Facebook LinkedIn WhatsApp Pocket

Get 7 days free access to all project management courses

Start free trial

The business world needs more highly skilled project managers. Otherwise, it will continue to bleed around a hundred million dollars (ouch!) for every billion it spends on projects and programs. Without the right talent and strategy, project schedules and budgets will remain elusive — with only 57% of all projects completed without additional funding, and only 51% successfully making the original deadline.

If you are a project management professional or planning to become one, the coming year will be a great time to progress your career and help businesses overcome the challenges ahead. But you’ll need the right project management skills to make an impact.

According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), a project’s success rate improves by approximately 40% when project managers possess and nurture the ideal skill set (a powerful mix of technical, leadership, and business management expertise).

Those in the know have been shining a spotlight on the increasing demand for project management skills in recent years. Computer World ranked project management among the hottest skills for 2017, while PMI projected a dramatic increase in the demand for project-oriented skills from 2017 through 2027. For each year during this period, companies around the world will need to fill an annualized figure of 2.2 million new project-oriented roles.

Despite the growing number of jobs, the serious lack of candidates with adequate project management skills creates a huge talent gap. With competition expected to become more intense across industries in the coming year, the scramble among recruiters for professionals with excellent project management skills will remain fierce in 2020, to say the least.      

Want to learn more?

Take your project management skills to the next level with our comprehensive (and free) ebook!

Enter your email address

How much do project managers make?

When strong demand meets scarce supply, prices go way up north. This can be alarming to employers but quite a good thing for project management practitioners. Entry level project managers in the U.S. receive a median annual salary of $70,249 while senior project managers easily take home $102,318 on average. The most skillful and ambitious — those at the high end of the scale — are worth more than $142,000 according to Glassdoor. 

Project managers who obtain an industry-recognized credential like PMI’s Project Management Professional (PMP) certification have an extra edge. Research by the Project Management Institute revealed that project managers who earned a PMP Certification received a 20% higher median salary than non-certified project managers. The study found the median salary of a PMP was $111,000, compared to the median salary of $91,000 for those without a PMP certification.

Top 25 project management skills needed in 2020

Project management may well be the career where technical, business, and people skills routinely intersect.

To become a good project manager, technical skills are must-haves. You need full proficiency in the tools (such as project management software) and techniques (such as the Agile framework) of the trade.

While you don’t necessarily need to be a domain expert (e.g., non-architects or non-engineers can be project managers in construction while non-programmers can serve as project managers in software development), you need basic familiarity and topview knowledge of the field you are in.

In addition, you need to have a strategic and logistical perspective on each project you undertake to optimize cost efficiencies and benefits. And lastly, you need to possess leadership and people skills to effectively manage a diverse team of people who are also bringing their unique personalities and skill sets to the table.

We have broken down the top 25 project management skills for 2020 into 3 categories – technical skills, business management skills, and personality traits – in the handy matrix below.

Project management skills matrix

Based on studies and recommendations from PMI, KPMG, EY (Ernst & Young), APM (Association for Project Management) and other domain experts, here’s a comprehensive project management skills matrix that can help you make a positive impact in 2020:

Technical skills and functional knowledge

Skill Name	Description
Project Management Software	Proficiency with commonly used technology tools such as Microsoft Project, Asana, and Trello.
Project Management Methodologies and Frameworks	Ability to apply frameworks and methodologies such as Agile and SCRUM throughout a project’s lifecycle.
Reporting/Stakeholder Management	Coordinate with managers, clients and team members to set expectations, deliverables, and objectives.
Team Building/Management	Build and lead a team of people with different skill sets towards a unified goal by guiding each member to complete their unique deliverables on time.
Resource Planning and Management	Formulate and implement a strategy on how project objectives can be met efficiently in the right sequence, by a group of people with unique skills within project constraints (time, budget, quality, etc.)
Time Management/Scheduling	Ability to 1) accurately map out talent resources, tasks, and dependencies; 2) make timeline estimates and set specific and general schedules; and 3) keep everyone up to speed.
Cost Assessment/Budget Management	Achieve cost efficiencies by optimizing work hours and establishing rationale for key procurements and other expenses.
Review/Monitoring	Tr ack overall project and individual stakeholder progress throughout the project lifecycle, resolving conflicts and optimizing gains along the way.
Conflict Management and Resolution	Fix project discrepancies, overlaps, stalled workflows, and other issues due to internal roadblocks or unforeseen external setbacks. Help address interpersonal conflicts among team members.
Policy Knowledge	An adequate grasp of the regulatory regime governing the sector, including health, safety, business best practices, and environment.

Business management and soft skills

Skill Name	Description
Leadership	Enable, motivate, and inspire the team to meet deliverables within project constraints by demonstrating commitment, expertise, confidence, genuine concern, and ability to help everyone solve challenges and achieve goals.
Business Communications	Use the right language, tone, and storytelling techniques when communicating, describing, or explaining issues over email, chat, reports, presentations, and other forms and channels of communication. Generate the right impact or response from specific audiences (team members, managers, clients, vendors, partners, other stakeholders).
Collaboration/Relationship building	Establish a collaborative culture where people with unique personalities and skills happily work together towards a unified goal.
Decision-Making	Make prompt, informed, and fact-based decisions for the good of the project.
Accountability	Embrace ownership of and accountability for the project.
Problem Solving/Critical Thinking	Assess issues from different vantage points and formulate the best solution in addressing specific challenges.
Active Listening	Practice active listening to glean insight and truly understand the needs or message of all project stakeholders.
Negotiation	Apply the appropriate framework (SWOT, risk-reward, etc.) to arrive at a best-case scenario for all parties involved.
Research/Information Gathering	Fill knowledge gaps through active research or by directly engaging resource persons.

Personality traits

Skill Name	Description
Commitment/Motivation/Drive	The project manager owns the project and should be the person with the highest level of commitment and motivation to see it through from start to finish.
Goal-Orientedness	No one can become a decent project manager without a personality that places tremendous value on outcomes, objectives, and results. Project managers should be focused on the goal and the most efficient route to get there.
Confidence	Project managers should exhibit process mastery with confidence and humility. Bragging, bullying, and bossing around don’t work.
Open-mindedness/Trainability	Because continuous learning and self-improvement are integral to project management, practitioners should be open to new technologies, approaches, and experiences.
Adaptability/Proactivity	Workplaces, workflows and project development practices rapidly change over time. Hence, project managers should possess the required agility to nimbly adapt to different situations and make proactive adjustments when necessary.
Inclusivity/Sociability	The workplace is becoming more global and more diverse in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, and other demographics. As such, project managers should embrace everyone in the team and help nurture a culture of fairness, diversity, and inclusivity.

Key takeaways for project management job seekers in 2020

In addition to technical skills, companies are probing the job market for project management professionals with the right emotional intelligence, critical thinking, mentoring, and communication skills.

