Web design trends come and go, making their mark on the digital landscape before a newer, more innovative design tactic takes their place. That’s the nature of the web design game.

It’s smart to brush up on web design trends every year and incorporate them where appropriate. It’s also smart to take a look back at what worked, what didn’t, and what trends are best left forgotten.

Are you guilty of trying to keep an outdated web design trend or tactic alive this year? Here are a handful of design trends not worth your time in 2019. 

Many business leaders decide to hire a web design agency in order to streamline the design process without sacrificing quality. It’s a smart decision, especially when you need to meet brand expectations but you either can’t afford to hire an in-house web designer or when doing so, it just doesn’t make sense.

There are a number of considerations to keep in mind when searching for the perfect-fit web design agency, and there’s also a degree of responsibility you need to own once you’ve found the best agency or designer to meet your needs.

It’s important to be prepared and have a plan of attack to help web designers understand your goals and how they can provide solutions. Here’s what you need to know, how you can prepare, and what you can expect after hiring a web design agency.

Interactivity is a popular design choice, and it’s easy to see why.

Traditional web browsing is a static experience. Users are no more than passive observers in your marketing funnel, with little agency or control over how they consume your messaging. But interactivity changes the game and lets users directly engage with your site. In most cases, this adds a new dimension to your messaging that improves the overall value of your UX.

It sounds great on paper, but is it necessary?

You’d think that by 2019, web designers would have come to a consensus on how to build proper web forms. Unfortunately, we still have some work to do in this area.

Your web forms are the unsung heroes of your landing pages and CTAs. They’re the data capture tool standing between your website and your viewers. And while adjustments to your web forms might seem minor compared to the slew of other website optimizations you should be making, they actually have a huge impact on your users’ UX, not to mention your conversion rates.

Keep an eye out for the following issues in your web design.

Content marketing and web design go hand-in-hand.

We'd say you can't have one without the other, but that just isn't true. Plenty of companies build websites without giving a thought to how their content will fit into the equation. In our view, this is a huge missed opportunity. 

After all, content is the workhorse of your online presence, and it’s not something you can kick-start overnight. For the best content marketing ROI, you need to integrate it with your website design from the very beginning.

When we think of creating a consistent “brand voice” for marketing purposes, we usually think of our direct communications: Our blogs, emails, or web copy. It’s easy to forget that there’s another communication channel that needs the same devotion to your established brand persona—your website design.

We all know how complicated web design can be.

One of the most interesting aspects to review in this area is color. The psychology of color in web design is a topic that gets plenty of attention, and for good reason. Color is a huge part of how viewers perceive content, engage with material, and form an overall impression of a brand’s persona. In fact, Google found that the average reader will judge the aesthetics of your site and make the decision to leave or stay in as few as 50 milliseconds—faster than we can consciously process.

Naturally, color choice plays a big part in this assessment. But what happens when you want to ditch these carefully-chosen color schemes in favor of something a bit more innovative? As we’ll review, colorphobia just might be the secret to powerful web design.

When asked what constitutes good design in the real world, design icon and visionary Don Norman responded that it’s good when you don’t even realize that you’re using it. In that sense, UX can seem like a thankless job where your best efforts to create intuitive, coherent, and seamless design come with the ultimate intention of being second nature to users and, therefore, go unnoticed. On the other hand, when UX is bad, your website will definitely garner some attention.

Human beings have a knack for disobeying instructions and behaving unpredictably. Those are just two of the eternal struggles of a UX designer. However, the fault of bad UX design rests on the shoulders of the designer, not the user. Even great UX designers can make mistakes that make sites difficult to use.

Website carousels or “sliders” are a popular element in modern web design. Shifting banners all occupying the top real estate of your homepage layout conveys a sense of dynamism, diverse imagery, and an opportunity for multiple different CTAs. At least that’s the drive behind the fad.

Rebranding is a great way to breathe new life into your business, but brand leaders are often quick to assume a rebrand means a facelift for the entire company, website included.

You don’t need a new website just because you’re rebranding your business, but it might be a good idea.

Your website is the contact point for online consumers, so it’s natural to want it to be in line with rebranding efforts. Whether this means a new website or simple changes to key elements depends on you.