Complex 3D Graphics

With the rocketing evolution of modeling tools, 3D graphics and animation started getting increasingly popular in recent years and have taken a well-deserved place on different lists of design trends. Still, for the last year, the complexity and detailing of 3D images integrated into user interfaces have reached the levels not expected before. Although modeling and rendering can take quite a long time, using this type of visuals helps push the horizons of creative approaches and get more flexible in demonstrating specific objects that are hard to visualize in any other way or getting the modern look for web pages or mobile screens.

The company website for the prosthetics producer uses a complex animated 3D model to make the product demonstration impressive and lively.

The interactive advent calendar interface for the Nova Post Christmas campaign presents the long-scroll map with tons of beautiful 3D images, setting the festive mood and enhancing visual storytelling.

Creative Motion Design

Animation in user interfaces also moved to the next level this year, with designers in a non-stop search of applying it to various stages of interaction with websites and apps. Creative motion graphics not only support the usability and accessibility of the interfaces but also spice them with eye-pleasing details and amplify emotional appeal. Moreover, creative approaches to animation in UI play a big part in activating the power of the aesthetic-usability effect.

The hero animation for the poster store app landing page works as an impressive presentation of the product and strengthens immediate aesthetic appeal.

From the background full-screen animation on the hero section to slight motion added to numbers and copy blocks and unobtrusive motion graphics, all animation on this business consultancy website home page works as one system, engaging users into learning more without getting bored or tired.

The animated explainer illustration for the Synthesized website helps to visualize highly technological processes as well as becomes an integral part of the general visual style concept for the service website.

The web platform for bartending courses uses a variety of motion effects to make the user experience intuitive and engaging and amplify the website’s elegance.

Web design for AI-powered content hub uses a variety of web animation effects to turn the scrolling process into a captivating experience and make necessary visual accents.

Diverse Video Content

One more aspect that grows its presence and diversity in user interfaces of all kinds is video content. Realizing the effectiveness of videos for modern users, stakeholders and creative teams find more and more ways and formats of integrating them into the user experience, from full-screen background videos to small ones on some tabs or screen sections. That’s especially brightly seen for digital marketing, with websites and landing pages quickly setting the needed atmosphere and demonstrating service or items to their audience.

Hales Freight website features video content in the hero section of the web page to instantly uncover the essence and benefits of the service to the visitors.

The website for the niche water brand supports the atmosphere and sets the association of their water’s refreshing naturalness with video pieces integrated across website pages.

The home page of the virtual reality studio employs prominent atmospheric video pieces to make an impressive and emotional presentation of the service. 

The website of a mental health guide uses a block of changing video fragments sharing positive vibes.

Scrollytelling

One of the currently popular approaches we have already had the chance to realize within our recent projects is scrollytelling. Basically, it is turning the process of scrolling the page or screen into captivating storytelling with the right balance of visuals and text design and spiced with animation to make it even more dynamic. This approach is also applied in the form of various timelines telling the story of a brand or company development.

Advocacy Through Walls website, an interactive guide for public defenders, community-based organizations, and other social justice advocates on how to ethically and intentionally engage with people currently incarcerated or directly impacted by systemic advocacy, is based on the scrollytelling approach.

The business consultancy website uses the approach of engaging scrolling on the About page to uncover the stages and milestones of the company’s development and achievements.

Emotional Hero Section

One more trend showing the steady growth of popularity is using the potential of a hero section to make the first seconds of contact with the user not only informative and functional but also emotional. Prominent visuals and videos, captivating motion graphics, and bold, concise typographic parts featuring taglines and/or brand names greatly help achieve that goal.

MOVA Brewery website home page has a hero section setting instant emotional connection with the visitor via the party-vibe full-screen photo with branded beer glasses and the tagline uncovering the idea behind the beer space connecting people.

Posse website hero section sets the instant feeling of cheerful and sincere communication. 

The color palette, solid massive typography, ultra-minimalistic layout, and atmospheric full-screen photo background in the hero section set the starting point for the adventure emotion offered on the website of the service organizing sledding expeditions.

Mental health guide website uses the emotional hero section, combining a bright, bold typographic part with black-and-white background video.

The landing page for the fitness application builds an emotional connection in the hero section via the catchy prominent typography of the tagline and engages in scrolling down with the visual hint of the mobile interface, which is presented via eye-pleasing animation when the visitor scrolls.

Typography Experiments

Typography in user interfaces has always presented the field for experiments, and recently, app and web designers have been demonstrating new levels of creativity in approaches to font choice and combinations. Playing with decorativeness, original graphic details, and motion, they continue pushing the borders of making the interface design look unique, elegant, and aesthetic with the help of chosen typefaces.

The ecommerce marketplace website design uses a beautiful decorative font for taglines, headings, and primary text blocks.

The music instrument producer’s website plays with a bold sans-serif font for headings and original all-caps font for the text block, setting the visual connection to modern music technologies.

The light and airy website of the niche wild farm drinks producer uses a neat decorative primary font that plays well with the idea of wildflowers and grasses.

Interactive Menus and Catalogs

Having checked the benefits of interactivity and its contribution to positive user experience, today, designers and developers don’t limit themselves to the well-checked types of interactive content but constantly experiment with new approaches and ideas. That results in new kinds of cool interactive details we can find on modern websites and apps, and trendy interactive menus and catalogs are among them lately, making the websites and mobile apps more desirable and handy.

The winery website home page features an interactive menu showing the photos on hover of the specific position.

Interacting with the menu, the visitors of the clinic website get to the page that uses a split screen layout and changes the photo depending on the chosen position. 

The water brand website uses the interactive catalog with text-labeled vertical tabs, allowing users to switch between product pages.

Immersive Experiences

With the technological advancements of AR and VR in recent years, more and more brands integrate immersive experiences into their communication and marketing campaigns. Immersive digital marketing involves users in an experience that merges elements of the surrounding environment with personalized digital content connected to the specific customer journey and purchase needs. So, that means that creatives also have to think over new approaches to design this kind of user experience and make it the factor amplifying the positive result.

The poster store application allows users to fine-tune the search of the poster and try the chosen item in their specific interior.