Here are some key takeaways for jobseekers who wish to participate in the project management field:

1. A project is a unique and temporary undertaking that is defined via a specific scope, timeline, budget, quality standards, and a set of desired outputs, outcomes, or benefits. A project is often contrasted with “normal,” “as usual,” or “ongoing” business operations to describe or distinguish its nature. For example, corporate finance is a “business-as-usual” operation while the development of a mobile financial app for Android devices is a project.
2. Project management refers to the systematic application of frameworks, processes, tools, and techniques to achieve the desired outcome for a project within a set of constraints such as quality, budget, and schedule. It covers strategic planning, resource allocation, process administration, overall monitoring, risk management, documentation and reporting.   
3. With a projected job growth of 33% through 2027, a career in project management faces much-better-than-average outlook compared to other occupations.
4. Project managers are in demand across many industries as the project-based approach to doing business becomes more widespread. While project management has reached high maturity levels in IT and construction, industries with the greatest current demand  include healthcare, telecommunications, manufacturing, and energy.     
5. Project management ranks among the highest-paid careers, with well-experienced practitioners typically bringing home six-figure salaries.
6. Because it is radically goal-oriented and requires collaboration with people of diverse backgrounds, project management is among the most fulfilling and satisfying career paths. Success (or failure) of each project has a palpable impact not only on the company’s bottom line but also on its morale and culture.     
7. Success in project management requires a range of diverse skills spanning technical, strategic, business management, and leadership competencies. Examples of project management skills include negotiation, team-building, and technical proficiency in tools such as Microsoft Project, Asana, PowerPoint, Slack, and Trello.
8. Project management takes its practitioners on a path of continuous learning, training, and skills development. Moreover, most skills learned in managing projects for one sector are easily transportable to other fields and industries.
9. Certifications matter. Project managers with accredited certifications outearn non-certified practitioners by 20% on average.  
10. Like sales, a successful stint in project management is considered a stepping stone towards executive leadership in many global companies. Simply put, if you are a successful project manager, then you have bragging rights to claim that you “literally get things done” pretty much all the time.

How strong are your project management competencies?

It’s easy to see why the appeal of a project management career can be very strong. The demand is high, the outlook is good, and the pay is head-turning. Job satisfaction, relevance, corporate impact, and self-worth similarly score very high on just about any metric.  

But project management is not for everyone. This skill-intensive role fits people who actively seek out learning opportunities so they can discover new things, improve competencies and build their skill sets over the course of their career.

If you are that person — someone who likes to get
things done and embark on a journey of continuous learning — then nothing is stopping you from becoming the best project manager you can be.        

Here’s a good place to start.

Looking for more project management resources around the web? Check out our list of the Top PM Blogs in 2020.

Want to learn more?

Take your project management skills to the next level with our comprehensive (and free) ebook!

Enter your email address

Joseph Mapue

Joseph Mapue wears his writer’s hat wherever he goes, crafting top-notch content on business, technology, creativity, and innovation. He is also a dreamer, builder, father, and gamer.

Source

Home// Design// Best Web Design Company

Last Updated November 1, 2019

Get A Web Design Quote

• 1,128 Sites
  Launched
• 32% Avg. Traffic
  Increase
• 6,271,747 Leads
  Delivered
• +1.6 M Hours of
  Expertise

Get A Free Design Quote Today

Hear From
Our Clients

Hear from Wheeler Machinery to learn how WebFX helped their business grow with web design.

Top 10 list: Best web design agencies of 2020

Here is our list of the top design companies:

6 qualities of the best web design companies

Defining the best website design company isn’t based on design alone. Not only is design subjective, it is also impossible to rate all the top web design companies based on only that set of criteria.

This means that you can’t determine if a company is one of the best, based on just their design portfolio. There are many other factors to consider as well.

So if it’s not just the quality of web design that qualifies a firm as a “best web design company,” then what does?

Here are the qualities that we feel the best web design company in the world should have.

1. Award-winning design

This is the most obvious on our list of criteria for the best web design company. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that an agency’s work has to be recognized for its quality and effectiveness to be considered one of the best.

National awards available for stellar website design include the Horizon Interactive Awards, the Webby Awards, and The Interactive Media Awards. There are also many awards available in specific regions or states that can be given to the best local web design.

2. Innovative approach

Because web design is a constantly-changing industry, the best web design companies are those who keep their clients’ sites up to date with the latest technology. Even the coolest designs are bound to feel outdated within a few years, and with modern consumers who are used to constant updates and innovation, it’s important for the best design company to provide cutting edge ideas that are unique, fresh, and satisfying for the customer.

Some companies may think that simply updating visual elements is enough to make clients happy, but true innovation means embracing change in all forms. To be a top design company, you need to do more than follow the trends—you need to be a trailblazer.

For example, the recent shift towards browsing the web on devices other than desktop computers led the best web design companies to develop an entirely new approach to design that is compatible with smartphones, tablets, and other devices.

This approach, called responsive design, is now essential for success in search engines.

Although most companies will eventually jump on the bandwagon if a new strategy or trend becomes popular enough, the best web design companies are those who stay at the forefront. True dedication to clients means always wanting them to have the best, and sometimes the way to give them that is by creating it.

3. Expansive portfolio

The best web design companies should have a wide range of past work.

To qualify for the “the best web design company” title, a firm needs to show that they’ve worked in a variety of industries. It’s not enough to build and design websites for just one industry or area of focus.

For example, does their portfolio include as diverse project as a roofing company website, followed by an online ecommerce store website? These different designs force the best web design agencies to get creative and change perspective.

In short, the best website design and development firms can display work with dozens of clients across multiple industries, showing strong elements of versatility and adaptation that is indicative of any good web design company. The best web design company could tailor their user experience and results to accommodate the needs of any business, from construction to textiles and more.

The more clients a design company works with, the better! Customers want to know that you can, without a doubt, work with their company to design the best possible website.

4. Extensive services offered

It would be easy to rank as the best web design company if the focus was solely on web design. To us, that’s not good enough.

To qualify as one of the best, a web design firm has to do more than just web design. The best website design companies offer a full-range of services to meet all the needs of clients, from Internet marketing to development.

The best website design and development firm should offer services like search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) management, interactive coding, and more.

5. Track Record of Success

Just like only offering web design, not having proven records of successful work can easily knock an agency off the best web design company list.

To be considered in the running, a company needs to provide proof to show potential customers that their work has continuously satisfied customers.

To make our list of website design companies, a firm needs a history of satisfied clients that report success. Testimonials offered to web design companies are an excellent indication of happy customers, as are long-standing accounts and a high client retention rate. Combined with other important elements behind each company, these factors can all help indicate the best web company.

6. Company growth

Like any successful business, the best design company in the world should be constantly growing and increasing its revenue. These are both signs of continued development, and they’re good indicators that a company is worthy of being considered one of the best in the industry.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that the largest web design company is the best, though.

Continued growth is integral to any business model. The top web designing company will show growth with its customer base, employees, revenue, and other elements which clearly sets them apart from their competitors.

Where does WebFX fall on the top web design companies list?

Knowing where WebFX ranks on the best website design companies list requires first, studying the other companies on the list.

Since we are a United States-based firm, the majority of the companies we researched were websites written in English, so our study might be better titled “The Best Web Design Company in the U.S. and Europe.”

In conducting our research on the best web design companies, we also limited our review to firms that had over 30 customers and had been in business at least three years. This is because we feel that a proven track record of success is necessary for being considered the world’s top web design company. We didn
‘t look at just the biggest web design companies, though, because we know bigger doesn’t always mean better.

After our research, we came up with our own list of web development companies we believe to be the top of their game.

How much does a web design from the best web design companies’ cost?

Professional web design costs vary, especially when looking at the rates of the best web design companies. Businesses can spend anywhere from $1000 to $100,000 on a custom design. For the most accurate rates, request a custom quote or use a free web design cost calculator, like from WebFX.

How long does a web design, from a top web design company, take?

A web design from a top web design company can take 12 to 16 weeks to complete. Depending on your site’s size, complexity, and design requirements, you may see a longer or shorter turnaround time. For the most accurate answer, talk with potential design agencies about your site and its needs.

How does a top web design company help my website perform after launch?

