As we come to the end of 2018, we’ve started to reflect on the choices we’ve made for our clients and the new digital trends for the coming year. We’ve spoken to our team here at Ascensor across all disciplines like development, design and marketing to see what they predict will be the emerging techniques and technologies that could be implemented in 2019’s strategy for our clients who are hungry to take the next step on their digital journey.
The Boss - Andy Firth
In 2019 we’ll see the continued proliferation of AI and machine learning within the software that we use. I’ve heard that 90% of the worlds data has been generated in the last year, so the gathering of data and its utilisation to provide more personalised content is going to continue. As we develop websites to be more personal, and more app like, these progressive web apps will be able to utilise more of the data that our devices contain about us, subject to permission. Dynamic search advertising is really interesting as it further personalises a user’s view of Google on search, and I believe that as voice search becomes more and more used, the art of voice search optimisation will grow.
Senior Designer - Imran Ahmed
Gridless - As progressive web apps start eating in to the share of the pie within Play Stores and the like, I see their designs shifting from the grid layouts we’re accustomed to browsing on the web to more native like gridless layouts. We have already started to see this trend with ambitious designers opting for a more abstract layout on the web taking a break from the vertical and horizontal structure.
Front End Developer - Donna Clinch
I can see a couple of things coming to the forefront of digital in 2019. First of all; retro designs: We’ve already seen some companies favor retro designs such as MailChimp. I think the big focus will be on big bold typography like what we can see here - much more illustrated with less text/content.
I also think that there will be a continued focus on page speed. In November, Google updated Pagespeed insights in way more detail than before using Lighthouse. Google have also produced PWA’s that make Lighthouse accessible to everyone, not just developers.
SEO - Jonathan Hunter
I can see a considerable growth in the use of voice search. This is starting to really get some momentum now and I expect that soon it will become a standard in any digital strategy. The current predictions throughout the industry are vastly steered towards the idea that voice search will soon make up almost half of all searches in the UK. This combined with a greater adoption of virtual assistants; this will certainly impact the way SEO’s optimise for search.
Summary
So there you have it – some exciting things to look forward to in the coming year to help reach your 2019 goals. To find out how you can get the most out of your digital strategy in 2019 contact us to speak to one of our digital experts.