Mix of Visuals

More and more interface designers tend not to make a choice upon one type of visual content but employ a mix of different visuals, finding the balance of effective combinations. So, websites and apps can feature photos and videos, illustrations and collages, and major and minor motion graphics working as one system and supporting each other to make the pages and screens more usable, informative, and eye-pleasing.

The bartending school website uses a combination of various visual content, from full-screen video to atmospheric photos and neat line illustrations.

The mental health guide combines photos, videos, and illustrations for emotional and diverse communication of the ideas to the reader.

The winery ecommerce website features a combination of beautiful vineyard photos, product presentation photos of bottles, and sophisticated line illustrations to visualize the production stages.

High-Level Conceptuality

One more trend of the recent months in UI design is the creation of high-fidelity concepts to think over user experience for future technological advancements, gadgets, and devices that are not massively used or affordable yet but are already talked about actively enough to consider interaction design for them.

Here’s an elegant design concept for a product manager application created to be used effectively on a foldable device; in this project, our team set the challenge to think over both additional limitations and possibilities that foldable devices open for the user experience. 

Some UI/UX and interaction design solutions for the vibrant and engaging mobile application concept of the AR-based social network.

Sure, these are only some of the actual trends in web and mobile design at the moment, so let’s move on and see what the new year of design will bring out.

New articles on user experience design are coming soon; stay tuned.

Useful Articles

Here’s a bunch of articles to dive deeper into the theme of usability and user experience design.

6 Essential Elements of a Company Website Design

Big Little Details: 7 Helpful Elements of Web Usability

UX Design: Types of Interactive Content Amplifying Engagement

Negative Space in Design: What It Is and How To Use It

5 Types of Images for Web Content

Types of Contrast in User Interface Design

5 Pillars of Effective Landing Page Design

How to Make Web Interface Scannable

The Anatomy of a Web Page: Basic Elements

Error Screens and Messages: UX Design Practices

Web Design: 16 Basic Types of Web Pages

Originally written for Tubik Blog, graphic and video content by tubik

Сообщение 10 Hot UI/UX Design Trends To Start 2024 появились сначала на Design4Users.

Diversity of shapes

Definitely, one of the hottest trends this year has been a great variety of shapes we both applied and observed in different designs. Shapes help to add playfulness and originality to the layout. What’s more, in many cases, they play the role of visual accents, attracting attention to particular elements or zones on the screen.

Various shapes applied to the design of the toy store website set the visual connection with kids toys like sorters and building blocks and help organize some of the interactive elements in a playful and catchy manner

Neat and curvy shapes as a part of elegant design for cosmetics e-commerce website

Video integrations

Using videos as an integral part of user experience design for websites and apps has been going from trend to solid tendency this year. Background videos and explainers, video tutorials, product videos, hero section video crops, testimonials, showreels, showcases, and screencasts – the diversity of video materials helps designers make interfaces more dynamic and engaging as well as allows users to get their experience more informative and emotional.

Awesome video background for the webpages of the e-commerce website selling niche perfumes

Atmospheric full-screen bird-view background video for the design of the website telling about mountain resorts

Lovely videos used for products demonstration on the e-commerce website for the pet shop

Airy and windy home page video for the yacht hiring website sets the atmosphere in split seconds

Accent line elements

One more trend rising in popularity is the smart usage of unobtrusive line graphics to provide visual accents in the blocks of text or support the integrity of different sections. Sometimes, they also work as directional cues attracting users’ eyes to particular elements.

The website design concept for the Momatu app uses line graphic accents to attract attention to some keywords or work as directional cues.

Illusion Space website uses animated graphic accents adding dynamics to the pages

Headline underlayer

This year, the trend that showed itself brightly in web interfaces was applying bold, sometimes even enormous, headline or tagline text with a graphic or video underlayer, making it bright and attractive.

The home page for the ballet company website uses a prominent headline with a video underlayer in combination with an animated CTA element.

The prominent text block on the e-commerce website selling egg products uses the underlayer photo

Engaging motion graphics

Year by year, UI and motion designers push the limits of their own creativity when it comes to animation in user interfaces. This year was not an exception, bringing up new examples of impressive loading animation that makes waiting easy and fun, animated hints that make important interactions clear and buttons noticeable at once, hero illustrations livened up with motion, and many more types of motion elements that contribute to both usability and emotionality of web pages and mobile screens.

Lovely loading animation for the e-commerce website of a juice brand

Elegantly animated interactions for the page presenting a set of events for the art galleries website

Catchy animated elements and the background Maneki-Neko animation add uniqueness, fun, and mood to the Chinese restaurant website

Creative motion graphics for the website of Illusion Space

Typographic experiments

Another area for endless design experiments is typography, of course, as it is one of the crucial design elements influencing all the sides of user experience design. This year highlighted the following popular design solutions:

• combinations of different fonts or styles of the same typeface in one piece of text
• applying original fonts to highlight some text elements
• playing out different text directions
• impressive typography-based motion graphics integrated into the UI

The original combination of typefaces used consistently in the brand packaging and website design for egg products

Original typography-based home page design and product pages for the Bennett tea website

Impressive manipulations with typographic elements as a part of design approach for the website of editorial about insomnia

Web page design for the website promoting mountain resorts plays with typographic contrast and uses the prominent cut-off typographic part at the top of the page

Elegant and sophisticated website of art institute editorial plays with fonts and typefaces to enhance the beauty of visual presentation

Interactive pages

Interactivity as a way to impress, engage and retain users also presented an area of design experiments pushing this trend to the next level.

Interactive web page background for Annual Awwwards website

Interactive scroll at the home page of the toy e-commerce website

Interactive map page for the website of the shipping company

Horizontal galleries

One more trendy design solution for web interfaces of different kinds is applying animated horizontal galleries of photos to set the emotional connection and make the experience dynamic without scrolling.

Horizontal photo gallery on the About Us page for the Synthesized website

Horizontal photo gallery instantly setting the mood and atmosphere for the home page of the website presenting information about various art galleries

Horizontal gallery for the home page of the booking service website

Creative menus

Such a core part of navigation as menu this year got itself even more creative than ever before. Vertical menus, colored tabs, graphic elements, hover animations, and many other design solutions seem to have set the goal to captivate users even at the basic navigation levels.