A top web design company can help your business (and its site) after launch a few ways. How your web design agency assists your team, however, will depend on their services and specializations. If they only do web design, for instance, they probably won’t offer post-launch services, like site maintenance.

Either way, the best web design agencies will prep your website for success with the following:

• A responsive design so that any device, from mobile to desktop, can use your site
• A fast site so that users can access and browse your site fast
• An SEO-friendly site so that your site has a better chance of appearing in Google search results

If you partner with a design company that specializes in other areas, like search engine optimization, they can help you grow your site’s presence in search results. A bigger presence (and position) in search results can drive more qualified traffic to your website, which can lead to more leads and revenue.

We don’t just want to tell you about the beautiful work we do.

WE WANT TO SHOW YOU

We’ve built over

WEBSITES IN INDUSTRIES LIKE YOURS

View Our Past Work

Is WebFX the best web design company in the world?

Even though WebFX has many of the qualities necessary to be the best web design firm in the world, we understand that there are always improvements to be made. We also can’t be the best judge since we aren’t completely objective.

But what we can comfortably say is that WebFX is one of the best web design firms out there. We have all the qualities that we defined as crucial—and then some! Read on to learn more about what makes us great.

Award-winning design

Our team of talented web designers has won numerous awards for their work, including the prestigious Horizon Interactive Awards. We create the best company website design for all our clients.

And our efforts pay off.

Clients who have a website designed by WebFX receive attractive, well-converting presences online. In other words, we offer the best web design services possible to make sure a website not only looks good, but functions well, too. Our testimonials speak for themselves: we know how to make customers happy!

Our award-winning designs are what put us on the list of best web design firms. Contact us to learn how we can provide the best company website design for your business.

Expansive portfolio

Our portfolio is massive. We’ve worked with hundreds of clients in many different industries. Our varied works show we’re one of the top web design companies out there, and that we’re flexible enough to meet almost any need.

We’ve worked in numerous industries, and with both B2B and B2C companies. We’ve designed websites for everything, including ecommerce stores, local businesses, and national service providers, always using the most current approaches, like responsive design.

No matter what kind of business you have, we can design something great for you.

Extensive services offered

Take a look around and you’ll see we aren’t just a web design company. What puts us on the list of the top web design companies is our ability to provide clients with a comprehensive solution. We know it takes more than just visual elements to be one of the top website design firms, and we’re prepared to go the extra mile for you.

Being one of the best web design companies means providing exceptional designs, integrating innovative development solutions, and increasing brand exposure through top-notch search engine optimization and other Internet Marketing strategies. We do just that, which is why we’re in the running for the best web design company title.

Track record of success

Our record of success is our pride and joy. Just take a look at our portfolio and you’ll find a slew of case studies, client testimonials, and search engine position results, that make us one of the top web design companies on the market.

WebFX customers praise us for our professional website design, our flexibility, and our great communication. We also have proven success in ranking websites for competitive keywords, and for building valuable links to websites. We have a track record of improving online business for customers in many industries.

You’ll find we easily qualify for one of the top web design companies because our work is not only innovative and cutting-edge, but also effective. Our site designs not only drive traffic, but also help create conversions.

We believe that in order to be the best website company, we have to please the ones that matter — the client.

Company growth

WebFX has enjoyed positive growth consistently over the past five years. We’re constantly expanding our team with the best talents in the industry. And our client list is swelling.

The growth of our agency also allows us to be closer to our clients and their businesses.

With offices in Pittsburgh, D.C., Orlando, and more, we make it easy for companies like yours to work with a leading web design agency that’s close by. Even if we aren’t near your business, you can easily call and connect with your site’s project manager to ask questions, provide feedback, and more.

While we may not be the very best web design company in the world, we’re definitely one of the best web design companies out there – and we’re committed to improving until we reach the top spot!

How is WebFX different from other top w
ebsite design agencies?

Quality and experience aren’t the major differing factors between WebFX and the others on the best web design companies list.

The major difference between WebFX and the biggest web design companies out there is the price. Those companies have project bill rates approximately 25 to 50 times higher than ours. That’s a lot of money to spend on website design!

WebFX offers professional, inspiring, and attractive website design at a fraction of the cost of our competitors, including those on our web design companies list. We strive to keep our prices reasonable so that we can deliver great design without draining your entire marketing budget.

And as a full-service marketing agency, our portfolio goes beyond design: we also offer Internet marketing services, SEO, social media management, content marketing, and so much more.

Want to work with the best web design company?

If you’re in the market for a new web design for your company’s website, some SEO, a PPC campaign, or just an update to some stale content, WebFX can help.

We’re one of the best in the industry, and have some of the best employees to prove it. Whatever website design or development project you may have, we can take it on and deliver extreme success.

Take a look at our custom web design plans, and contact us today to learn more. Did you know that we provide our web design services to clients located in New York to California? It’s true!

Want to work with one of the best web design companies in the world, but don’t have an unlimited budget? Call 888-601-5359 or contact us online today to get a free quote on our web design services.

Source

The Google local search game is about to change drastically! Google is testing what they are calling the Google Guaranteed Program. Currently, the program is in beta and only available to home services, locksmiths and other similar businesses in San Diego, Sacramento, Stockton and San Francisco, CA.

All businesses that want to become “Google Guaranteed” have to go through a strict screening process by Google including a background check, license and insurance check as well as a screening of your reviews and ratings.

SET UP MY GOOGLE BUSINESS PAGE SO IT’S READY FOR THE GOOGLE GUARANTEE

As seen in the image below these Google Guaranteed business listings are the first results shown in a Google search, topping even the traditional Google Search Ads from AdWords and verified Google My Business listings.

When someone clicks on a Google Guaranteed listing they will be taken to a screen like the one shown below, allowing the consumer to request an estimate for the company’s services.

Any customer that works with a Google Guaranteed business and is not happy can submit a claim to Google. Any job booked with a Google Guaranteed business must be done correctly or the customer can receive their money back. The work done by the businesses are guaranteed for up for $2,000.

The Google Guaranteed Program is part of its AdWords product and businesses will likely be charged per lead they receive through the program. Because the program is still in beta and only available in certain markets, the pricing is not yet publicly available. However, we can expect that Google will charge businesses a fee to get the Google Guarantee badge to cover costs for its screening process.

Be Prepared For The Google Guarantee To Come To Your Area

The businesses in the beta test have had drastic amounts of success with increased leads by 1800% when compared to other companies who are using other forms of advertising! With this type of success, the Google Guaranteed Program is likely going to attract a plethora of businesses once the availability expands.

To prepare for the Google Guarantee in your area be sure to:

• Ensure your business is properly licensed and insured.
• Create, verify and maintain your Google My Business page.
• Address negative reviews and ask satisfied customers to leave your business reviews on Google and other review platforms.
• Sign up for the program as soon as it becomes available to your business type and area.

What does this mean for verified Google My Business pages?

GMB is not going away (at least not yet). So of course, you’ll want to maintain your current GMB pages to take up as much real estate on search results as possible. A complete search marketing plan would include Google Guaranteed listings, AdWords search campaigns, a complete GMB page and search engine optimization (SEO).

SET UP MY GOOGLE BUSINESS PAGE SO IT’S READY FOR THE GOOGLE GUARANTEE

Final Word

The OMG National team is actively following the advancements with the Google Guaranteed Program. Stay tuned for more updates. If you need help getting your current online presence up to par before the program launches in your vertical market, contact an expert at OMG National today at 800-789-4619.

Source

Are you looking for a project management tool that can help you manage your projects and team members in a better manner?

