2022 Web Trends

Having an understanding of current and upcoming trends puts you one step ahead. Particularly in an area like web design. 

To keep your site current and appealing to users, it’s important to think about which web trends could enhance your website to ensure you’re positioning your business as a leader in its sector. 

Our list of 2022 web trends will give you a good idea of some of the key areas we’re expecting to see grow in importance next year. 

1. Dynamic content 

Consumers are increasingly expecting high levels of personalisation throughout their buying journey. And these expectations will apply across websites too. Having a dynamic website means that content will be personalised based on information like the user’s location, recent buying behaviour or purchases, or previous browsing history. Thus making the experience highly tailored and relevant to the website visitor. 

Dynamic websites have demonstrated their impact on conversion rate and engagement rate. On average, marketers have seen a 20% increase in sales due to website personalisation. So this could be a key area for your business to look into in 2022. 

2. Voice search optimisation 

Recent consumer research from Ampere Analysis puts the number of internet households who use a voice assistant at 52%. So it’s unsurprising that many organisations are making voice search optimisation a top priority for their website. Businesses can start this optimisation work by ensuring that long-tail keywords are included in content and that website copy is in spoken form rather than written form. For example, using “where are my local doctors?” instead of “doctors near me”. 

The number of households using a voice assistant is expected to increase. So this could be an area to investigate further if relevant to your business. 

3. Immersive experiences 

Particularly in sectors like eCommerce, immersive website experiences will become more and more important as users expect to be able to do all of their shopping online. 

In previous years a trip to a department store would’ve been the norm. But the acceleration of digital combined with the COVID-19 pandemic means that user expectations have shifted significantly. 

For example, in the retail sector, users will increasingly expect to see how clothes fit them in a virtual environment before purchasing. This trend will undoubtedly cause substantial rethinks for businesses in terms of how they’re approaching their digital strategy. But we think it’s a pretty exciting opportunity to get on the front foot with digital experiences too. 

4. Accessibility 

Accessibility is of course not a trend. But an incredibly important step forward many businesses have been taking to ensure their websites are fully accessible to all users. 

But what does it mean to have an accessible website? And how can we ensure that our websites are accessible? 

Having an accessible website means you’ve made all the necessary considerations for users with visual, auditory, cognitive, neurological or physical disabilities. This could include ensuring your website uses focus indicators, checking that all content is suitable for screen readers and making sure you’re using alt tags throughout the site. 

Doing a quick check using accessibility tools like webaccessibility.com is a great place to start. Through doing this, you can see where you currently are, and understand what you need to do to improve. 

5. Fast website load speeds 

Website load speeds have been a crucial area of a site’s performance for a long time. 

But increasingly, website speeds are the real differentiator between businesses. Cloudflare states that at a load speed of 2.4 seconds, conversion rate is 1.9%. But over 5.7 seconds, the conversion rate drops below 0.6%. 

A slow site speed will affect many different areas of your business. Including the UX (user experience) and how trustworthy your business is perceived to be. And to make matters worse, Google will also lower your site ranking if the site speed is slow. 

Site speeds are set to become even more important in 2022. So if you’re not sure about your speed, check it out as soon as possible to understand where you currently are and what you need to do to improve. Tools such as PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse are a great place to start, giving you quick and actionable insights on your site speed. 

6. Thumb-friendly navigation 

Mobile device usage is set to increase rapidly over the next few years, particularly with younger users. This means that checking your website is optimised for mobile and has a thumb friendly navigation will be more important than ever. 

There are easy ways to improve this aspect of your site. For example, you could go through each page on your phone and check that the links and navigation buttons are easily reachable by thumb. If they’re not, you can work with your website team to adjust and make sure this aspect of the site is optimised. 

This will be a particularly important area for sectors such as eCommerce as users increasingly shop on the go. And making this change should make an impact on conversions due to the much smoother and easier experience for the user. 

Thumb-zone mapping

Credit: Smashing Magazine

7. Oversized typography and interactive fonts 

A web design trend that’s emerged over the last few years and is predicted to continue growing is the use of oversized typography to achieve a bold and striking design approach. What’s interesting about this trend is that copy becomes the aesthetic feature of the page, which was previously a trait only seen in print design. Increasingly, we might begin to see a ‘posterization’ of the web, as webpages compete for rapid impact with their users.

Interactive fonts is another emerging trend which will help to make the UX more fun and engaging. Many businesses have already come up with imaginative and interesting ways to make their fonts interactive. One example is Dillinger, a film production company, who uses an interaction across the site which changes the typeface’s weight when hovering over it. 

Interactive fonts and aesthetic use of typography will be a key trend which will set modern businesses apart in 2022. These elements all contribute towards user delight on your website, which will appeal particularly to younger demographics.

8. Being responsible with interaction and motion

Although we’ve just made the case for interaction across your site, it will be crucial to strike a balance to ensure you don’t introduce too much interaction and motion. Moving and responsive elements across your site will be awesome for engaging and entertaining site visitors. But if overdone it could result in things like motion sickness for users. And for visitors less sensitive to motion, it may just be unpleasant if you go overboard. Having too many interactions and animations – if coded poorly – can also increase site loading speed and increase carbon emissions by the page load. This area will definitely be one to handle with care. 

Ensure you’re mindful when it comes to introducing interaction and motion. And that you’re considering all types of users who might come to your site with different sensitivities. 

An exciting year ahead for your business and your website 

In this blog we’ve covered some of the trends that we expect to arise or continue to grow next year. 

There’s loads of opportunities and areas to think about. But we know that it can be a challenge to know where to begin in terms of improving your site. 

That’s why we’re currently offering a free website audit so you can get a clear idea of how well your site is currently performing and what you need to do to improve it. Click the link below to find out more and book your free audit. 

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