The internet’s next phase has come from interactive web design trends. As always, these digital trends represent emerging technology and its influence on society, and the previous year provided designers with plenty of material to work with.
AI has advanced to the point that it can create art, and the Metaverse has propelled VR into the mainstream. Web design concepts highlighting immersion, simulation, and cinematic methods have since emerged. Simultaneously, a worldwide recession has prompted both a retreat from affluence and a drive toward pleasant, escapism-inducing activities. It has occurred against the Big Flat Now, in which the internet and mobile phones have achieved their peak global availability. As a result, as aesthetic innovation becomes a fast-paced, international effort, online design trends become less restricted to the immediate and local.
With all of these elements at play, the following interactive web design trends are set to shake the fundamental foundations of the World Wide Web.
The following are the top 9 interactive web design trends for 2023
1. 3D worlds that are genuinely immersive
Many websites embraced immersive scrolling experiences that drew readers inside the page last year. This trend has now grown into entirely immersive websites—fully generated 3D environments, partly due to ongoing interest in VR technology.
Immersion gimmicks are nothing new, but few go so far as to transport the user across digital space using the flawless tracking of a crane camera. While audio tactics were once seen as a remnant of the early internet, subtle music is making a comeback to lend a theatrical touch. Because audio still has accessibility issues, most websites will request permission to play music before loading the page.
This style requires significant effort to execute (often requiring 3D modeling and sound mixing). Hence it is best suited for one-off campaigns, such as the Coach x Tom Wesselman product line. While these internet worlds are more artistic than realistic, it is precisely because of this that they are appealing—they are creative, escapist environments that users will want to immerse themselves in. At their finest, they stand up to the many stale layouts that center the page around a CTA button. Instead, these websites rely on the visual experience to make a lasting impression on visitors.
2. Overstimulation
“Less is more” has been digital law for decades, requiring that websites be so apparent that users don’t have to think. Many designers have recently revolted against these limits through anti-design and resurrection of the garish interfaces of Web 1.0. Digital maximalism—designs aimed at extreme overstimulation—will be the uprising against UX simplicity in 2023.
This style vows an all-out war on white space, with practically every page element customized. A single web page may simultaneously have dynamic backdrops, animated foregrounds, large font, hover and click effects, flashing pictures, and color splashes. As a result, websites that are not just rebellious but also expressive, original, and unabashedly odd are created. It pushes engagement and enjoyment to new heights by emphasizing experience above intuitive navigation to encourage exploration.
Digital maximalism is a trend that has evolved and intensified since Covid; all those bottled-up emotions are rushing to the surface in the shape of maximalism and anti-design.
– Moran Kadussi, Content Strategy Lead and Trends Foresight at Wix
At the same time, this approach introduces clear accessibility challenges, and firms subject to accessibility legislation may find it impossible to develop WCAG-compliant pages in this form.
3. Interactive Web Design Trends: Parallax zoom scrolling
The parallax effect is an animation technique that creates a sense of realism and depth by making the foreground parts move more quickly than the background ones. It’s been a trendy web design look for a few years, but parallax zoom scrolling is modern in 2023.
Movement is king: parallax and motion are bringing webpages to life. As the internet gets faster, sites get more dynamic.
– Justin Hamra, Art Director at 99designs by Vista
Rather than scrolling horizontally or vertically, this parallax scroll moves the visitor inside or outward from the horizon line, resulting in a surprising three-dimensional movement. It mimics the ease of zooming that applications like TikTok have provided video artists. It also clearly relates to the immersive worlds and overstimulation trends: one simple scroll gives visitors the impression that they are being taken on a voyage into the unknown.
4. ’90s navigation
Last year’s web design trends saw a surge in ’90s retro, expressing a collective yearning for the purity of the early internet. That trend is continuing in 2023. Designers are expanding their creative interpretation of nostalgia with a focus on navigation.
Explaining his record-store-themed navigation design, 99designs by Vista designer, Marijn B, says, “Because the visitors understand how the products function in the real world, they’ll grasp more quickly how to interact with them on the website. Browsing seems as natural as flipping between albums or reading the back of a record when surrounded by vinyl and entranced by advertising banner marquees. It offers the user a friendly, familiar sense.
Because the visitors understand how the objects work in the real world, they will understand more quickly how to interact with them on the record-store-inspired website. It gives the user this familiar, warm feeling.
– Marijn B, 99designs by Vista designer
Nostalgic navigation might take the form of highly literal ’90s design elements, such as pixelated desktop icons or vivid menu color blocks. It can also integrate relics from the 1990s, as shown in SIRUP’s ingenious CD tower navigation menu. Both approaches rely on sensory memory, whether sorting through stacked cases by hand or clicking through an outdated but familiar interface.
