There are a myriad of web design trends out there, but the number one web design trend of 2020 will be designing for the truth. In designing your site for the truth, you will realize the various roles social media, labeling, sources, and content play when it comes to not only you the creator, but for your users and customers, too. 

Social Media’s Slow March Toward Trustworthiness 

Many of us use social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter to promote and share our content and business. In some cases, the massive amount of content on these platforms have accounted for spreading untruths.  

With this in mind, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have taken a stance on the chance to offer their users to report misleading content and be straightforward on not allowing for some forms, such as political advertising to be on Twitter. 

If you distill what is currently happening, it does not have much to do with what the major platforms are doing to bring clarity and transparency to their audiences, but what designers are doing to bring more truth and transparency into their own work. 

Label More Prominently and Clearly 

When you create content, you want to use clear language, and also design in a way that conveys what your content is all about. You can blatantly want to express your purpose and ideas through the content you create. 

For instance, if you are creating ads, you want to make it clear to the viewer the message you are trying to convey to them instead of trying to obscure the fact that what they are reading is an advertisement. 

Another way you can label content more prominently and clearly is by organizing your site with meaningful navigation labels that indicate your business  considers its users’ needs, and also understands their mental models, as well as the vocabulary they use when they perform a web search.  

Having fancy or unclear category names in your site’s hierarchy may not help your site visitor find relevant content that pertains to their intent. Reason being, people may become frustrated and possibly leave your site if they don’t understand your categorization. Make sure you design your site so that menus and navigation items explicitly state what they promise the user.  

A way you can imply to the reader what message you are trying to convey is by having prominent headers that implicitly state what you want and the actions you want your audience to take. 

Make Sources More Obvious 

Whether you are crafting a website or creating content, be sure to make authors and credentials obvious in your web design. Clearly labeling authors will not only help boost your site’s credibility but also give you reader’s a point of contact. Furthermore, this gives your users an insight into better evaluating and understanding your content.

This can be done through having a list carefully curated of contributors visible, so the reader can easily see and reference that source. You also want to choose external sources wisely, since your site’s audience wants sources that are unbiased, reliable. and credible. 

Also, when you link to outside sources, show you are transparent and confident about the business you provide. Ultimately, be discrete and transparent about where you put your sources on your articles or site. 

Use Related Content to Provide Context and Contrast 

In curating content. you should provide your readers with information that adds to their understanding of a topic. To help in this endeavor, you can use related content, which is a familiar or similar content pattern that often appears at the middle or end of blog posts or news articles.

For instance, related content is usually seen under such headings on news (publication) articles like “you might also like…”. Furthermore, related content gives web designers a way to add easily accessible information to help a user better understand a topic. 

This can be done by first sharing opinion pieces that are contextualized by stories people comment on and contrasting opinions. Related content can help add context and promote an understanding for your readers.