriters need to change the way they write for their visitors. And therefore, microcopies emerged as a very important game-changer in writing for websites.

404 page by Pixar
404 Page by Pixar

Slack user authentication
Right way to ask user for authentication by Slack

Right way to say you lost connection
Right way to say you lost connection

Dark Mode

Dark Mode comes in web design trends for many years. The tech giants Google or Apple have their versions of dark mode and they are the initiators to bring a dark mode to the web. Dark mode looks elegant, modern, and stylish. Dark mode has its benefits as well.

  • It looks attractive and different from the existing themes.
  • It reduces screen fatigue.
  • Dark mode saves your user’s device battery (which also creates a better user experience for your audience).
  • Highlights the design elements.
  • Defective pixels can be hidden with ease.

No matter what appeals to you, dark mode is going to reign in 2023.

Apple.com
Apple

Millesimes Alsace
Millesimes Alsace

Zoommy
Zoommy

Mysta Electric
Mysta Electric

3D Design

3D designs have been attracting users for years now so you can hardly call it a new design trend but hyper-realistic 3D effects are taking up the space in web design as AR and VR technologies are gaining momentum now. In 2021 we will see more 3D elements instead of traditional illustrations or stock photos. With the 3D elements in web design, user experience can be made more engaging and informative. This encourages visitors to stay longer and increase average session time.

Entrepreneurs and designers are using 3D designs to give an extraordinary user experience on websites. This trend is coming from games to mobile applications and now in web design. The 3D design will become more popular in 2021.

Some websites using 3D elements to stand out from the crowd.

3D design element from Somati
Somati Life

3D design element from Pinecraft
Pinecraft

3D design elements from Hive Streaming
Hive Streaming

3D Design Element from Campo Aille Comete
Campo Alle Comete

Increased Personalization

This trend is more on providing a better user experience to users on the web and mobile applications. Based on users' provided information and browsing habits, websites are offering personalized content to users. Netflix, Spotify, Amazon, Google, Apple are among the leading companies offering personalized recommended content to users. It feels like it is created especially for them. This helps in a higher conversion rate which is the ultimate goal of commercial sites. This design trend is gaining momentum in 2023 and will see more growth in the coming years.

Netflix
Personalized Content on Netflix

Personalized Content on Spotify
Personalized Content on Spotify

Bold Fonts

The larger the font, the clearer the message.

Bold fonts are among the first frontiers in design trends. This is a part of a major trend of minimalism as a type-driven design where big and bold fonts take center stage and are impossible to miss. If the font is oversized, the rest of the composition can stay clean and simple. In type-driven designs dominate the entire composition and make a strong impression on users in very little time, using very few words.

Bold fonts help designers to highlight the key message on a webpage as most of the visitors skim the page rather than reading it fully. Apart from the usability aspect, this trend adds a modern view to website design.

In 2021 we will see more use of bold fonts in web design as a leading trend.

AIAIAI website
AIAIAI

Pest Stop Boys
Pest Stop Boys

Bold fonts Realmonkey
The Next Rembrandt

Micro Interactions

It’s a great joy to provide an enjoyable experience to users on websites. It’s more than just usability - It’s engaging users and micro-interactions are trending in 2021 by playing a macro role by positively contributing to the look-and-feel of a website.

Microinteractions can improve user experience by:

  • Encouraging engagement
  • Displaying system status
  • Providing error prevention
  • Communicating brand

Well-designed micro-interactions can make a big impact on your user experience.

MA True Cannabis
MA True Cannabis

Femme & Fierce
Femme & Fierce

Cute Animals Interactive Review Form Drag Mouth Up or Down Realmonkey
Customer Feedback

Upload Button to Circular Progress Bar MicroInteraction Realmonkey
Interaction on Upload

Mobile-First Design

As the use of mobile devices is increasing the demand for mobile-first design is also increasing. Websites and applications should be rich in features, responsive, and functional on mobile devices. Designers are designing concepts for websites to keep mobile interfaces in mind. The importance of responsive design is well documented now and is no longer an option, but a priority.

Boostroas
Mobile Version of Boostroas website redesigned by Realmonkey

Mondee ltd mobile version
Mobile version of Mondee Ltd website redesigned by Realmonkey

Mobile first 3 Realmonkey
Mobile version of Verlle ecommerce designed by Realmonkey

Combination of graphics and real images

A combination of graphics and real images is the latest trend in web design in 2021. It lets you explore your creative side to the fullest and implement designs that will exhibit your brand personality. This design trend is fresh and can help you combine this technique with your minimalist, modern look web design. A lot of brands are already using this design technique to capture their audience’s attention.

This technique in web design is very versatile. This is a great and unique way to give your brand justice and have your website fully reflect the story you want to tell. The extra touch of creativity gives your design an innovative and customized look.

Fight Club poster
Fight Club

Overlapping image 1 Realmonkey

Overlapping image 2 Realmonkey

Image from freepik
Freepik

Data visualization

Data visualization (DataViz) has come a long way. Its evolution and impact are so profound that it has lent a new meaning to data itself. Data visualization has always been a trend to showing information clearly to make a better user experience. Amid the current global health crisis, data visualization tools have provided visuals of the new infections, fatalities, recoveries, and more. Social media feeds have been replete with infection heatmaps, charts illustrating transmission patterns, and graphics showing the “flattening of the curve”, all thanks to data visualization.

Data visualization is an important tool to communicate quantitative content. Traditionally, it used to take formats such as graphs, pie charts, tables, bar charts, etc. But that trend has long gone out of date. Nowadays, abstract data visualization is finding popularity among people. It lends a feeling of originality and uniqueness to your design. For designs that are tech-oriented, abstract data visualization is a UI trend that will make them stand out.

Community Data Platform
Community Data Platform Dashboard designed by Realmonkey

Community Data Platform Dashboard designed by Realmonkey
Community Data Platform Dashboard designed by Realmonkey

Data visualization
Community Data Platform Dashboard designed by Realmonkey

Final Thoughts

Web design trends for 2023 are a mix of old and new trends. Some of them are still in trend for many years and will stay for many years from now. The ultimate goal of UI UX design is to help users achieve their goals. These web design trends are helpful for designers to improve websites and give them a fresh feel.

At Realmonkey, we help startups and established businesses improve their websites for a better user experience and optimize them for lead generation.