Interactions with creative menu page of the website devoted to insomnia

Creative menu page for the Awwwards Annual website, literally playing with fonts

Interactive menu page for the egg product e-commerce website

Menu interactions with animated shapes for the website of the booking service

Creative menu with colored vertical tabs for art galleries website

3D Graphics and Animation

Another trend growing into the steady tendency is using 3D graphics in user interfaces, mostly animated to enhance the wow-effect. From massive hero images to product presentations in 3D or minor layout elements, they go beyond the limits and add aesthetic vibes to web and mobile screens.

Catchy and atmospheric 3D hero animation for the e-commerce website selling stationery and office supplies

3D graphics used for a stunning product demonstration on yacht hiring website

Futuristic 3D animation for the NFT page of the Crypto Blog design

3D animation for the hero section of the Uni landing page design

Prominent animated hero image for the website of the shipping company

Website for the web development company, applying a variety of 3D graphics on different web pages

Uncommon grids

Applying unusual grids as the way to organize the content in an original and good-looking way also set itself as another interesting creative trend, presented with numerous interface designs.

Habit builder app design and its landing page feature the original grid

Product page design for Bennett Tea website organizes information about the product in the set of boxes forming the original sort of grid

Chinese restaurant website features the original grid for the menu

This museum website concept uses atmospheric video content and an uncommon grid to present the interactive photo tabs telling more about the place

Custom illustrations

Although the number of resources with different ready-made and customizable vector graphics has grown much, it didn’t influence the high demand and steady popularity of creating unique illustrations for web and mobile projects. No wonder, as custom graphics crafted according to the goals and needs of the particular project present the powerful tool of user experience design, giving websites and mobile applications the original dress to impress as well as supporting their usability and desirability.

Custom illustrations for the Mayple website design

Elegant pencil-sketch-like custom illustrations in the mobile version of the website for furniture producing company

Custom illustrations for the pet shop website

Animated hero illustration for the Energizou website

Custom illustrations for Otozen application website

Certainly, that’s only a tiny part of the design trends in user experience design, evolving and developing day by day. Looking forward to seeing what’s next, we are totally ready for new creative challenges and out-of-the-box solutions for web and mobile interfaces.

UX Design Articles To Read More

If you want to check more creative sets of UX design concepts and articles on best design practices, here they are for you.

22 Impressive Web Design Concepts for Various Business Objectives

5 Basic Types of Images for Web Design

Hero Images in Web Design: When, Why, and How to Use

The Anatomy of a Web Page: 14 Basic Elements

Photo Content in User Interfaces: 7 Basic Ways to Use

Take My Money: UX Practices on Product Page Design

5 Pillars of Effective Landing Page Design

Design for Sales: 10 Creative UI Designs for Ecommerce

Originally written for Tubik Blog, graphic and video content by tubik

Сообщение 12 UI Design Trends for Web and Mobile We Started 2022 With появились сначала на Design4Users.

Video Hero Sections

In recent years, video content integration into web pages of all kinds moved to a new level. One reason is that it is getting more and more technically friendly for websites implemented on different platforms. What’s more, in the online world overwhelming users with tons of messages and a great deal of various information, videos become an effective touchpoint catching the users’ eye, quickly setting the needed atmosphere or demonstrating the product in no time. This year hero sections of the web pages look like the most popular place for the atmospheric video to impress website visitors from first sight.

Video hero section for the ecommerce confectionery website

Full-screen video background for the hero section of the horse riding club website

Video-based hero section for the website of e-commerce fashion accessories store

Website design for a digital transformation service

Atmospheric hero section for the website of Lumen Museum

Ultra Minimalist Navigation

Minimalism as a UI design trend has been getting stronger and stronger positions in recent years, coming out in a great bunch of elegant and stylish interfaces for web and mobile. Yet, now it is getting even sharper, with many design solutions based around an ultra-minimalist design approach to navigation with a super focus on content. Whatever debatable it is, implemented thoughtfully it has high chances not to hurt usability, especially if the target audience is a younger generation that’s well used to interacting with various interfaces and devices. Anyway, as anything minimalistic, this approach needs to be double-checked and tested well to be sure that everything hidden can be easily found by users.

Minimalistic and interactive home page for the furniture website

Quote app interactions

Interactive Details

Interactivity is now seen as a must in user interfaces, playing a big part in engaging users, adding emotional appeal, and giving the feeling of solid product integrity at every step of the interaction. Now UI designers are getting even more diverse and creative in that perspective.

Interactive home page for Illuminating Radioactivity website. It opens the field full of bright tags featuring popular characteristics of radioactivity and hiding the name of the project. Moving the mouse cursor, users remove the tags, as well as the website is going to erase the common stereotypes about the theme of radioactivity.

Smooth motion makes the interaction with the page of a fashion brand website even more dynamic, especially due to little details like the engaging motion of the thread uniting all the sections of the page in the process of scrolling.

Interactive web page for the web editorial about generations

Permanent exhibition page for Lumen Museum website, digitally echoing the real interactivity in the physical museum exhibition

An interactive page for the Credentially website lets users filter different benefits and functions of the service

Impressive Product Pages

Due to the reality of the pandemic times and adaptation to the new way of life, the year 2020 showed a rocketing growth of e-commerce and everything design-like connected to it, which is obviously going to continue this year. Naturally, both business owners and interface designers strive to provide not only a smooth and clear flow of sales funnel, item choice, and check-out process, but also make a bright impression and stand out in the conditions of the competition getting tighter and tighter. Along with the hero sections and home pages, product pages have become one of the major spots of design experiments and creative ideas in the aspect.

Impressive choice interactions for the product page for the website selling fashion accessories

Interactive home screen for the Exotic Fruit application where all the bright fruit images are interactive, so tapping a fruit the user moves to its product page. The product screen features the interactive panel allowing for easy choice of the number of items.

Combination of Visuals

Today, there is no more need to convince anyone in the advantages of images integrated into UX design. Another domain of creative experiments is trying combinations of different types of visuals in one interface. That’s where photos and illustrations work harmonically together, 3D and 2D art can support each other, and that benefit can get enhanced even more with motion design.

