Once upon a time, web design was all about tinkering with grids, spending an inordinate amount of time picking the right font, and overdosing on coffee while nudging a button three pixels to the right.
But in recent years, a few things have changed. First, website builders made the art of web design more accessible than ever, as millions of freelancers, business owners, and bloggers took matters into their own hands. Now, AI is changing the game again, and there’s no going back.
Artificial intelligence has taken the web design bible – the sacred text full of our long-held design principles and methods – and ripped it to smithereens. It’s changing the way that sites are imagined, built, optimised, and experienced, all at a disorienting pace that’ll blend your brain and leave you temporarily blind.
Design Starts With the Data
In the olden days, web design often started with a combination of intuition, experience, and client notes. Even though most designers leaned into best practices, a lot of the process still relied on educated guesses. Now, AI has forever changed that starting point.
Modern design tools that are powered by AI can analyse an extraordinary amount of user behaviour data. Think clicks, scroll patterns, time spent on page, and navigation flows. So gone are the days of designing purely on theory alone. Now, designers are working with insights that tell them exactly how users are interacting with websites.
So, in short, this allows teams to design layouts that better align with actual human behaviour, instead of just making assumptions. For example, if a CTA (call to action) is continuously ignored by web browsers, new AI-powered systems will flag it and, in some cases, even suggest solutions.
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Rapid Prototyping
One of the biggest benefits of AI – both in general and in web design specifically – is speed.
AI programs and assistants are able to generate entire page layouts in mere seconds, based only on a few basic prompts. Designers might want to input elements, like content type, brand style, the target audience, and the page’s purpose.
After that, the AI will propose a few different layouts. This won’t completely overthrow the early stages of the creative process – it’ll just speed them up. Designers are now able to instantly review different variations of a page, as opposed to spending a few hours arranging various components themselves and tugging their hair out.
A Personalised User Experience
Once upon a time, websites used to show every single user the exact same content, and back then, that approach made a lot of sense – personalisation tech was much more limited and far too taxing for any site’s back end. But now, AI has changed the game here too.
Based on user behaviour, preferences, location and browsing history, AI systems are now capable of personalising website content in real time. Visitors are now used to having different, more tailored experiences. They see different product recommendations, banners, and even navigation shortcuts, depending on what the AI system thinks they will find the most useful.
Such systems are already commonplace on e-commerce sites, streaming services, and news sites. But this doesn’t necessarily make designers’ jobs easier because designing flexible layouts that can adapt to different content variations, rather than just creating one perfect page.
Smarter UI Decisions
AI UI is almost a no-brainer. More than just a catchy naming convention, AI UI is capable of making key decisions when it comes to the colour palette, typography, spacing and accessibility options of a page. These choices also come well-informed, based on the system’s knowledge of successful websites across different industries, where it has identified patterns that correlate with the strongest usability and engagement.
Some of AI’s accessibility improvements are also particularly promising, as some tools are now capable of scanning designs and spotting potential problems with things like colour contrast, screen reader readability, ensuring that your website can cater to the needs of as many users as possible.
What Does the Future Hold?
Where artificial intelligence as a whole is concerned, the landscape is constantly evolving. The world has already graciously adopted it in the form of LLMs, chatbots, and even in call centres. The same can be said for AI’s influence on web design. As models become more and more capable, design tools will become more heavily involved in everyday workflows.
But the possibilities are almost endless. Interfaces will adapt instantaneously to user behaviours; AI systems will be able to design entire ecosystems for each product, not just single pages, and accessibility will be optimised by automated processes.
Closing Thoughts
In just a few short years, AI has taken the world by storm. And it’s changed the way we design websites, both creatively and practically – its ripple effect hasn’t just been limited to a few design agencies in Silicon Valley; it’s been felt by web developers in Manchester and freelancers in Sydney. Yes, it’s understandable for designers to fear the uncertainty of this brave new world, but the heart of web design is likely to stay the same. AI will bring the tools, but designers will bring the vision.
