Aesthetics and sophistication are two critical selling points of a great user-interface. Today, the ease of usage and convenience drives a compelling user-experience. It has become almost a profession. A balanced composition of designs and experience leads to a sure shot success and of course, happy customers. The recent years gave birth to many disruptive technologies right from smart devices and mixed realities to adopting voice interfaces.
New technologies made it crucial to focus on human behaviors. Hence, user-experience becomes the topmost priority and a strong foundation for building long-term customer relationships. From data-driven experiences to DesignOps, the year 2019 has some exciting new predictions in the UI and UX block.
UI and UX Trends That Will Drive Your Business:
Exciting designs are the new buzzwords of the current era. Hence, businesses also need to adapt themselves according to these technologies to stay relevant. Here are the top trends that will take the business world by storm:
Voice Interface and Multi-Device Connect
Conversational interfaces have been in the technology front for quite some time now. The intuitive experience provided by smart interfaces becomes so convenient that it is used by almost 40% of the users at least once daily. Users can obtain information, perform daily tasks, and even use it for entertainment and bookings. Voice search is no longer just the future, rather it is already making its mark. Users find it more simplified and convenient to interact through voice. Touch-screens and keyboards replace the smart devices that are capable of connecting various things.
As global smartphone users are going to reach five billion, user experience depends a lot on the interactions. Developers and designers will focus more on designing prototypes with voice commands.
Navigation and Gestures
Bottom led navigation became a trend when users were facing a challenge in browsing on taller phones. Though they enhanced interaction and display, the unavailability of capacitors hindered the natural thumb movements. Now, this trend hopes to grow with designers making the lower half of mobiles more valuable. Apart from the core features, bottom sheets also become accessible, giving way to new opportunities. Streamlined subtasks like checking out, filling forms, vertical and horizontal scrolls, can be accessed without leaving the screen.
Gestures have replaced the traditional physical presence of the “home” button from the screen. Designers give more importance to the content and hence gestures command the screen space. Gestures are now an integral part of intuitive experience with swipes and drags, building the foundation of a smoother experience.
Storytelling and Typography
Emotional connection is still a top trend that interacts with the customers and [rovide an immersive experience. Both the style and an engaging narrative play a significant role in keeping the users hooked. The story must be told not only according to the pages. Different features focusing on predicting users’ past and future actions, also form an integral part of weaving a story. App features, functions, and even scrolling operations become compelling if they intertwine with an interesting storytelling perspective.
Typography, on the other hand, is a significant component to pair up with visuals. Text is a crucial part of creating a positive user experience since the content is a major driving force. Different text styles direct customers to make purchases and compel them not to leave the site.
Animations and Data Visualizations
Animations are like the leading actors of the story that businesses weave throughout their websites and apps. They are the major drivers that direct users through different sections by engaging them. Surreal and abstract designs are also a critical part of these animations. Obscure cartoons exemplify complex concepts in a fun and exciting way illustrated in an empathetic approach to the users.
Additionally, 3D designs also form an essential element of visually aesthetic designs. 3D models combined with flat interfaces give a fresh look to some of the most common components of an experience. Similarly, data visualizations are another brilliant way of displaying complex numbers and figures, maps and algorithms, etc.
Effects and Gradients
Contrasting fonts create a hierarchical view of different elements and appropriately organizes the space in the interface. Distinct colors and effects only add to the sophistication and pleasure to the eyes. Identically, brighter and surprising colors replace the earlier effects that constituted dull and low-key colors. The reason behind selecting blasting colors was generating a specific emotion among the users.
It varies from generating a range of emotions like anger and fear, happiness and sadness, reliability and ridicule, surprise, and expectation. Every effect and color direct users towards a particular reaction and hence engages them. Overlapping of gradients is another popular trend that generates a sense of space-saving and keeps the interface structured. Transparent and bold colors illustrate better by providing depth and making everything realistic.
Minimalism and Split Screens
Minimalist designs are in trend because of their convenient and straightforward architectures. Websites and app designs continuously work towards taking advantage of these abstract sculpting by using the most basic shapes. Patterns, shapes, and geometric designs are built on monochromatic color palettes that define anonymous and objective nature. It also includes bold font designs on a reasonably simple background to emphasize the products, services, interface, and experience. Hence, minimalism defines the importance of functionalities over bright colors and also saves time.
Split screens are another trending UX design that breaks the display screen into two parts. It is an extremely simplified design that is capable of molding a website design to fit mobile viewing. The two split panels consist of the content that divides itself into vertical slabs when viewed on smaller devices. Side screens and asymmetrical divisions also emerge for creating a hierarchical pattern.
Final Thoughts
About two years ago, we saw the background videos as an emerging trend. However, now the design system left this trend behind to make way for intuitive and simplified methods of organizing an interface. Today, many new ways of delivering an immersive experience emerge that brands can combine. Integrating various trends, techniques, and tools can bring dynamism to the brands. Eventually, applying different combinations assists in creating a unique identity for a business in the market. Know more about our UI/UX design services by getting in touch with the experts at 9series.