Event agency website combining 3D animation and line illustrations

Home page for ShipDaddy website combining animated 2D illustration of a brand mascot and real-life photos

Mayple website harmonically combining photo content and line illustrations

Stop Plastic website based on the limited color palette and impressive visuals on the crossroads of illustration and photography

Creative Data Visualization

Dealing with websites and apps, users often face the need to absorb and process differents data, stats, numbers, and the like. One of the tasks for user interface designers is visualizing that data both clearly and attractively so that it could positively influence usability, utility, and accessibility of the application, dashboard, or website. It seems that in 2021, we are going to observe a new wave of creative solutions for that aspect.

Credentially website design with a thoughtful approach to visualizing partnerships and numbers

User’s stats screens for the Calorie Tracker app

Stats visualization for Fitness App

Data visualization for a task tracker app

Finance Tracker app interactions

Consistency of Product and Promo Design

Considering the fact that today people are overloaded with information more than ever before, they tend to choose products that are easy to understand and interact with, and that’s where consistency of design solutions comes into play. What’s more, consistency builds a reliable foundation for the feeling of harmony in both how the product looks and how it works. This year we will witness even stronger trend of a consistent and comprehensive approach to the connection of digital product interface design and all kinds of design for its branding and promotion.

The consistent web, mobile and branding design for Vertt car-sharing service

A consistent approach to brand packaging and web design solutions for a confectionery

Consistency of product and promotional design solutions for a mobile banking service

Sophisticated Title Fonts

Typography has always been one of the crucial aspects of any interface design, covering the aspects of both beauty and readability. This year sees the trend of moving from “readability and simplicity first” to the more and more diverse choice of decorative fonts adding originality, mood, and elegance to the web or app layout. However, this design trend is also user-friendly and doesn’t hurt readability, as decorative and original fonts are usually applied to title text elements, which are of a quite big and therefore legible size.

Website for a horse-riding club

Website design concept for a photography contest

New-Level Animation

Motion integrated into user interfaces keeps playing a highly practical role and is aimed at setting higher levels of usability and interactivity as well as support the trend of well-crafted data visualization mentioned above. For the last year, this design sphere got a new bright sprint of evolution, featuring more and more creative experiments on UI animation, scroll animation, transitions, conceptual motion, etc. And in 2021 we are looking forward to an even higher level of creativity in the aspect of UI motion

Multilayered animation for Illuminating Radioactivity

Engaging and eye-pleasing animation for the login screen of the calorie calculator app

Loading animation for interior design website

Quotes App interactions

Animated Identity Elements

With more businesses going online, we can witness a more digitally-friendly approach to branding design as well. One of the hot trends this year is the animation of identity elements, making them more eye-catching, lively, and emotional in digital environments.

Animated brand mascot for ShipDaddy

Animated logo design for Uplyfe

Animated logo for a bakery brand

Emotional and lively animated logo for Gotikket service

Creative Use of Geometric Shapes

As one of the basic methods of visualization and composition, geometric shapes don’t lose their presence as functional or decorative elements of web and mobile interface design. This year we could see even more diverse examples of their integration in UI.

Elegant and eye-catching interactions based on geometric shapes for a designer’s website

3D Graphics

This year obviously continues and intensifies the integration of diverse 3D graphics into interfaces for web and mobile. As well, designers are getting more and more flexible to move from static to animated 3D elements to increase the level of their emotional appeal and user engagement.

Landing page with attractive and eye-pleasing 3D animation to promote an upcoming product

Prominent and Creatively Presented Photos

A couple of previous years witnessed custom graphics like 2D illustrations or 3D images overpoising photo content which was considered more traditional and conservative. This way designers got more flexible and adjustive in creating out-of-the-box layouts as there was a wave of negative feedback on the lack of originality in stock photos while producing custom photo content could be even more expensive and difficult to organize than getting custom graphics. This year, photo content seems to gets back on the scene, triumphantly and evolving. With more and more sophisticated compositions and attention to detail, creative collages and animation, sometimes even stock photos look super cool, let alone the fact that the production of custom photo content also diversified and got more affordable. So, now we are observing more and more designs with photos put in the center of attention: hero images that immediately set the mood and atmosphere, informative and catchy product images shown in a much bigger size than we used to see them before, stylish previews, banners, title images for blog posts, and so on and so forth.

Web editorial devoted to different generations

Bartending encyclopedia website

Ecommerce website selling home decor

Grid Experiments

Creative experiments with grids seem to be a non-stop trend for a couple of years, getting new expressions in 2020. The thought-out custom grid in user interfaces for web or mobile effectively supports the harmony of a layout and placement of the elements, also increasing a level of flexibility. It’s may also be the way to rethink the visual hierarchy and draw attention to the needed zones or interactive elements. Asymmetry, broken grids, and other experiments are getting even more daring and stylish this year.

Online editorial presenting the gallery of stories about the powerful women changing the world

The website design concept for a photography contest

Informative Illustrations

The trend of integrating custom graphics of all kinds into user interfaces also doesn’t lose its positions, with designers getting more and more focused on filling them with informative and meaningful messages rather than just decorative goals. From small graphic elements to memorable and emotional mascots, prominent hero illustrations and product images, 3D graphics, and animated stories – it seems, designers now are super armed for any educational, social, or business objective. Made in various styles, custom graphics effectively support the quick perception of the information on the page or screen.

Onboarding tutorial illustrations for Vertt car sharing service

Limited Color Palettes

With color being one of the vital factors of visual harmony, psychological influence, and attractive appearance for any interface, designers care a lot about color choice. As well, a color combination may become a solid basis of visual originality which is essential in terms of tight competition. So, designers never stop trying new uncommon combinations. Still, the major design trend at this perspective moving to 2021 echoes the tendency to minimalism and features implementing very limited or even monochrome palettes, not distracting users with a variety of colors and taking the most advantage of the chosen color or colors. For the last year, it resulted in a big number of elegant and super stylish designs, and we think it is going to progress in 2021.

Web editorial about powerful women that changed the world

Website design for a fashion brand

Certainly, that’s only a part of the design trends in user experience design, evolving and developing day by day. Anyway, looking forward to seeing what’s next, we are totally ready for new creative challenges and out-of-the-box solutions for web and mobile interfaces.

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение UI Design Trends for Web and Mobile We Start 2021 With появились сначала на Design4Users.

Today, our fresh collection of interface designs in D4U Inspiration gallery is also devoted to this trend: welcome to review a bunch of app concepts that push neomorphic UI forward. Get inspired!