If the answer to the above question is yes, then you’ve come to the right place. It won’t be wrong to say that adopting new methodologies, implementing new technologies and tools has become the need of the hour to boost your standing in the current scenario

We have compiled the best project management tools to improve your game. Before we take a look at them, let’s understand why it’s important to use them in the first place.

Table of Contents

• What is a project management tool?
• Why should we use project management tools?
• How to select the best online project management tool?
• Best Project Management Tools & Software in 2020
  • 1. ProofHub
  • 2. Scoro
  • 3. Workzone
  • 4. Zoho Projects
  • 5. GanttPRO
  • 6. nTask
  • 7. Functionfox
  • 8. Workbook
  • 9. Redbooth
  • 10. Celoxis
  • 11. 10,000FT Plans
  • 12. TeamGantt
  • 13. Proworkflow
  • 14. Mavenlink
  • 15. Insightly
  • 16. Clarizen
  • 17. Comindware
  • 18. Easy Project
  • 19. Crocagile
  • 20. Producteev
  • 21. Teamdeck
  • 22. Smartsheet
  • 23. Freedcamp
  • 24. Hive
  • 25. Freshdesk
  • 26. Flock
  • 27. LiquidPlanner
  • 28. CoSchedule
  • 29. MoneyPenny.me
  • 30. Basecamp
  • 31. Monday.com
  • 32. Wrike
  • 33. Asana
  • 34. Podio
  • 35. Project Insight
  • 36. Teamwork Projects
  • 37. ProjectManager.com
  • 38. ClickUp
  • 39. EventCollab
  • 40. Advantage
  • 41. Redmine
  • 42. Nutcache
  • 43. Notion
  • 44. Paymo
  • 45. Cage
  • 46. Avaza
  • 47. Dropbox Paper
  • 48. Evernote
  • 49. Todoist
  • 50. TimeCamp
  • 51. Confluence
    • Conclusion
  • What are project management tools?
  • What are the top features in project management tools?
  • What is the best project management tool in 2020?
  • How much does a project management tool cost?

What is a project management tool?

A project management tool is what brings projects and team collaboration at one place for everyone to be on the same page.

Why should we use project management tools?

You might be living under a rock if you’re really not aware of the benefits that come along with project management tools. We’ve outlined some common benefits below:

• Faster collaboration
• Easier delegation
• Accurate project tracking
• Central data storage
• Seamless communication
• Quick file-sharing
• Time tracking
• Automated invoicing
• Quick reporting

Now that you know the advantages offered by online project management tools, let’s learn how to choose the right one.

How to select the best online project management tool?

Make sure to check if your preferred project management software offers the following features or not.

• Advanced feature-set
• Intuitive user interface
• Cloud-based access
• Customizability
• Security
• Integrations
• Cost-effective

Best Project Management Tools & Software in 2020

1. ProofHub

ProofHub is a versatile project management software used by leading organizations like NASA, Disney, Taco Bell and many more. This all-in-one tool comes packed with powerful features to eliminate the need of having too many different tools to run your business.
Features:

• Online proofing software saves a lot of time during the feedback-sharing process
• Makes task-management less stressful for teams
• Get a visual picture of projects using Gantt charts in ProofHub
• Also available as a mobile app for Android and iOS users.

See how ProofHub is the best of all project management tools. Try now!

2. Scoro

Scoro is known as one of the most comprehensive business management software for professional and creative services. For those who wish to bring structure to your work, Scoro is the right pm tool for you.

Features:

• A single place for projects, clients, and teams
• Be organized in every aspect of your business with seamless workflow
• Get a real-time overview and automated reports
• Can be integrated with tools like DropBox, Mailchimp, Outlook, and more

Pricing: Premium plan starts at $33/user/month

3. Workzone

Workzone is built by a highly dedicated team to help individuals and organizations gain better control and visibility in work management. It gives them a central place to manage and share work, so everyone stays on the same page.

Features:

• Get top-level reports so everyone knows what’s next on the list
• Makes way for faster communication
• Features like creating tasks, to-do lists, sharing files easily improves collaboration
• Set permission for different users including clients

Pricing: Starts from $200 per month

4. Zoho Projects

Without a doubt, Zoho Projects stands out as one of the best simple project management software that can help you streamline your upcoming work and tasks with a click.

Features:

• Effective file management
• Gantt charts to oversee project progress
• One tool for teams to create, collaborate, and communicate
• Can be integrated with ZOHO CRM and other tools to manage every aspect of a growing agency

Pricing:$25/month for up to 20 projects

Read on: Zoho Alternatives – 13 Tools Your Team Will Love

5. GanttPRO

GanttPRO is one of the best pm software, appreciated already by 250k project managers around the globe. It helps build project plans and timelines, track workflow, control expenses,  follow deadlines, and arrange productive collaboration in a single place. The solution offers ready-made templates for an easy start.

Features:

• Workload: keep all resources engaged and balanced
• Collaboration: comments, attachments, and notifications
• Workspace: Gantt charts and Board view
• Project templates for easy start

Pricing: Team plan starts from 7.90$ per user/month (billed annually)

6. nTask

New on the market, nTask is still in its burgeoning state of development, with new features and AI that are being introduced as the tool matures. Its intuitive software design that is easy on the eyes as well as easy to adopt, is one of the many reasons why start-ups, solopreneurs, and even enterprises will readily switch to this newcomer pm tool.

Features

• Task & Project Management: Simple task & project creation using task checklists, updates, progress meter.
• Risk Management: Use risk matrix to identify and assess potential risks and their frequency of occurrence.
• Issue Management: Create and manage issues with customizable severity, priority, and status options.
• Time Management: Beautifully designed weekly timesheets with manual hours linked to a suitable task or a project.
• Resource Management – Manage resource allocation, project budget and currency using the Project Planner.
• Meeting Management – Schedule multiple meetings at a time with a clear concise agenda, discussion points and follow-up actions

Pricing

• Free plan- Unlimited workspaces, 100MB storage.
• Pro Plan – $2.99, Unlimited everything.

7. Functionfox

Functionfox is a timesheet tool trusted by creative professionals all around the world. It is both powerful and easy-to-use. You can track your projects accurately from conceptualization to completion, reduce admin time, and increase productivity and profits.

Features:

• Simple project creation and management
• Interactive real-time reporting
• Compare budget estimates with actual figures

Pricing: From $5 user/month ($35/month for the 1st user)

8. Workbook

Workbook is a grown-up software suite for project and resource management, CRM, collaboration, file-sharing, forecasting, and accounting. You can choose exactly as per your requirements and only pay for it.
Features:

• Create projects and tasks easily
• Easily customizable
• Supports a client portal

Pricing: $19 user/month, minimum 30 users

9. Redbooth

Redbooth is an easy-to-use online task and pm software for busy
teams. Moreover, you can keep your entire team organized, in alignment, and always on schedule with Redbooth.

Features:

• Intuitive task and project management
• Easily delegate and assign tasks
• Mobile apps for iOS and Android

Pricing: From $5 user/month

10. Celoxis

Celoxis is an award winning all-in-one pm tool. It helps organizations to plan and track their portfolios, projects, tasks, resources, timesheets, issues and risks from one place. It has extensive collaboration features including a customizable free client portal. It’s dashboards and reporting capabilities are superb and one of the best in the market. It is feature rich, intuitive and highly customizable.

If you are comfortable with the Microsoft Project scheduling paradigm, Celoxis is one of the best alternatives to microsoft project.

