10 Outdated Website Design Trends to Leave Behind
Website design trends are constantly evolving, and staying up-to-date is crucial for maintaining an effective online presence. This article explores outdated design practices that are best left behind, drawing on insights from industry experts. By understanding these trends, businesses and designers can create more engaging, user-friendly websites that resonate with modern audiences.
- Extreme Minimalism Gives Way to Expressive Design
- Corporate Memphis Art Loses Its Appeal
- Aggressive Pop-ups Fade as User Experience Improves
- Animation-Heavy Hero Sections Lose Popularity
- Static Hero Blocks Replace Endless Image Carousels
- Overcomplicated Navigation Menus Become Obsolete
- Autoplay Background Videos Fall Out of Favor
- Dynamic Structures Replace Symmetrical Grid Layouts
- Infinite Scrolling Declines Outside Social Feeds
- Cluttered Designs Make Way for Clarity
Extreme Minimalism Gives Way to Expressive Design
I'd say extreme minimalism is definitely on its way out - and frankly, it's about time.
I've watched this trend evolve from brilliant simplification to what I call "sterile emptiness." The ultra-sparse layouts with endless white space and single call-to-action buttons simply don't convert in today's competitive landscape. We're seeing design "steering away from more recent minimalism" toward more expressive approaches, and there are solid business reasons behind this shift.
This comes down to three critical factors:
First, user expectations have fundamentally changed. We're seeing the emergence of "Minimalist Maximalism" - blending clean simplicity with bold expressiveness, vibrant colors, and eclectic design elements. Users want personality and differentiation, not another clone of Apple's homepage.
Second, from an SEO perspective, extreme minimalism often sacrifices information architecture. I've seen countless clients lose organic traffic because their "clean" designs buried essential content that search engines and users needed. The focus is shifting to "user-centered design that prioritizes usability and user experience over flashy visuals" but that includes providing enough content to be useful.
Third, the performance argument that originally drove minimalism has been solved by better technology. We can now deliver rich, engaging experiences without the loading penalties that made extreme minimalism a preference in the first place.
What's replacing it is much more interesting - clean layouts that "feel more alive" with gentle animations, parallax effects, and seamless transitions. It's minimalism with purpose and personality, rather than minimalism for minimalism's sake.
The brands still clinging to stark minimalism are starting to look dated rather than sophisticated, and that's a dangerous position in competitive markets.
Corporate Memphis Art Loses Its Appeal
One website design trend that's losing steam is Corporate Memphis, also known as Alegria art. If you've visited a tech company's site at any point since the late 2010s, you know the look: flat, geometric illustrations featuring humans with spaghetti limbs, oversized hands, and tiny heads, usually caught in some absurd action pose.
This style became popular because it helped brands appear modern and friendly, but its novelty wore off quickly. Today, these illustrations tend to come across as generic and insincere. People are shifting toward designs that feel authentic and have real personality, rather than just showcasing more cartoon figures floating on pastel backgrounds.
As someone who develops websites for a living, I'm happy to see Corporate Memphis fade into obscurity. Clients and users now want web experiences with genuine creative energy. If a site is going to be artistic, it should display real art from real artists—not soulless corporate graphics, and definitely not AI-generated slop, which is probably even worse. Swapping one formulaic style for another misses the point. Moving away from cookie-cutter and machine-made visuals makes room for designs that are truly engaging, relatable, and memorable.
Aggressive Pop-ups Fade as User Experience Improves
I believe that overly aggressive pop-ups and modal interruptions are on their way out. You know those sites that hit you with newsletter signups, cookie notifications, discount offers, and chat widgets all within the first few seconds of visiting?
This trend is declining because users have developed "banner blindness" and simply tune them out or immediately close them. More importantly, these interruptions create friction in the user experience at a time when attention spans are shorter than ever. Google has also been penalizing sites with intrusive interstitials in their search rankings since 2017, which gives businesses a concrete incentive to dial back the aggressive tactics.
I'm seeing more sites move toward contextual, value-driven approaches instead - like showing a newsletter signup after someone has actually engaged with content, or using subtle slide-ins rather than full-screen takeovers. The focus is shifting from "capture immediately" to "provide value first," which creates better relationships with users and ultimately better conversion rates.
Animation-Heavy Hero Sections Lose Popularity
I honestly feel that animation-heavy hero sections are starting to fall out of favor. All those flashy sliders, scroll effects, and morphing shapes might look cool at first, but they slow things down.