Stylish and impressive music player design in neumorphic style by Filip Legierski

Light and dark mode of the mobile banking app design in neuomorphic style by Heartbeat Agency

Mobile screens of a security and cleaning app with the effect of volume by DTail Studio

Neumorphic app design concept featuring dark background and bright color accents by Dmitry Gavrisov

Light and dark mode for the neumorphic washing machine screens in the smart home application by Dimest

Book subscription app by Riotters

Neumorphic user interface for fitness app by Fireart Studio

App design concept trying the potential of neumorphism by Rifaet Uday

Sleep cycle app designed in neumorphic style by Devanta Ebison

Neumorphic app concept by David Tsaturyan

Catchy banking app designed with neumorphism approach by Filip Legierski

Neumorphic UI kit for a banking app by Mikołaj Gałęziowski designed in light and dark themes

Fitness app design concept in neumorphic style by Mary Tokar

Clock app concept inspired by neumorphic approach by Jatin Lathiya

You may also like the collections of ecommerce app designs, web designs for events, user interfaces for finance management, creative logo designs, UI concepts for education, and other D4U Inspiration posts

Сообщение UI Inspiration: Neumorphism in Mobile Design Concepts появились сначала на Design4Users.

Hero Illustrations

Hero images are not a kind of modern-day invention: for recent years, they have been used for making web pages clear, elegant, catchy and meaningful. No wonder: hero images improve perception as most users notice and decode images much faster than words, so the picture is not only the element of attraction but also an informative part of the page, providing a quick visual message about the content.

The correct composition of the hero image can strengthen navigation and bring more attention to the call-to-action button. Yet, talking about trends, for the recent year we are seeing the wide and diverse digital illustrations in contrast to photos that were much popular before. It can be explained, perhaps, with the higher flexibility of illustrations for user experience design goals. Digital art opens limitless possibilities on styles, characters, environments, compositions, and perspectives, and a combination of them with all the other layout elements into one design.

The web page where hero image and copy content present solid composition, set a positive atmosphere and inform users about the theme of the content the Health Blog provides.

The landing page for the illustration conference builds the composition around the original and eye-pleasing animated hero image.

The web page of the gallery of Pritzker Prize winners and nominees in the online architecture magazine features the artistic digital portrait of Zaha Hadid.

The landing page of the kindergarten uses a big funny and cute monster designed and animated as a hero image to entertain users and set the needed emotional background.

Typography Based Webpages

Bold and catchy typography as a crucial part of any design concept continues to keep its high presence in web and mobile layouts. It’s even hard to call it a trend as it should be seen as a default and vital part of the UI design process. Designers pay much attention to keeping it not only beautiful but also readable and scannable with typographic hierarchy and choice of proper fonts. Yet, there is a noticeable trend contrasting to the previous one: more and more websites and apps are based around typography as the core of the user experience design and attractiveness, with no images at all. The visual and emotional appeal, in this case, is reached with not only the search for interesting and original fonts but also with animation, color contrast, filled and outline letters in one piece of text and other tricks. What’s more, design approaches now demonstrate deeper care about text content itself and its integration into the layout. For example, informative and catchy taglines have shown growing presence as a part of web interfaces, especially in landing pages.

The website of a construction company is based on animated interactions and color contrast with the tagline. The color also works as a way to unite the company logo, tagline, and CTA button into one harmonic system of the layout.

Typography-based home page for the website of the urban digital conference, with catchy animation for the text content.

Transparency Behind Navigation

Many examples in this post feature another popular trend of this year: the transparent background for navigation elements. Now designers find the good level of contrast to make the navigation visible and legible instead of marking out special zones with another background. Such an approach supports the feeling of the integrity of all the layout.

Fashion portfolio website features the transparent header navigation

The ecommerce website selling insects uses the transparent background for header navigation and social buttons in the bottom part of the page

3D Graphics and Animation

For the recent year, the integration of various 3D graphics into mobile and web interfaces has demonstrated the rocketing growth. As well as the diversity of styles and approaches. What’s more, many designers move from static images to 3D animation to make webpages and app screens even more dynamic and engaging.

Creating this kind of graphics is quite a challenge that requires specific skills and artistic eye; also, it’s time-consuming. Nevertheless, it’s worth bothering: 3D is always eye-catching and users never pass by not noticing it. 3D images are a kind of flexible visual content. On the one hand, they often look photorealistic which is a big advantage for user interface design: this kind of graphics may save the game in cases when photo content you need is impossible to get or highly expensive. On the other hand, designers have room for creative experiments and may create non-realistic images increasing the originality of the user interface.

The website of the company building sustainable houses integrates 3D visualization of their product in day and night views.

The health blog applies the 3D animation of body parts as the core visual element on the page

The landing page for the flying school features the animated 3D hero image of a plane in low poly style

The welcome screen of the restaurant app features the complex and realistic 3D animation to engage users from the first seconds of interaction

Full-Screen Background Visuals

Another trend winning more and more positions on a wide variety of websites is full-screen background images. These can be all types of visuals: photos, illustrations, abstract compositions or specially rendered visualizations. The approach makes the screens visually and emotionally appealing as well as informative, as the image instantly captures users’ attention much faster this way. Also, it supports the feeling of the integrity of all the layout elements. However, it requires much skill and effort to find the right contrast and hierarchy of elements and integrate the navigation and text content properly so that the page wouldn’t turn into the illegible mess.

The model portfolio page uses her full-screen photo as a basis of the layout, the navigation and text information are harmonically put on it and don’t spoil the impression from the photograph.

The website of the company selling hot-air balloon rides uses full-screen theme images as an impressive and catchy background and adds dynamic and the feeling of flight with slight unobtrusive animation.

The landing page for the mail management app features the beautiful full-screen illustration with the copy content and call-to-action button elegantly integrated into it

Video Backgrounds and Diverse Video Content

With non-stop progressing technical improvements in the sphere of web development, video backgrounds for web pages aren’t seen as a great challenge anymore. As well as the integration of diverse video content into the web layouts. So, more and more designers now turn to full-screen videos as a way to capture people’s attention, create the needed atmosphere and give an instant view on the product or service that is offered.