Features:

• All-in-one project management tool
• Easy collaboration, share files, discuss and exchange comments not just with your colleagues but with your clients
• 360-degree real-time insights with our super powerful reports and dashboards
• Easy to customize and intuitive
• Easily allocate resources to tasks based on availability, demand, and skills.

Pricing: SaaS: $25/user/month & On-Premise: $450/user

11. 10,000FT Plans

10,000ft is a simple yet powerful pm software that helps you make confident operational decisions about your teams and projects. Apart from this, it has resource management and time-tracking capabilities as well.

Features:

• An effective visual resource planning software
• Detailed project tracking
• Flexible planning interface

Pricing: Basic plan starts from $10/month

12. TeamGantt

TeamGantt is a refreshing pm solution that brings project scheduling software online. You can manage projects with this super-easy Gantt software. Inviting your co-workers, teammates, and friends to view and edit your Gantt chart is simple and fun!

Features:

• Fast drag and drop scheduling
• Intuitive and easy-to-use
• Real-time progress updates

Pricing: Standard plan starts from $7.90 /user per month (when billed annually)

Switch to a reliable project management software to deliver projects successfully. Try ProofHub

13. Proworkflow

Proworkflow is one of those project management software your teams would love. It’s beautiful, versatile and extremely easy to use. Also, it integrates with all the tools you need – saving you time and streamlining your processes.

Features:

• Makes it a breeze to assign staff, track time or reschedule projects
• Quoting and invoicing have never been simpler.
• Reliable support and consultation

Pricing: From $22 month/user for team

14. Mavenlink

Mavenlink is a modern software designed for services organizations to connect with people, projects, and make profits. In a world where connectedness, transparency, and performance matter more than ever, Mavenlink helps you deliver projects successfully.

Features:

• Manage multiple projects with ease
• Handle project schedules in an intuitive interface
• Gain visibility of all your projects in your portfolio

Pricing: Professional plan starts at $39/month/user

Read more: Mavenlink Alternatives and Competitors: Top 7 Tools You Should Try in 2020

15. Insightly

Insightly is a powerful CRM with a project and business management set. It allows you to grow your business faster than ever by building strong customer relationships over time.

Features:

• Effortless tracking of project activity
• Accelerate sales and manage leads
• Helps you build meaningful relationships

Pricing: From $15 month/user for teams

16. Clarizen

If you are looking for a cloud-based project management tool to help your business grow, Clarizen can come to your rescue. It is a single collaborative pm solution that could manage projects and help you connect with team members effortlessly.
Features:

• Automated processes and workflows
• Budget tracking and expense management
• Flexible UI

Pricing: From $60 user/month

17. Comindware

Comindware is a popular workflow and business process management software. The workflow management software provides key capabilities for task, data and document management.

Features:

• Focuses on process optimization
• Customer order management and CRM capabilities
• Full process automation, activity monitoring, business analytics as well as enterprise system integration.

Pricing: Starts at $29.99 per user

18. Easy Project

Easy Project is a professional project management tool for you, your team, and the whole company. Trusted by top-notch companies like Toyota, Lenovo, Bosch, it is a perfect fit for numerous industries be it IT or educational.

Features:

• Visual project maps and plans
• Compatible with modules for Resources, Finances, Help Desk and CRM
• Integrated with Outlook, Project, Excel, Redmine

Pricing: $21/month per user Pro plan (60 portfolios, and 100 custom fields)

19. Crocagile

Crocagile is a simple agile project workspace designed to streamline communication and is focussed towards software development teams. It’s powerful pm tools and simple design is uniquely engineered for agile developers. It has all good stuff including collaboration and gamification feature giving a much-needed boost to agile practices with cutting-edge technology.

Features:

• Activity Streams, Smart Alerts, and Group Chat to eliminate email
• Team member updates are visible in one place, automatically
• File Sharing – Store and Share files with commenting

Pricing: Starting from $2.50 per user, per month with the 30-day free trial.

20. Producteev

Producteev has been a task management solution for small and medium-sized teams. Project managers can easily access all their projects, tasks and other collaborators. With this pm tool you can easily plan any projects, map your route, organize files, delegate tasks, and various elements. Users can easily track the progress of each task.
Features:

• Organize on your fingertips
• Powerful collaboration
• Seamless tracking
• Interface customization
• Personalized support

Pricing: The Premium plan is available at $99 per month

21. Teamdeck

Teamdeck offers a complete solution for companies to deliver projects faster. It is an essential pm software for managing resources and monitoring time spent on tasks and projects. With Teamdeck you can book your employees on different projects and create accurate timesheets with one-click time tracking.

Features:

• Resource scheduling
• Timesheets and time tracking
• Leave management
• Measure billable time

Pricing: Free startup plan limited to 6 team members. Business plan starts from $3.99 / team member / month, $1 / basic resource / month

22. Smartsheet

Smartsheet is a portable project management software to help teams collaborate, time-tracking, reporting, resource management, and planning tasks. The cloud-based software has some amazing features that brings it on the list of best project management tools.

Features:

• Leverage team collaboration
• Automatic update requests
• File attachment from Google Drive, Onedrive, Dropbox and more
• Gain visibility into who’s busy and who’s not
• Secure permission control

Pricing: Individual plan starts $14 and business plan at $25 per user per month when billed annually.

Read more: Best Smartsheet Alternatives & Competitors for Work Management

23. Freedcamp

This is an extremely simple and intuitive tool for large organizations including architecture, interior design, IT services, retail, telecommunication and many more. Freedcamp offer functionality to unlimited users making organizing details and tasks quick and super easy.

Features:

• Gantt chart to keep a bird’s eye view on tasks
• Split large tasks into smaller subtasks
• 3rd party integrations
• Password manager
• Shared file management

Pricing: Available at $3.99 for the owner and $0.99 for each additional user per month ( billed yearly )

24. Hive

Hive’s powerful project management and collaboration software put the needs of a team at a single place. The system lets you track project status, provide a Kanban-style status view, Gantt charts for project progress, and everything that a project team needs on a single page.
Features:

• Provides a central platform for everything
• Plan and repeat tasks using action templates
• Move seamlessly between projects, messages, and files
• Access anywhere from a desktop or mobile apps
• 100
  0+ integrations

Price: Professional plan at  $12/user/month

25. Freshdesk

Freshdesk is a pm software with a comprehensive set of tools to help businesses support the need of customers. It’s simple to set up and offers the best value for money.

Features:

• Integrated Live Chat, Phone Support, and Game Mechanics
• High customizability
• Multi-channel, multi-product and multi-lingual support
• Great email messaging and self-service portals
• Keep track of conversations
• Resolve issues together through collaboration

Pricing: Freshdesk offers four price points for various business sizes. You can sign up for Freshdesk free trial.

26. Flock

Flock is every team’s collaboration hub. Packed with tons of productivity features, Flock is a messaging and communication tool for project management. It drives efficiency and boosts the speed of execution.

Features:

• Collaboration in real time
• Jump into video calls with just a click
• Share all types of files and find them easily
• Invite guests to work with you
• Create notes and collaborate with teams on the go
• Share code snippets on the go
• Access your entire Google Drive from within Flock
• Manage your GitHub repos without switching tabs

Pricing: Flock offers monthly and yearly billing. Pro plan starts at ₹ 149 per licensed user, per month billed annually (₹199 billed monthly).

27. LiquidPlanner

LiquidPlanner is a collaboration tool that combines project management and time-tracking. It has an interesting methodology for project management as it lets teams set realistic deadlines based on different scenarios.

