When you want to better understand what’s happening in B2B web design trends, it’s always good to look to what has been happening in the consumer realm. What used to take one to two years to come to corporate communications is now happening much faster. Web innovations we saw just six months ago in the consumer realm are already making moves on B2B sites. And we love to see it.
For B2B web design, it’s all about delivering a better user experience, but that always has to be balanced with key site objectives like educating your audiences, optimizing lead generation, and nurturing progress through the funnel. When it comes to driving digital results, we see five key trends that will shape website design trends and strategies in 2024.
1. Creating Your own Spotlight with Custom Cursors
For sites that want to deliver even stronger branded impact, no element is off limits. One small (but not always subtle) element where design can come into play is the cursor. Instead of sticking with the standard arrow, some sites have made the cursor more meaningful by transforming it into a branded symbol or animating it to focus the B2B website visitor’s attention. The key is to ensure it’s always designed with the user in mind — it really should enhance their journey.
While others have turned the cursor into big color splashes for impact, RCA Records has implemented a more subtle approach, turning the circular lens into a small circular filter that reverses out what it’s over to highlight exactly where you are on the page. Whatever the mark, when it effectively reinforces the brand, it elevates the user experience.
2. Guiding the Journey with Takeover Menus
Ensuring your audience can easily find the information they are looking for on your site is essential to an effective user experience. We are seeing more and more companies using takeover menus to provide a more immersive look at their site content. Whether they come in from the side like social agency Deso or drop down to provide greater depth of page content detail like our client Splunk , many companies find takeover menus an effective tool for delivering more information or maximizing the impact of the experience.
3. AI is Everywhere — Including on Your Site
Like every other aspect of business and daily life, the buzz about AI in web design circles is big. Companies are still trying to figure out all the places it can benefit, but the Clear Digital team has already been putting it to great use in creating unique, highly ownable imagery that can express complex ideas in a more evocative way. Instead of being stuck with stock imagery that is either used by others or doesn’t quite capture what you want to express, AI can quickly build a composite image that can be adjusted for a faster path to ownability.
4. Increasing Engagement with Animated Illustrations
For the artist in me, this website design trend is one of the most exciting that we see continue to expand on sites. Our team sees great advantages in using illustrations for B2B sites both in terms of breadth of applicability and ownability. More than just singular animations to complement a block of content, we are using more SVG animations to guide visitors on the journey through a page. You can see this at work on sites like Netgiro . The key with this kind of animation is ensuring it is lightweight enough not to impact loading performance.
5. Cinematic Scrolling as a Storytelling Tool
Taking SGV animated illustrations one step further, cinematic scrolling is an interesting tool that allows B2B brands to guide the path through a page and expand the range of storytelling components. This was a trend we saw last year that is definitely taking firmer hold.
Companies like Marqeta and Haptic use cinematic scrolling to add sophistication and layered storytelling to their sites. While this is an effective tool for some B2B audience personas (think influencers and purchasers), it is likely less useful for technical audiences that simply want to get to the information they need quickly. Likewise, if content on a site changes frequently, updating pages with this depth of interactivity can prove a heavier lift.
Make Sure Your Site is on Trend
Finding the right design flourishes to complement your brand and storytelling should be at the heart of any website design process. By knowing what you like and where you can get the largest bang for your development buck, you can focus your efforts on what matters for your brand.
Is it time to update your website? See what our B2B web design agency can do to create a website with maximum impact for your company.
