The purpose of applying minimalism in web design is to show content and features simple and to ensure that the visitor is minimized from the main content. For this, content or features are often removed that do not support the basic tasks of the interface or its users.

The main features of minimalism:

1) flat textures (rejection of glossy and three-dimensional elements),

2) limited color palettes (muted or monochrome colors),

3) the use of negative space (white space around the elements of the site, contributing to a better perception).

Users prefer simple design

People subconsciously try to protect themselves from disorder. The fewer visual difficulties on the site, the more likely the user will stay on it and find what he needs. If you reduce information overload, your site’s performance will increase.

The Google team has researched the impact of visual complexity on a user’s first impression. The bottom line was that visually complex websites are often judged less beautiful, giving way to clean and simple web designs. Site aesthetics have a strong impact – users form their judgments about websites within 0.02 to 0.05 seconds.

Page Load Speed ​​Affects Conversions

Because minimalist websites have fewer elements and simple animations, they can load faster and reduce the chances of the page closing.

Information resource Think with Google presents the results of the analysis of the speed of loading pages on the Internet. The study looked at the impact of page load speed on user actions: 53% of users who visit a site leave a page that takes more than 3 seconds to load. It was found that as the page load time goes from one second to 10 seconds, the likelihood of a mobile site visitor leaving the site increases by 123%. As for the congestion of sites, the following conclusion was obtained: if the number of web elements (text, headers, images) on the page increases from 400 to 6000, the probability of conversion drops by 95%.

 

As smartphones and tablets have penetrated and established themselves at lightning speed across all walks of life, developer concerns about the visibility of control buttons have diminished markedly. Previously, the question was whether the user will notice the button if it does not stick out of the screen, but now we are already interested in subtleties. Windows 8 and Chrome for Android even support touch commands that turn on the screen without any visible controls. So skeuomorphism gave way to minimalism in web design.

 

Conclusion

Minimalist sites simplify interfaces by removing unnecessary elements and content that do not support user-specific tasks. What inspires this design is the combination of usability and high aesthetics: a beautiful site with simple navigation is a powerful communication tool.