Features:

• A realistic range of time to complete tasks
• Integrated time and budget tracking
• Task-specific collaboration boards
• Adding notes to projects
• Cross-project visibility

Pricing: From $39 user/month, billed annually

28. CoSchedule

CoSchedule is an intuitive marketing project management tool that’s made to help marketers keep their work organized. It improves company visibility by simplifying all project workflows inside one cross-functional calendar. The possibilities of creation are now endless by being able to view all projects, tasks, deadlines, and ship dates in one place.

Features:

• Complete more work by streamlining marketing workflows.
• View, manage and approve all projects and tasks in one place with Marketing Campaigns and Marketing Projects.
• Visualize project progress from start to finish more easily with Kanban Project Dashboard.

Pricing: Pricing begins at $20 a month and scales up to accommodate teams of all sizes.

29. MoneyPenny.me

The MoneyPenny Project Time Tracker is a smart and professional suite of online pm tools that
keeps projects and teams organized. By live-monitoring team performance against project deadlines, tasks, and budgets, businesses of any size can save more time and streamline
workflows.

Features:

• Auto timesheet creation, management, and approval on the cloud, from any device
• Full data integration, live synced online with invoicing, project tracking and team timers
• Project progress live notifications and instant messaging team communication

Pricing: After the 30-day free trial, from $15/month/1 user (Starter plan) up to $55/month for 30 users (Enterprise plan).

30. Basecamp

Basecamp is one of the most popular online pm tool today. It combines all the necessary features at one place helping project members to know what to do and make sure nothing slips through the cracks.

Features:

• Message boards, schedules, to-do lists
• Document and file storage
• Easy-to-use and simple interface
• Tag team members easily

Pricing: $99/month.

Read on: Top 21 Basecamp Alternatives for Project Management

31. Monday.com

Monday.com is a simple but intuitive tool that enables people to manage work, meet deadlines, and build a culture of transparency. The solution is best for streamlining discussions, to see who is working on what, and keeping everyone in the know.

Features:

• Centralized communication and document management
• Visual project management and tracking
• Analytics and reporting are well-executed
• Smartly integrated with Dropbox, Zapier, Google Drive, and similar sharing and management tools

Pricing: Monday.com offers a free trial. The Basic plan is priced at $25 per month billed annually.

32. Wrike

Wrike is a robust and versatile tool that helps team collaborate better and communicate with greater transparency. Wrike has plenty of best-in-class collaboration, communication and document management tools. The tool allows to set priorities and align your team to work faster and smarter.
Features:

• Tasks and milestones can be synchronized to Google, iCalendar and Outlook calendars
• Gantt charts help create visual timelines
• Helps you to turn strategy into an actionable plan
• Provide accurate and up-to-date info to clients

Pricing:  Professional Package – $9.80/user/month (billed annually)

33. Asana

Asana is a cloud-based project management software that helps teams to map out every single detail of projects within an organization. Asana enables you to plan your work in a way that’s best for you. It is flexible enough to adapt to you.

Features:

• The free tool offers a basic dashboard and search
• Group tasks into sections or columns in a list or board project
• Notify employees using a personalized inbox
• A Gantt style view of how projects fit together
• Schedule and prioritize tasks on a special Asana calendar
• Generate detailed Progress reports

Pricing: Asana offers three tiers of pricing: Free, Premium and Enterprise. The premium plan starts at  $9.99 per member/month.

If Asana doesn’t come out to be your cup of team, you can pick any best Asana alternative.

34. Podio

Podio is an extremely versatile tool. More than 500,000 organizations use Podio to run projects. It is built with a series of app and tools that help teams organize tasks and track their work.

Features:

• Break down large projects into simple to-do lists with assigned tasks
• File uploads, progress statuses, updates, and comments done in real time
• Real-time comments and deadlines are all laid out on one dashboard
• Integrates with file sharing services, customer support, and help desk tools
• Visualized reports to mark team’s progress

Pricing: Podio offers varying pricing tiers, which are priced per employee per month. Premium plan available at $24.

35. Project Insight

Project Insight is a simple and user-friendly interface that fits any team and project size. It offers notable integrations with Box, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook, and Quickbooks. It comes with a simple and user-friendly interface. Users can track all steps of their projects from start to finish.

Features:

• Real-time reports and manages projects from a single location
• Time and expense tracking, resource management, and more
• Real-time access to their tasks and project schedules
• Balance resource work across all projects

Pricing: Business plan starts at $45 per user per month.

36. Teamwork Projects

Teamwork Projects is designed to work seamlessly with the tools to form smarter workflows.  With a perky interface, easy-to-use toolset, users can create a project, and generate tasks and milestones. Teamwork Projects is available on iOS, Android, Google Chrome, and the Web.

Features:

• Set start dates and end dates to your projects
• Get a snapshot view of what your team is up to with the project activity overview
• ‘Gantt’ style view of your projects
• Gain valuable insights on your team’s performance
• Assign low, medium, or high priorities to tasks

Pricing: Free 30 day trial. Pro plan is available at $9/month per user.

37. ProjectManager.com

Projectmanager.com is an online project management tool that helps users plan, track, and report on projects online. A powerful project planning and scheduling feature that allows users to manage a team of individuals, balance projects, and document effectiveness.

Features:

• Attach files and comments to collaborate on tasks
• Seamless importing and round-tripping of MS Project plans, Excel files & CSV files
• Real-time dashboards show your status at-a-glance

Pricing: business plan with unlimited features at $25 per user per month.

38. ClickUp

ClickUp is a high-rated productivity solution helping you better manage your tasks, notes, projects, and time. The project management tool helps you figure out who’s doing what and brings all your tasks, projects, and resources in one place. ClickUp lays special attention on views, statuses, features, and processes to give you a better user experience

Features:

• Customize workflow with stages to keep people on the same page
• Create spaces to organize work with customized features, workflows, tags
• Add time estimates for automatic scheduling
• Control what others can see and what they can do
• Make goals and track their success  

Pricing: $4.99 per user per month

39. EventCollab

EventCollab is a web-based application which focuses on event project management and logistics tracking. Whether it is about contacts, data, tasks, schedules, calendars – you can securely manage everything in EventCollab. The interface is easy to navigate which makes managing complex tasks easier than ever. EventCollab uses a variety of technologies to create effective solutions for project and event management.

Features:

• Access projects in real-time
• Keeps track of the details and connects team members
• Restricted permissions, role settings, and data encryption
• Available in the cloud at any time from any location

Pricing: From $20 per month

40. Advantage

Advantage software is a management tool best suited for business agencies and marketing companies to manage the business side. It successfully integrates all agency roles into a single solution with robust modules, powerful features, and extensive reporting. It automates all facets of project management, proofing, billing, client relationship management. The good news is that it works well for medium to large agencies.

Features:

• Automate and manage projects more efficiently
• Streamlined processes to manage time, tasks, and expenses
• Complete reporting and forecasting
• Share files and collaborate

Pricing: Upon request

41. Redmine

Redmine is an open-source tool which works cross-platform along with multilanguage support. It gives registered users the ability to create and manage their own projects meaning once you have registered, you are allowed to create your own projects and get access to their features. Being a free downloadable software, it is definitely worth a try.

Features:

• Multiple project support
• Role-based access control
• Custom fields for issues, time entries, projects
• Gantt chart, calendar, issue-tracking system

Pricing: Free

42. Nutcache

Nutcache brings the best of Agile workflow to manage to plan, track, and organize your projects and tasks better. It provides you with all the tools required to complete the project delivery lifecycle. It is trusted by 1,30,000+ companies worldwide to meet their deadlines. With its agile planner which allows you to see at a glance what others are working on.  