Home page design based on a full-screen video about the product and processes for a website of the studio producing custom wedding dresses

Home page design featuring an atmospheric full-screen video for a website of an agricultural holding

Metallurgy plant website applying atmospheric theme video content on the home page

Diverse promo and explainer videos also get a high presence on webpages and mobile screens. In particular, they are helpful for marketing goals and increase brand awareness efficiently. A video works well for attracting customers’ attention and provide them with core information quickly. A video activates several channels of perception — audio, visual, sound — simultaneously and enhances them with the power of storytelling. That makes video content meaningful and memorable especially if based on high-quality graphic design and animation. People are daily overloaded with tons of information, so most of them aren’t ready to devote much time to learning about products or services. That’s when videos save the game as a dynamic and attractive way of communication.

Here’s an example of an explainer video designed for OffCents app promotion.

Minimal Mobile Navigation

In mobile user interfaces, with the limited space on the screen, designers tend to find ways of reducing space for navigation, and this way increasing space for content. This trend is now the reason for hot debates at the aspect of usability and clarity of interaction design; yet, new ideas arise and take their place.

The bar inventory application focused on interactions with content tabs and minimal navigation

One of the design practices getting popularity for the recent year is experimenting on mobile  UI interactions without buttons. This approach saves precious space on the screen for more information and it is even believed to be the initial step to the virtual interfaces based on gestures only.

The nature encyclopedia app presents interactive infographics for a variety of themes. All the interactions with the data are based on gestures without any buttons applied in the layout.

Font Experiments and Contrast

No doubt, combining fonts in interfaces is not a trend but a core operation as old and stable as the design itself. However, the recent year was marked with trailblazing experiments in this sphere. With a massive focus on readability seen before, a whole lot of interface designs started looking like twins with the same well-checked font combinations. So, now more UI designers step forward to more originality and fresh looks achieved with fonts. It is especially noticeable in the domain of taglines, headlines, brand names and short phrases that are usually presented in quite a big size so sophisticated or experimental fonts don’t do any harm for their readability.

A product card for the tea ecommerce website features quite an experimental font making the whole design look original

The landing page designed for a security app combines experimental hero illustration with the solid and bold font to create the bright and emotional look

Split Screens

The trend of designing split screens and pages really holds ground for the recent year, getting more and more diverse expressions on websites and apps. This design practice is nothing new – it goes away and comes back in various spheres of design, but now it’s well back and alive. The approach is thought to be effective at the perspective of responsive design: it enables to play with content variations not missing the consistency. In addition, it opens the limitless area for color combinations and experiments. Split screens are helpful when it’s important to show the duality of options of equal importance.

A landing page for the car security service app with a contrast split screen uniting the parts with a digital artwork visualizing the theme

Split webpage for a food order and delivery service: one part applies the light background, text description and bright CTA button while the other users a tasty-looking meal photo as a background

Product page for an online bug store uses a split screen with informative part to the left and interactive one to the right, all united with a product image in the center

Asymmetric and Broken Grids

Creative experiments with grids have never stopped for the recent year. The custom grid is the way to save the feeling of harmonic layout and placement of the elements with a higher level of flexibility and originality. In many cases, it’s also the way to rethink the visual hierarchy and draw the visitors’ attention to the needed zones or elements of the layout. Or it helps to make the consumption of much homogeneous content easier. Asymmetry and broken grids are found as one of the ways to reach this goal. However, this sort of creativity requires thorough research and testing so the effective result often comes via several iterations tested and analyzed in terms of usability and visual perception.

The gallery app uses the asymmetric grid to present various types of artworks in one beautiful feed

The website for an agricultural holding uses the grid that changes in the process of interaction and makes the interfaces more engaging and visually appealing

Interactions with photo galleries on MYWONY website features the asymmetric grid to make only one picture in focus but also support the feeling of the big gallery

Visuals-Based Ecommerce

Design for the ecommerce interfaces is a special challenge: it should keep a good balance between common well-known patterns easily recognized by buyers and creative solution that help the platforms stand out from the competition. The trend of this year is prominent, sometimes even overwhelming visuals demonstrating products and quite small text content blocks contrasting to them.

Hero section design for an ecommerce website and its mobile view feature prominent photos in combination with sophisticated typography

The ecommerce platform selling hand-crafted furniture and interior decor features the prominent 3D visualization

The online store of stuff for fishing also built around big visuals demonstrating the items

Overlaying Animation

UI designers never stop searching for new methods of making pages and screens engaging. One of the ways getting more and more popular is the animation of several interactive layers that make scrolling experience original and dynamic as well as support the integrity of interaction for long webpages or feed screens.

The home page designed for the website of the innovative energy service quickly grabs attention and informs users about its values with a nice animated hero image that makes the scrolling experience natural and dynamic.

Experimental Art-Inspired Graphics

As custom illustration has established well in user experience design and many products and companies use it now, the competition grows day by day. So, illustrators and UI designers are always in search of new solutions and ideas that would step to the next level of originality. Recently, it evolved into creative experiments that look based on high art. They push the limits of traditional composition and proportions, give rise to unusual characters, fantastic creatures, and unexpected stories.

The experimental illustration is used as a hero image on the website for the food delivery service. You may like it or not, but it will definitely catch your attention.

Website design for a small family-run winery features artistic and creatively animated illustrations

Interactive Intro and Onboarding Stuff

Onboarding design is for sure not an invention of today. Still, one of the really hot and rocketing trends of this year is the appearance of diverse introduction projects giving a deeper understanding of the brand, company or product and supporting their promotion with emotional and catchy storytelling. These can be tutorials, integrated gamification elements and mini-games, cartoons, interactive magazines and much more.

Creative and interactive brand intro for MYWONY, a brand of wedding dresses

Limited and Monochrome Color Palettes

The growing interest in minimalist design for maximum functionality resulted in a broad presence of monochrome UI solutions for web and mobile. The layouts of this kind usually look stylish, harmonic and non-distractive. However, designers have to invest much time and effort to make them not boring and ensure that all the core elements of interaction are instantly visible.