However, even with the lack of sensory memory, the trend might captivate younger users by producing a digital replica of a world they did not experience. In general, nostalgia is usually good for giving viewers warm fuzzies, especially when they are going through a difficult moment. However, its incorporation in navigation may imply that we are progressing by adopting signals from the past.
5. Scrapbook aesthetic
Massive technical developments occurred this year, culminating in the widely anticipated launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. However, with futurism comes a yearning to recapture the natural environment. This tendency is presenting itself in the websites of 2023 through scrapbooks and DIY features.
Doodle drawings, handwritten typography, sticker graphics, and cut-and-paste collages are frequently used on these websites. These designs embrace both sides of the coin, the physical and digital coexisting.
6. Interactive Web Design Trends: Overlapping text
Web design has long been held prisoner by the grid, which arranges layouts in clean, equal areas and ensures that everything is in its proper position. Web designers have rebelled against this forced framework by employing rule-breaking tactics such as Neo-brutalism, which softened the most avant-garde aspects of conventional brutalism last year. These efforts appear to have worked off since one of brutalism’s most prevalent characteristics—overlapping and cluttered text—can be found on 2023 websites regularly.
Even prominent websites increasingly overlap their page components to the point of near illegibility, placing type over pictures. Often, the website will keep a clean overall appearance, with only select header text overlapping, producing a minor impact. It is what lends the movement widespread appeal: it breaks up monotony without enabling the entire page to devolve into experimental chaos.
Even though the trend sacrifices some immediate legibility, the sheer size of the headline makes the effect only transient. Instead, a styled title evocative of magazine cover writing draws attention to this trend. This tendency indicates that rule-breaking is becoming more widely accepted since almost everyone appears to be sick of the same, perfectly organized layouts.
7. Typographic layouts
One of digital design’s most significant advantages is its multimedia support, which allows text, photos, video, animation, and interactive components to coexist in the same composition. Despite this, many of 2023’s site designers skip multimedia entirely in favor of primarily textual layouts.
Many of our current clients prefer strong typographic layouts in web design. The idea is that when bold fonts are used as primary elements in designs, they capture the viewer’s attention quickly to make them stay on the page.
– DarkDesigns Studio, 99designs by Vista designer
The end effect is a retro print magazine style, which might result from many publications shifting digital to avoid escalating printing costs and the environmental toll. In any event, typographic layouts promote practical minimalism: these websites have something to say and don’t spend the visitor’s time stating it. They also offer their visitors academic credit, recognizing that powerful words and inventive text arrangements can be just as captivating as attention-grabbing pictures.
8. Interactive Web Design Trends: Rehabilitating the 404
The 404 error page is the feared destination of every website, the location you are directed to when you cannot locate what you are looking for. While site designers have traditionally seen the 404 page as a chance to include a humorous image or some light-hearted prose, the 404 pages are going all in on entertainment. These 404 websites actively urge visitors to stay by using intriguing animations and interactive mini-games.
The old 404 page should not be an afterthought. It can be used as a way to show your brand’s personality. Easter eggs and quirky 404s are popping up more and more. It is what can spin a bad experience into something to remember.
– Justin Hamra, Art Director at 99designs by Vista
This style, like the overstimulation tendency, ensures that even unpleasant but required pages are designed to be entertaining. It is a desire to produce positivity amid adversity. Web designers want to contribute when there are so many unpleasant occurrences. A delightful 404-page design may not alter the world but may be slightly improved.
9. Animated product reveals
Hover animations have always been helpful for tiny micro-interactions that keep visitors engaged passively. In 2023, however, web designers will take hover animations to new heights, converting standard page components into spectacular product reveals.
This tendency achieves numerous objectives at once. It promotes fast browsing, allowing visitors to review a product without navigating to another page. It animates the product and teases how it may be utilized. Plus, it improves the simple interface by displaying photographs and keeping the page clear of image clutter.
It has become harder for brands and businesses to capture their audience’s attention, perhaps because everyone needs to be energized. One solution is to give more life to designs through hyper-movement and playful animations.
– Moran Kadussi, Content Strategy Lead and Trends Foresight at Wix
Conclusion:
The 2023 interactive web design trends reflect multiple impulses simultaneously. Parallax zooms, overstimulation, and immersive worlds are pushing the limits of digital technology.
Scrapbook components, 90s navigation, and typographic layouts anchor the internet in tactile memory.