When a page has too much of that, it takes a few extra seconds before you even get to the real content—and most people just don't have the patience anymore.
These days, people want speed and substance. They want to scan content quickly and actually get value right away. A perfect example of this is Backlinko.com. You open their homepage, and within a blink, everything you need is right there. It still feels polished and modern without being over the top.
It's less about showing off fancy effects and more about delivering a fast, clean, and genuinely useful experience.
Static Hero Blocks Replace Endless Image Carousels
Endless hero-image carousels are riding into the sunset. They were born when bandwidth was cheap and attention spans felt infinite; today, they sabotage Core Web Vitals and bury the call-to-action under a moving target. Users scroll instantly, algorithms grade load speed mercilessly, and A/B data shows most visitors never see slide two. Static, story-driven hero blocks paired with micro-interactions convert better and respect the clock-speed of modern browsing.
Overcomplicated Navigation Menus Become Obsolete
One website design trend that appears to be on its way out is overcomplicated navigation menus. These menus contain numerous levels of navigation with multiple dropdowns, hover animations, and many sub-categories. While this type of design was once considered sophisticated and "new-age," this type of menu has diminished in popularity for a couple of main reasons.
Primarily, UX has become the new focus of design, and complex multi-layered navigation menus lead to confusion and frustration. Nowadays, users are expecting simple, intuitive navigation that leads them to what they need without unnecessary clicks. Layering 5 levels of navigation can cause navigation fatigue, not to mention how difficult it is to operate on mobile where dropdowns are more difficult to access and tap.
Secondly, mobile-first design is now the norm, and many multi-layered navigation menus just don't work well in mobile-first design. Instead of an elegant dropdown menu on the mobile screen, they often produce a cluttered, hard-to-tap menu, which disengages users and increases the bounce rate.
At long last, with the growth of simplistic design and neo-interfaces, companies are focused on clarity and simplicity. Businesses are implementing clean, minimal navigation bars with fewer links for users to access content quickly. This is ultimately about accessibility and optimal design for all devices.
Autoplay Background Videos Fall Out of Favor
One design trend that's fading fast is autoplay background video. It used to feel slick and modern, but now it just feels noisy and distracting—especially on mobile. Users want clarity and control, not motion for motion's sake. Plus, it can hurt load times and accessibility, which are both deal-breakers for UX and SEO. We've phased it out in most client projects unless the video truly adds value. Clean, purposeful design is making a comeback, and flashy doesn't cut it anymore unless it serves a real purpose.
Dynamic Structures Replace Symmetrical Grid Layouts
Overly symmetrical grid layouts are starting to fade in favor of more dynamic structures. Perfect balance can make sites feel predictable and lifeless. Breaking the grid with asymmetrical elements draws the eye and adds personality. This approach mirrors evolving content consumption patterns where variety holds attention better. It also allows for more creative storytelling through design.
For our clients, we now use flexible grids that shift depending on content type and visual hierarchy. This creates movement and surprise without sacrificing organization. It also adapts better to mobile breakpoints, where rigid grids can feel cramped. Engagement metrics consistently improve when layouts feel fresh and intentional. Design variety invites exploration and deeper interaction.
Infinite Scrolling Declines Outside Social Feeds
Infinite scrolling is losing ground as a default design choice outside social feeds. While it can keep users engaged, it often makes navigation and bookmarking difficult. It also complicates footer access and can be frustrating for goal-oriented visitors. Many sites now return to paginated structures for better user control. The change reflects a preference for more deliberate navigation patterns.
We implement infinite scroll only when it clearly supports the site's primary purpose. E-commerce category pages, for example, benefit from speed but still need load markers. For blogs, we use clear page breaks and navigation aids. This gives users a sense of progress and choice in their browsing. The right choice depends on user intent and context.
Cluttered Designs Make Way for Clarity
One of the most outdated trends in website design today is overwhelming users with too much content, cluttered visuals, and irrelevant media, all wrapped in an outdated layout. No matter how strong your SEO strategy is, if a visitor lands on your site and is immediately confused or visually overwhelmed, you've already lost them.
Modern users expect instant clarity. Your hero section should communicate what you do, who you help, and how you solve a specific problem, all in a single glance. From there, the site needs to flow naturally, guiding users through your services or products in a clean, intuitive way.
Design is no longer just about aesthetics. It's about user experience and conversion. Without clear messaging, structured content, and credible social proof like testimonials, reviews, or case studies, even the most beautiful design won't perform. Clarity, simplicity, and intentionality in design are what drive real engagement and action.
