2020 was swept away from us by the COVID-19 and spared no business and industry. All types of businesses were affected in one way or another. Every business was forced to undergo digital transformation to ensure business continuity. This article will extensively talk about playing around with the niche factors that influence the user experience. Before diving deep into the UX/UI trends, let’s look at why UX/UI consulting services are crucial to businesses.
- First impressions are 94% design-related.
- 88% of online customers are less likely to return to a site after a bad experience.
- According to Fasthosts, slow loading websites can set retailers back a reported £59.6bn each year in lost sales.
- Mobile users are 5 times more likely to abandon a task if a site isn’t optimized for mobile.
- 53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if pages take longer than 3 seconds to load.
- 75% of consumers admit to making judgments on a company’s credibility based on the company’s website design.
Dark Mode
The rise of dark siders will likely be continuing this year too.
The rise of the dark mode is continuing this year as well. Your product/website looks elegant, modern, and stylish when you implement dark mode. Since we have started spending almost 80% of our time on laptops and smartphones during this pandemic, dark mode plays a crucial role in enhancing user experience. Some of the advantages of implementing dark mode are listed below:
- It helps you extend the battery life if the device uses an AMOLED/OLED display.
- It enhances the readability of the text and goes easy on the eyes.
- It is gentle on the eyes when the user is accessing your website/product at the night.
- It mitigates blue lights and minimizes screen glares.
Neumorphism
Neumorphism is a design style that combines flat design and skeuomorphism. It collates the background colors, shapes, shadows, and gradients to ensure UI elements’ graphic intensity. This style helps in achieving a soft plastic look and 3D styling. Also, neumorphic designs are visually appealing and enhance the overall aesthetics as their soft UI elements feel so pleasing.
Though the concept of neumorphism is popular among UI designers, many reputed UX experts find it quite the opposite. Neumorphism doesn’t help you with enabling the basic usability principles. The design style almost brings down the intuitiveness and accessibility to zero. However, the design style is futuristic and aesthetically appealing. So, it might be used in real-world applications by rectifying the pain points existing in the design style.
Bold Typography
Bold typography urges your users to pay attention to it and demands it to be read. But the catch here is, it should be an integral part of the overall aesthetics of your website. Some of the leading websites have already implemented this technique, and hence bold typography is here to stay. Nike, Dropbox, Drift, etc., have made the best use of bold typography in their landing pages.
Enriched Micro-Interactions
Micro-interactions are available in almost all software applications. In our day-to-day life, we use micro-interactions whenever we use an app. For instance, the “Like” feature on LinkedIn and the “Retweet” feature on Twitter are some of the micro-interaction examples. Advancements in micro-interactions like touchless controls and gesture controls help you deliver interesting experiences that are highly intuitive.
Isometrics & 3D Designs
Isometric vectors and 3D illustrations have garnered quite a lot of users in the last couple of years. The important aspect to notice here is, 3D illustrations perform well on both desktop/laptop and smartphone devices. They play a key role in disrupting technologies such as AR, VR, and MR.
Smooth Gradients
Smooth gradients have disrupted the UX/UI design world. Initially, Microsoft began this trend by revamping the logos of its products, and the new design approach by Apple in macOS Big Sur further took this trend forward. Google has also jumped on the bandwagon by revamping the logos of Calendar, Drive, Meet, Gmail, and Docs.
Custom 404 Pages
404 Errors can cost businesses more than what you think. Both on the website and mobile applications, there are chances where your users might end up on a 404 page. So, UX/UI professionals went a step ahead to make this more interesting, informative, and comfortable.
Frictionless User Onboarding Experience
You have to ensure a seamless onboarding experience for your users in this pandemic season. When you devise a good onboarding strategy in place, you can delight millions of people who are forced to install and use video conferencing applications. You can expect this trend to continue even after the pandemic.
Seamless Authentication
We all hate passwords because it’s not one size fits all. You have to store them somewhere to remember, and they easily get complicated and are less secure. So, businesses will continue to leverage frictionless authentication methods such as social login and biometric login.
Voice User Interface (VUI)
Though the voice user interface and touchless interactions were already living with us, they rose to popularity during this pandemic period. Interacting with devices has taken different forms now, such as voice control and air gestures. As we have seen loads of voice-activated services in 2020, VUI will help in redefining the way we interact with devices.
UX Writing & Microcopy
Every business is driven by its core values and is trying to achieve its goals by delivering values to the audience they care about. So, understanding the brand’s goals, missions, and vision and writing specific microcopies that address the core values can ensure creating a friendly experience. Thus, UX writing and microcopies play a key role in enhancing the overall user experience.
Personalized Experience
Personalization is on the rise and will continue to grow. Simultaneously, delivering a tailored experience to your target audience is a fresh way to approach user retention. For instance, tailored clothing recommendations on a fashion store helps you convince the user to have “I don’t need it” resistance. As we’re witnessing a rise in AI & ML technologies, we will encounter more personalized experiences in software products.
Wrapping Up
We hope the trends mentioned above will help you introspect your business on the UX/UI front. There’s a huge scope for change, indeed. Also, we believe businesses have started incorporating new trends gradually into their system. We recommend you to step back and look at the bigger picture of the whole industry with a fresh mind.
Siam Computing has a team of elite UI/UX designers who specialize in helping companies develop stunning front-ends with perfect UX design and take them to market. Our team members are more than just designers – they’re specialists who work together to deliver UX/UI consulting services that perfectly help you to achieve business-specific objectives. Businesses love our work because of the in-depth market and competitor research with which we help enhance the user experience of the app idea. For more information, you can contact us or send your queries to hello@siamcomputing.com.