The landing page for an event devoted to Bauhaus movement features the limited and contrast color palette that reflects the values and approaches of that artistic school

Design for an online store selling cosmetics and beauty care stuff features the sophisticated interface in different shades of nude to make an advantageous background for the items

The home page for a web platform on cybersecurity is based on the monochrome layout and catchy futuristic animation 

User Choice of Color Scheme

Another thing to mention about color is personalization. User interface designers and developers strive to provide more functionality with which users may customize the features according to their personal needs. One of the most popular ways is giving a user the choice of the color scheme they like more for a particular interface. Sure, it takes more time on the design process but definitely contributes much to positive user experience.

These are screens of a stock analysis app Bitex that offers users the choice between light and dark color schemes

Color Contrast Across Pages or Screens

One more way to apply color contrast for the sake of user experience is using contrasting colors as backgrounds for different screens within one app or website. This way designers not only add a pinch of diversity into the product but also provide effective visual separation for different kinds of content or various purposes.

Nature encyclopedia app uses a dark background for encyclopedia screens and light background for charity screens

MYWONY website uses a dark background for Lookbook screens and light background for Collection screens

Infographic-Style Numbers

As we mentioned in the article about web scannability, readers subconsciously associate numbers with facts, stats, sizes and distance — data which is potentially useful. So numbers included in copy catch reader’s attention while words representing numerals can be missed in the bulk of copy. What’s more, numbers are more compact than the textual numeral, so it makes the content more concise and time-saving for scanning. One of the trending design features goes even further: it makes the numbers prominent and more noticeable than text as it’s often done in infographics.

Here’s design for an award-winning biography website devoted to Stanley Kubrick’s path of glory, life, and creative heritage. Contrast and elaborate typography as main visual expressiveness tools are successfully combined with prominent infographic-style numbers presenting important dates, milestones, and facts to make the resource informative and information digestible.

Environment community website sets the visual hierarchy of the home page to make the major information, infographic-style numbers, and CTA instantly visible.

Forms Above the Fold

Although there is much claiming that the importance of the above-the-fold aka pre-scroll area of the webpage is not that vital, users still interact with it much more than with everything that is below. So, some websites and landing pages put the interactive forms right into this strategic part, often right below the website header. This way the users that are ready to act and complete conversion without learning more can do it immediately.

The landing page designed for a delivery service that takes care of clients’ luggage delivers it to the destination chosen by the client features the form right below the header

The landing page for the scuba diving courses also features the interactive form of the extended search in the above the fold area

In general, it’s easy to see the global design community continues with building up the diversity in interface design. And that is the most user-friendly trend. There are millions of users with different tastes and preferences, feelings of what is convenient and beautiful for them, and now they use apps and websites as a part of their daily routine. The more variants we design for them, the wider range of options users will get to find the ones which fit their specific wishes. Looking forward to seeing what trends will be found the most popular at the end of the year.

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение 19 UI Design Trends for Web and Mobile Worth Your Attention появились сначала на Design4Users.

Functional minimalism

Quite a big number of mobile applications and websites continued and evolved design solutions based on the principles of minimalism. Minimalist interfaces are characterized with thorough attention to visual elements, not numerous but always transferring a particular message.

Major features often mentioned in terms of minimalism approach include:

• Simplicity
• Clarity
• Expressive visual hierarchy
• High attention to proportions and composition
• Functionality of every element
• Big amount of spare space
• High attention ratio to core details
• Typography as a significant design element
• Eliminating non-functional decorative elements

Surely, the list can be continued but even the given positions show that minimalism in UI appears to be a user-friendly trend. Applied wisely, it helps to see the core elements of the interface and makes user journey intuitive and purposeful. Moreover, minimalist interfaces usually look sophisticated and uncluttered bringing aesthetic satisfaction as one of the factors of desirability in UX.

WineYard App

Brutalism

The trend of brutalism in digital design started rocketing last year and got even brighter expressions in 2017. It is often described as a style that aims at breaking standards and predictable design techniques. The websites created in this manner are a sort of rebellion to sophisticated designs with thought-out symmetry and harmony, complex layouts, and accents of aesthetic visual performance. In contrast, brutalism is based on simple and raw appearance, in most cases not loaded with many visual details and sometimes even close to a plain HTML page. Being used thoughtfully for the appropriate goals and audience, it features a high level of originality and gives the unique look to a digital product. It may be liked or disliked, but it is never left unnoticed.

Typography integrated into images

Bold and catchy typography also kept its high presence both in web and mobile layouts. This year it got a new breath with a widely spread technique of cutting or inscribing the title keyword or a headline into the visual elements on the page. The approach strengthens the harmonic integrity of the layout elements and makes typography felt tightly united with everything in the interface.

Big City Guide

Animated hero banners

In web design, hero banners are big images catching user’s attention in the first seconds of interaction with a website. They usually contribute much to the attractive visual presentation of the main content. Hero banners proved themselves as highly effective in setting the mood or transferring the message. Moreover, as well as any other striking graphics on web pages, this is a kind of content which is both informative and emotionally appealing. Prominent hero banners can satisfy multiple goals such as:

• catch users’ attention
• transfer the message visually
• support the general stylistic concept
• set the needed theme, mood or atmosphere
• demonstrate the core benefits or items effectively.

This year they were often strengthened with original animation breathing life into images and making them even more engaging.

Dance Academy Landing Page

Custom theme illustrations

Accomplished in different styles and complexity level, custom illustrations are actively covering more and more space on web and mobile UI, adding the quick perception of the information and setting the solid ground for originality. Web and mobile interfaces apply custom mascots, icons and  illustrations to enhance the looks of a page or screen as well as boost usability and intuitive navigation. In addition, images improve the accessibility of UX design pushing the limits of perception for users who have natural problems with text recognition such as, for instance, the dyslexic or non-reading preschoolers.

The highest diversity here, perhaps, was featured in theme illustrations supporting websites and apps. They appeared to move to the next level, becoming more complex, sophisticated, stylish, and metaphorical.

Financial Service Website

Unframed layout

Big background images or patterns without any frames have been observed quite frequently in the web interfaces this year. It allowed users to feel the layouts more airy and spacious while the background image deeper and stronger not breaking the interaction with the feeling of boundaries or limits.

Big City Guide

Variety of interface animation

As well as in the previous year, 2017 didn’t experience any loss in the issue of interface animation. Not only does it add life and motion to the interaction process but also significantly improves usability. User experience becomes more informative and engaging while manipulations with the elements of interaction get more clear and respond to the user in an understandable way. So, this year designers worked well on a variety of buttons, tabs, charts, preloaders and scroll animations.

