Preparing for 2020 – What’s shaping web development this year!

As a team of curious web developers, designers and technical bods who like to experiment, play and analyse, we thought it would be interesting to predict a few key trends that we think we will see over the coming 12 months

In no particular order, our top 6 are:

Responsive designs and an increase in mobile users
Ok, so really, having a responsive webpage is now a must-have, not a nice to have. But, with the introduction of mobile-first indexing from Google, mobile webpages will be ranked before the desktop site. It’s therefore critical for any business online to ensure they think mobile-first.

Speed is everything
We believe that websites need to load instantly regardless of graphics, animation or video content. Who wants to wait 15 seconds for something to load? Website speed is the first impression you ever make. If people are coming to your website looking for something, it’s important to give it to them as quickly as possible.

Voice optimisation
Voice activated devices such as Echo, Alexa and Siri have become essential to our day to day lives. Web developers will need to look at implementing a voice search recognition API to allow users to voice search your website.

Modular design
For a cheaper, faster and more flexible solution, modular designs allow developers to create content blocks to display information that can be reused. Described as a Lego set for web pages, each piece can interlock with one another to build webpages that make sense. With less reliance on templates, this provides flexibility and will save time too.

Design and visualisation
Imagery plays a crucial role in web design, but how do you ensure your web content stands out? We certainly think there will be increased use of illustration, 3D design and dark UI (dark mode). Data visualisation is also one to watch as it’s a great tool to create visually engaging stories that will captivate your audience and enhance your brand.

The rise of the Chatbot
Many customer service professionals are already employing bots rather than humans and with its clear financial gain, we predict that more companies will be deploying live chat applications to support customers and consumer needs.

If you agree, disagree or would like to share your prediction, we would love to hear them.