Features:

• Assign cards to manage priorities
• Set milestones and alerts to never miss a deadline
• Bill time and expenses accurately
• Customizable workflows and well-organized tasks

Pricing: $15/user/month

43. Notion

Notion is an all-in-one workspace where you can write, plan, and collaborate. Unlike traditional tools for project management, Notion has a modern feel both in its looks and features. It is being used to plan and discuss projects, communicate with teams and clients, and keep track of all the important stuff. Notion keeps records of everything and captures unique workflow in the best possible way.

Features:

• Outline ideas and rearrange them in any way
• Syncs across various devices and collaborators in real-time
• Works in the browser and runs offline with the Mac, Windows, and mobile apps

Pricing: Starts at $4 a month

44. Paymo

Paymo is a full-fledged task management software helping teams to work better with advanced proper planning, scheduling, task management and time tracking features. It’s a great tool to bring everyone together and on the same page. Whether you’re a part of a creative, marketing, web designing, business consulting team, Paymo lets you work in harmony and help you manage work faster and better.

Features:

• Advanced task management tools, Gantt charts and Kanban boards for accurate planning and scheduling
• Discussions and comments for real-time seamless collaboration
• Compare initial time estimates against actual work
• Customizable time and work reports

Pricing: Business plan starts at $15.16/user/month

45. Cage

Cage is a media collaboration software best-suited for designers, creative agencies, and in-house teams. It lets you collaborate with your team directly on the work enabling you to deliver work on time. With its advanced toolkit, you get to gather, discuss, and act on feedback faster. You can also manage projects, teams, and communicate at a single place. It’s also quite effective to get a clear picture of ongoing projects and how your team is performing.

Features:

• Add annotations directly to images, video, audio, PDFs
• Share design decisions, customize color palettes and layouts
• Record different work in progress

Pricing: Professional plan for $14 per user per month

46. Avaza

Avaza is productive solution that teams use to collaborate on projects, schedule resources, track time, m
anage expenses for a more efficient business. It helps you get more done faster with quick file-sharing, activity feeds and more. You get to see a bird’s eye view on who’s working on what and manage work assignments and make smarter scheduling decisions.

Features:

• Visualize, filter, and group tasks within and across projects
• Flexible project budgeting and billing options
• Easily manage resource allocated to each project
• One-click time tracking from every screen

Pricing: Basic plan starts at $19.95 per month

47. Dropbox Paper

Dropbox Paper launched by Dropbox is a new way to collaborate, organize teamwork and work from anywhere. It is a collaboration app that runs on shared Dropbox space to collect ideas, create documents, chat, and keep everything together in one place.

Features:

• Help teams collaborate in a distraction-free environment
• Keeps people in loop with real-time collaboration
• Link your Google Calendar or Microsoft Office 365 account
• Visual representation of whatever is happening

48. Evernote

When you’re planning a project, having all the information in one place makes it easier to keep things organized. Evernote is an app for all your needs of taking notes, making lists, reading content online, and having to look up something that you’ve written before. Keeping everyone on the same page will always make sure that you focus on what matters as projects from start to finish.

Features:

• Set reminders, track deadlines, and gather feedback
• Save important emails
• Stay on schedule with checklists and reminders
• Add keyword tags on notes to find it quickly

49. Todoist

Todoist is a customizable solution to meet project management needs of small and midsize businesses. It is a powerful task manager loaded with great features to boost productivity as well as organize tasks and set schedules.

Features:

• Capture and organize tasks with Quick Add
• Measure your progress with visualization
• Email tasks and subtasks directly to your inbox
• Sync across all your devices and integrates with all your favorite apps

50. TimeCamp

Time Camp lets you easily track the time spent collectively on each project to keep the team’s work under control and communicate with them efficiently. The tool allows its users to manage unlimited projects and customers without any additional costs.

Features:

• Track the progress and detect possible delays
• Collect valuable information about how much time tasks take
• Plan the work of your team
• More precisely estimate time needed to do a particular type of task
• Bill your clients accurately

51. Confluence

Confluence helps you manage the details of all your projects. Atlassian’s Confluence  provides powerful tools for teams to collaborate, complete projects, and review task.

Features:

• No more separate documentation process
• Powerful task management to assign a tag, assignee, and due date
• Organize, track, and review decisions
• Hassle-free file sharing

Conclusion

With the changing times, the needs of businesses are changing as well. Spend a good amount of time to figure out if you need an invoicing tool, robust reporting software, or a holistic view of projects and processes at one place.

We hope that the above list would serve the purpose and provides you a list of top project management tools to be used in 2020. If you think, we have missed a tool that could make a difference in your life, don’t forget to drop your comment below.

What are project management tools?

Using project management tools is an effective way to deliver projects on time and organize tasks. It is the way to track progress and manage time for successful projects.

What are the top features in project management tools?

Some of the key features are collaboration, task management, file sharing, reports, Gantt chart, & Kanban. To a great surprise, this is all that ProofHub has and a lot more.

What is the best project management tool in 2020?

ProofHub is the most highly rated project management tool today. It is ahead of the rest as it gives all the features at a great price for unlimited users.

How much does a project management tool cost?

Different project management tools have a different plan for everybody but the one like ProofHub has a plan that is available for unlimited users when you pay once.

Vartika Kashyap

Vartika Kashyap is the Chief Marketing Officer at ProofHub and has been one of the LinkedIn Top Voices in 2018. Her articles are inspired by office situations and work-related events. She likes to write about productivity, team building, work culture, leadership, entrepreneurship among others and contributing to a better workplace is what makes her click.

Source

Web design trends are constantly changing. In 2020, the technical possibilities seem endless and we’re seeing designers play with extremes, reinvent previous styles and ceaselessly experiment with new techniques. At the same time, there are some popular styles that just won’t go away, such as the ever-present minimalism and colorful flat illustrations we’ve been seeing for some time now.

So, what will the web design trends 2020 be? If you want to discern the newest trends early on you’ll need help from the experts. We asked some of the top designers in the 99designs community what 2020 web design trends they’re seeing. Here’s what they came up with, based on their knowledge of the craft.

Here are the biggest web design trends 2020:

1. Dark mode
2. Imperfections that add personality
3. Immersive 3D elements
4. Soft shadows, layers and floating elements
5. Mixing photography with graphics
6. Solid frames of white space
7. Glowing, luminous color schemes
8. Ultra minimalist navigation

1. Dark mode

by DarkDesign Studio

I believe that one of the main trends of 2020 will be dark design, mainly focusing on UI design giving users an option to enable dark theme. Dark backgrounds make design elements stand out more, creating a higher contrast ratio with the use of other colors, but still improving visual ergonomics by reducing eye strain.

– DarkDesign Studio

Dark mode web designs not only look ultra modern, but they’re easy on the eyes and make colors and design elements pop.

Sometimes the most visually stunning web design trends have practical beginnings. Dark themes are better for OLED screens—saving power and extending screen lifespans—but that utility doesn’t stop them from looking good. Dark backgrounds improve the visibility of other accent colors for truly dynamic design.

Dark mode is so hot right now.

– Sam Chang, Product Designer at 99designs

Coincidentally, the dark mode design aesthetic also fits in perfectly with other prevalent 2020 design trends that include dark and moody color schemes combined with glowing neons as well as futuristic yet dark cyberpunk and dystopian styles.