Watering Tracker App

UI-friendly branding

2017 could be definitely mentioned as the year of rebranding: a big number of global and local companies, products, and brands changed their logos mostly towards simplification of forms and details. One of the reasons for the trend was striving for better usability and navigability of brand elements as more and more businesses competed for the higher online presence. So, both new and redesigned logos were created to be more UI-friendly and effectively perceived on a variety of digital devices and layouts. Furthermore, animated logos became a trend making symbols more interactive and strengthening brand awareness.

Whizzly Logo Animation

Monochrome UI

Growing interest in minimalistic design for maximum functionality resulted in a considerable presence of monochrome UI solutions. These layouts usually look stylish, harmonic and non-distractive. However, designers have to invest much time and effort to make them not boring while the core elements of interaction instantly visible.

Jewellery E-Commerce App

Progress of dark backgrounds

Mobile and web interfaces applying color palette with dark background have not only saved but also grown their presence. In particular, they are often applied in digital products based on visuals rather than copy. Dark backgrounds are traditionally associated with grace and prestige, they deepen the perception of images and can make the interface less contrast and more natural to see in different environments. Moreover, this approach now corresponds to preferences and expectations for quite a broad target audience who like this style.

Cinema App

Light space for copy

Another trend got especially popular for interfaces based on the dark background scheme. It featured one more approach to proper readability in them which is often the issue of debates: applying boxes or spaces with a light background for core data blocks, designers solve this problem and add elegant contrast to the screen or page.

Watering Tracker App

Sophistication and contrast in fonts choice

With numerous new fonts created around, user interface designers have a broad field for creative experiments. Today typography is seen as not just the means of communication and sending a message to the user but also an integral part of all the design concepts. So, professionals pay much attention to the choice and combination of fonts. This year we experienced new approaches to setting contrast with serif and sans-serif fonts making them work for strong visual hierarchy and appealing beauty of the interface.

The Gourmet Website

Experiments with grids

With over a billion websites coming into play, designers have to be more and more creative to make them both attractive and original. So, experiments with grid also won their place in the list of general design trends of the leaving year. The custom grid is the way to save the feeling of harmonic layout and placement of the elements with a higher level of flexibility and originality. However, this sort of creativity requires thorough research while the effective result often comes via several iterations tested and analyzed in terms of usability and visual perception.

Variety of landing pages

No doubt, this year landing pages have witnessed the new lap of their development and diversity. Businesses and social projects tend to use them regularly for effective presentation of special services, sales, offers, or issues striving for focused user’s attention. Landing pages also have proved themselves as an effective method of promotion for native mobile apps. Based on user and market research as well as testing, they can be defined as a user-friendly trend, providing necessary information and interactions in clear and accessible way saving users’ time and effort. From the business perspective, they also work well, giving companies the flexible tool for original and effective communication with better targeting.

Digital Agency Landing Page

Creative parallax

With more accessible and improved tools for motion design,  scroll animation saved its positions of broadly applied technique both for in web and mobile. Creative and original parallax enhances scrolling experience making it natural for the human eye and adding grace for such a basic operation.

Mood Messenger Landing Page

Promo videos for web marketing

Different types of promotional videos were boosted to appear on screens and pages. No wonder as they serve efficiently for marketing goals and increase brand awareness. A creative and catchy video is a good way of attracting customers’ attention and the proven method of informing them quickly and brightly. A video activates several channels of perception — audio, visual, sound — simultaneously, and enhances them with the power of storytelling. All the mentioned factors tend to make the presentation via video strong and memorable especially if based on high-quality graphic design and animation. People are daily overloaded with tons of information of all kinds, so most of them aren’t ready to devote much time learning about products or services, especially the new ones. In these conditions, videos have become the way of communication which is dynamic, informative and attractive. However, the issue of loading speed for a webpage moves forward and should be tested carefully for on different devices.

Promo video design for Binned

Gamification mechanics supporting UX

This year has witnessed a growing interest in gamification applied in a variety of interfaces, not only for entertainment but also for utilities and business products. In the tech world, the word “gamification” stands for the technique of exerting game mechanics into the non-game environment, such as websites and mobile applications. Challenges, rewards, points, badges, leaderboards and other stuff of this kind help designers to think over the ways of effective user motivation and retaining.

Upper App

Boxes and cards as layout elements

One more trend in UX design of 2017 moved around the diversity of cards and boxes in web and mobile layouts. They played their essential role in setting visual hierarchy and making the pieces of information quickly scannable. Moreover, they successfully contributed to the general harmony and shapeliness of a page or screen.

StarDust Biker Website

Geometric elements as a part of style

Supporting the previous trend, geometry vibes got featured in many interfaces this year. Variety of simple and complex shapes, patterns, lines and curves has been found in numerous design solutions on both traditional and innovative combinations.

Wedding Theme

Experimental color palettes and combinations

The trend of color probes hasn’t lost its popularity, bringing out new original combinations. No wonder, color is one of the most powerful ways to add quickly perceived message and mood to an interface as well as make its looks original and attractive. Anyway, effective color experiments are not just pure creativity: even the most creative and surprising combinations are based on the knowledge of color theory, color psychology and virtuosity of user interface designers.

Book Swap App

No Lorem Ipsum

This year has continued the increasing attention to content quality and performance. In user interfaces, content and design and interconnected: creators have to make them successfully support each other instead of fight for users’ attention. That’s why today more and more designers prefer real content instead of well-known Lorem Ipsum, even in cases of initial ideation for design concepts. It gets designers, clients, and content makers closer to real experience and natural feel of interactions.

Dating App Landing Page

No doubt, 2017 was the year of diversity in interface design – and this can be called one of the most user-friendly trends. Every day millions of users, having different tastes and preferences, various favorite styles and characters, particular feelings of what is comfortable and looks nice for them, use simple and complex apps and websites as a part of their routine. The more variants of looks and features will be designed, the wider range of diverse options that endless global community of technology users will get to find the one which fits their specific needs and wishes. Anyway, soon we’ll see what the next year will bring out and what new creative challenges it will set for UX designers.

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение Review of Prominent UI Design Trends in 2017 появились сначала на Design4Users.