The landscape of web design and development continues to evolve at pace, with user expectations, design trends, and coding standards all shifting rapidly. In this edition of The Code & Canvas Report, we explore the current state of UX (user experience), UI (user interface) design, and emerging web standards that are shaping how websites are built and experienced in 2024.
UX in 2024: Seamlessness Is the Standard
User experience is no longer just about functionality—it’s about flow, intuition, and accessibility. As digital touchpoints increase across devices, platforms, and channels, users expect consistency and ease-of-use at every turn.
Key UX trends include:
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Microinteractions: Small, subtle animations or responses that provide feedback (like a button ripple or swipe gesture) are enhancing engagement and user satisfaction.
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Accessibility-first design: Following WCAG 2.2 guidelines, designers are prioritising inclusive experiences from the outset, ensuring visual contrast, keyboard navigation, and screen reader compatibility are built in—not added as afterthoughts.
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Personalised experiences: UX is becoming more dynamic, with content and navigation adapting to user behaviour, preferences, or location.
Ultimately, a seamless UX builds trust. Inconsistent layouts, unexpected interactions, or inaccessible features not only frustrate users—they cost conversions.
UI: Bold, Clean, and Functional
UI design has entered a mature phase where clarity and usability are leading the way. Gone are the days of over-embellished visuals; today’s user interfaces are focused on simplicity and speed.
Some of the leading UI directions for 2024 include:
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Bold typography: Clear, readable fonts are being used creatively to lead visual hierarchy, especially on mobile.
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Neumorphism and glassmorphism: While flat design remains popular, modern interfaces are now experimenting with light, shadow, and translucency for added depth.
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Dark mode as standard: Not just a trend, dark mode is now a user preference many websites accommodate automatically based on browser or system settings.
One key development is the growing importance of design systems—centralised libraries of components and guidelines that help teams maintain consistency across products. Frameworks like Google’s Material Design and Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines are influencing UI decisions across industries.
Web Standards: Cleaner Code, Smarter Sites
As browsers become more powerful and devices more varied, compliance with web standards has never been more crucial. Not only do standards ensure consistent performance across platforms, but they also play a major role in SEO, accessibility, and long-term site maintenance.
Recent shifts include:
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HTML5 and semantic structure: Developers are increasingly embracing semantic elements to improve readability and screen reader access.
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CSS container queries: This long-awaited feature allows styles to adapt based on the size of a parent container, enabling truly responsive design at the component level.
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Core Web Vitals: Google’s performance metrics—such as Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)—are influencing how developers prioritise speed and layout stability.
Frameworks like React, Vue, and Svelte continue to dominate the JavaScript landscape, but there’s a renewed emphasis on lighter, faster builds, with static site generators and server-side rendering becoming more common in projects prioritising performance.
The Bridge Between Code and Canvas
The synergy between designers and developers is now more important than ever. Tools like Figma and Adobe XD, paired with collaborative environments like GitHub and Storybook, are helping to bridge the gap between visual intention and technical execution.
Design handoff is no longer a single event; it’s a continuous conversation. Shared understanding of goals, users, and constraints ensures that the final product reflects both creative vision and engineering precision.
In Summary
As UX and UI design evolve alongside web standards, the goal remains clear: create experiences that are intuitive, inclusive, and impactful. Whether you’re a developer fine-tuning performance or a designer shaping user journeys, staying aligned with the latest tools, trends, and best practices is key to building modern, user-centred websites.