2. Imperfections that add personality

via Zhenya Rynzhukvia Cuberto

Imperfect, hand-drawn design elements inject emotion and humanity into websites, which users seem to be craving after seeing perfected yet impersonal graphics dominate web designs for years. In 2020, adding some hand-drawn realness gives web designs the heart and soul visitors find appealing.

A big trend next year will be hand-drawn icons. They’re more emotional, but on a positive note. This trend is connected to the fact that we need more positive stuff around, something that can brighten up the day.

– Elisabetta Calabritto

via Chelsea Carlson

Indeed, who couldn’t use a little extra positivity these days. Unique and stylized, hand-drawn icons and other elements show off your brand personality and stand out from your competitors. In fact, this rebellious trend is almost a countermovement to the trend of pixel-perfect flat designs—so flaunt your scratchy edges and open shapes to show how human and lifelike your brand is.

Whether it’s hand-drawn icons or hand-made illustrations, in 2020 we’ll see more designers adding purposefully messy-looking elements to their web designs.

3. Immersive 3D elements

via GG Marmont Guccivia Uenovia A-0 Design

I expect to see more use of 3D technology in graphic design and interaction design. Technology pushes the design and vice versa. Designers are armed to their teeth with vast options for creative “roaming” in 3D space. They step up the interaction game by including all of our senses in the experience.

– Pinch Studio

3D visuals have always delighted people; what held this trend back was technology and the (previously) expensive price tag. But as Pinch Studio explains, the technology is now in a place where you can design in 3D without NASA-tier equipment, opening the gates to more and more designers.

Until VR becomes more mainstream and cost-effective, hyper-realistic 3D that’s often taking up the whole screen is
the best way to create an immersive experience for your site. That’s not just an advantage for visuals, but for UX as well—interactive 3D design encourages users to stay longer. As 2020 unfolds, expect to see more immersive 3D web designs drawing users in and visually breaking down the boundaries between digital space and reality.

4. Soft shadows, layers and floating elements

by Gilles Tossoukpé (via Dribbble)via Mike, Creative Mints

Soft shadows and floating elements create a pseudo-3D effect and make the design more layered and more interesting.

– Alex Ivanov

This trend is all about creating depth. Like the 3D effect from above but want to tone it down? Soft shadows and floating elements add interest and depth and give your web page a “3D Lite” look. It’s not just graphics either: you can use this effect with text and photos, too.

Taking the principles of material design a step further, designers can add a little extra pizzazz to 2D layouts with soft drop shadows and layering elements on top of each other for extended depth. These effects give the design a lightweight feel, as if the elements are floating over each other—a sharp contrast from classic, impenetrable flat design where the layers seem, well, flat.

5. Mixing photography with graphics

via Zhenya RynzhukBy Ashish Rai (via Dribbble)via PlanitBy Rosee Byrne (via Dribbble)

Using real photographs mixed with illustrations or graphics communicates a really customized message. Whether photos of products or people, these images can more fully support branding and help websites stand out from the crowd.

– Hiroshy

Overlapping original graphics on top of real photographs creates a memorable visual, which lends itself to letting your creativity go wild.

This collage-like trend is a versatile one; you can use it to add a special cuteness and charm to otherwise bland product photo (TSP stoneware, above), or you can use its more serious attributes to better communicate complicated or abstract concepts like tech or finance. It’s a way to customize your imagery and add more personality (a reoccurring trend in 2020) to your web design.

To make the most of this trend’s flexibility, be sure to match the style of the illustrations and graphics with your brand personality. Their style can sway how people interpret the photograph—cartoon squiggles for something more playful, or geometric and detailed illustrations for something more sophisticated.

6. Solid frames of white space

by akorn.creativevia Gladeyevia Patrick Davidby Daan Spits via QVT

I am really digging the white space around websites, steering away from full bleed images and parallax designs. When something is ‘framed’ it gives the image more of a position on the site so that websites tend to ‘pop’ and stand out more.

– Daan Spits

Full bleed layouts have been trending in web design for quite some time. Now, designers are gravitating towards solid structures and playing with different ways to use lots of white space (and space of any color, for that matter) to give their designs more structure and make use of clean framing to give their designs stability and a canvas to jump off of.

In 2020, we’ll see wide frames of white space giving web designs a solid structure. By allowing each element on the page a generous amount of space, framing creates the perfect foundation for making visuals shine. Neatly structured frames around websites create a satisfying sense of order and help prioritize and separate all the different parts of a page.

7. Glowing, luminous color schemes

< img src="https://99designs-blog.imgix.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Screen-Shot-2019-11-12-at-8.46.03-PM-e1573609778854.png?auto=format&q=60&fit=max&w=930" alt="Example of 2020 web design trend of bold duotone" />via MONOGRIDvia Matthias Vambairguevia Magic People Voodoo People

Futuristic color schemes and designs will be on trend next year, continuing with the isometric trend and bringing in colors like blues and purples and hot pink to give designs that futuristic glowing feel.

– Adrianne Mesnard, Art Director at 99designs

As we head into 2020, we’ll be seeing courageous color pairings, used strategically to make web designs jump off the screen. Web design is becoming more bold and daring, using glow-in-the-dark neons and highly saturated colors in combination with darker, muted shades to give the designs a luminous feel.

Duotone web designs in particular make this trend shine. Duotone keeps reinventing itself to maintain its place at the forefront of design. This latest iteration is the boldest yet, relying on futuristic, neon pops of color and stark color opposites to make veritably vivacious visuals.

Unique duotone web designs are visually interesting and appealing. And with the help of the duotone effect, you can transform almost any image into your company’s branding.

– deandesign

In 2020, intriguing color schemes will play a critical role in web design. With web design trends like extreme minimalism and dark mode on the rise, glowing and luminous colors can really shine.

8. Ultra minimalist navigation

by Alt*CEVABy Mike | Creative Mints (via Dribbble)by Sathish (via Dribbble)

In 2020, website content will be more video with voice script and less text, heading towards precision over description. Overall, web design is going to be more simplistic to facilitate easier navigation.

– Ananya Roy

With the rise of wearable devices like smartwatches, web design in general is thinking smaller. The area most affected by this is navigation, the glue that holds a website together. Over the last few years, navigation has been getting simpler and simpler to accommodate extremely small devices and even smaller attention spans.

Extremely minimalist navigation takes away much of the difficulty in usability. The less a user has to think about moving around, the more time they spend immersed in the site, actually moving around instead of wondering how.

At the same time, imagery is becoming more important.  Large-scale photos and videos are your chance to impress users—while only using the bare minimum of text.

A minimalist web design with large photography by David & GeorgeA minimalist web design with large photography by Hitron

Huge photos and videos have some vivid benefits. They draw attention to your business objective. I believe this is why more and more websites are starting to use big images to deliver beautiful visuals to their viewers.

– Coincept

With less text on the page large images are being pulled to the foreground and represent the main focus of the composition. Because the image gets the lion’s share of attention, make sure it’s worthy; use a powerful or artful visual that says it all.

Looking forward to web design trends 2020

With those annoying 2010s coming to a close, web design trends 2020 are embracing futurism like never before. Attention-grabbing visuals and colors, 3D effects and old trends reinvented are all clear indicators of this new 2020 style. This movement extends beyond the screen as well, with modern web design emphasizing more user friendly site experiences, as with minimalist navigation and less eye-straining dark design.

At the brink of this new decade web designers are simultaneously looking to the future and to the past for inspiration. And thanks to this multitude of opposing design trends, movements and styles it’s safe to say that web design in 2020 will be full of surprises.

Let our designers create something unique for you.

Get a web design

Source