Maximize Your Website's Conversion Rates with Flat Design

What is flat design?

Flat design simplifies website design with minimalist styling, a large amount of white space, bright colors, and bold fonts. Flat website design is often confused with a minimalist design, but there are a few key differences.

While flat design prioritizes minimalism, it also provides a vibrant and enhanced user experience through elements like animations and icon designs that add to the user interface but still adhere to the design principles.

There are many flat design examples that you can find online. These simplified websites have been so successful at conveying the same information as sites that use complex graphic elements that they have become increasingly more common. Most successful businesses have shifted to a flat or semi-flat design for their web presence, and the use of flat design principles continues to spread as new websites are built.

History of flat design

Flat design came about in 2012 as a response to what had become an overuse of skeuomorphic design. By 2010, many websites attempted to mimic real life with images and icons that showed actual products, leading to complicated layouts and longer load times for web pages. To address this, web designers began implementing more minimalist designs based on the Swiss Style.

These new designs, which were quickly adopted across the internet by other major technology companies, replaced realistic icons and flashy colors with easy-to-read fonts and layouts.

Subsequently, Flat 2.0 combines the layout and color scheme of the original flat design style with some aspects of material design that include raised buttons or links and has become the standard for many websites.

Key flat design elements

In general, the flat design style includes four major components:

• Bright colors: The use of bright colors helps provide users with visual cues to guide them throughout your website.
• Simple shapes: Objects are depicted using simple two-dimensional vector art rather than complex 3D skeuomorphic images.
• Minimal textures: Drop shadows and gradients are not used in flat design. Instead, flat design uses minimal textures to reduce visual noise and create a better user experience.
• Simple fonts: Using simple sans-serif fonts provides faster loading and ease of reading for users.

Benefits of flat website design for conversion rates

When a website visitor can easily browse a site, find what they are looking for, and make a purchase without the web design style hindering that process, they are more likely to add to your overall conversion rate.

Using flat design elements can help improve the user experience, encouraging users to stay on your site and making them more likely to return.

Improves usability

One of the key aspects of flat design is a more aesthetic and intuitive web layout. Users are presented with easy-to-understand images, icons, and fonts, and the bright colors and ample whitespace are used to guide where a visitor looks and clicks on the site.

These features provide a user with a distraction-free environment that is more intuitive and easier to follow. Additionally, high-contrast colors and simple fonts can be used for accessible website design, making your website usable by an increased number of visitors.

Faster loading times

By simplifying a site to use a flat style web design, the 2D vector graphics and simplified font will require fewer resources to load, speeding up the rendering process and allowing the page to load faster.

Increases visual hierarchy

Websites have gone from single to multiple pages, with each page including various sections and pieces of information. With these enhanced hierarchies, it has become necessary for web and UX designers to include elements that express different levels of content. In flat web design, visual elements are used to increase visual hierarchy.

Through the use of different colored backgrounds and font sizes, the web design can remain flat or semi-flat, but a user is still able to easily discern different sections on pages or navigate from page to page.

More compatibility with devices

As more users turn to their mobile devices to view websites, a flat design enables your site to be viewed regardless of the device. Websites that do not incorporate flat or semi-flat design principles are likely difficult to view on a smaller screen.

However, the 2D vector art and simplified fonts of flat design are easily resized to fit the screen size, regardless of the device used. You can also use a flat design web template to help create a website that is accessible on various devices.

How to implement a flat design style on your website

If you are interested in implementing a flat interface design on your website, there are some important concepts to keep in mind to pull it off effectively:

• Context clues: By using context clues, such as arrows or text, in your user interface design, you make it clear to the user how to navigate your website. For example, rather than using a stylized shopping cart icon, a simple "Check Out" button serves the same purpose but adheres to a flat design.
• Clarity: A clear website layout will make your site look better and guide your visitors as they move from page to page. A simple layout of icons and images and clear wording will provide users with an easier experience when it comes to finding information and browsing your site.
• Font choice: While many early websites preferred bold fonts that fit the site’s message, flat design prioritizes simple fonts, most often sans serif ones. These simple fonts not only provide a clean aesthetic and are easier to read, but they also reduce the loading requirements. Instead of fancy fonts, you can use different colors and sizes of a simple font to separate pieces of information, and the interface design can guide users as they navigate your site.
• Color: Using bold and vibrant colors in your web design style can add a dimension to the site while keeping things flat or semi-flat. By placing text or images in areas that are offset by their color, those elements are automatically highlighted in a way that previously had been done through skeuomorphic design. The use of different colors, white space, and negative space can also be used to guide your site visitors from one page to another.

Mistakes to avoid in flat web design

One of the challenges of implementing flat design principles is making things too flat. In fact, with the original implementation of flat design layouts, many websites became more difficult to use because visitors were unsure of what elements were clickable.

This is where Flat 2.0 or semi-flat layouts have flourished. Using raised icons to indicate clickable buttons or different colors or fonts to indicate links creates flat yet clickable elements that help guide a user throughout the website.

Increase your website conversion rates with flat web design

Taking the time to look at your website design can help you find opportunities to increase your conversion through enhanced website accessibility and user interface.

Your website is one of the most important aspects of your business, as it's where your customers go to find out more information and get in contact with you. So, you need your web design to be accessible and easy to navigate, and you can accomplish that with a flat web design.

Creating a website can be difficult, but Mailchimp offers all the UX design tools you could need to design a beautiful, professional website. With Mailchimp, you can curate your website's look and feel to create a site that reflects your brand's unique personality.

When your customers have a positive experience with your website, they are more likely to continue to support your business and recommend your brand to their friends and family. Use Mailchimp today to simplify your UX design process and create a business website you can be proud of.