10 UI Design Trends for Web and Mobile You Should Stay Updated With

Trends keep changing with time. With 2020 round the corner, it’s time again to discuss the upcoming trends that user interface (UI) designers are expected to bring to the table.

The UI is a significant part of any website or app which needs to be aesthetically pleasing, engaging, easily accessible, and functional.

In this blog post, we’ve put together some of the hottest UI design trends for websites and mobile applications. While some of these trends have already established themselves, the others are gradually evolving and will find a solid foundation in the next year. Keep reading and get inspired!

What Influences UI Design Trends?

Customer satisfaction is the ultimate goal of a user interface. Whether it is optimizing the positioning of objects, improving the appearance, or simplifying transmitted information, the needs of the users is the main factor that influences design trends.

As the digital space is constantly changing, today designers need to focus more on solving real human problems when it comes to user interface designing. This requires staying ahead of the curve by keeping abreast with the ever-changing technologies.

Latest UI Design Trends worth Your Attention

1. Storytelling
Thesis description is now completely out of trend. To the replacement will come catchy and emotional storytelling. It attracts users and potential customers to the brand and engages them to the history of the project so that they don’t end up returning to the search.

This involves writing paragraphs even on the main page to deliver the necessary information to the users who are now ready to spend more time to clearly understand and get familiarized with a brand or product, the team, and reviews.

2. Minimal Navigation Elements
The trend of direct access to the navigation bar is slowly changing. The key tabs are now hidden behind the “Menu” button. Only the more relevant and necessary information is being placed on the screen while the user can access the entire navigation panel when required. Also, with the limited space on mobile screens, designers are experimenting on UI interactions without buttons. This approach is being considered as the initial step to the development of virtual interfaces that are based on gestures only. Therefore, using small icons, developing small panels and including few key gestures are one of the growing trends of a user interface.

3. Animations
Animated illustrations are another upcoming trend in UI design for the web and mobile as these are one of the most effective ways to transfer information. Next year will see some interesting changes in the interface of smartphones too, and companies demanding for more sophisticated animations even for the simplest elements will be on the rise. As a result, developers will be expected to invest more effort in the smallest details to give individuality to each product and attract user attention quickly.

4. White Space
Minimalism has been creating trends for many years but one of its key components, white space, is nowadays gaining momentum in design. You will notice a growing trend of home page designs that includes just one slogan. Contrary to the idea that such pages are less effective due to lack of information, it is seen that they are now drawing more attention from users.
However, information requires being located close to each other to be effective enough. This is why the key elements of a page should be properly highlighted using colours, patterns or animations that serve as the foundation behind which the detailed information is hidden.

5. Augmented Reality or AR
The main goal of AR is to speed up the process of the acquisition of information and execution of tasks. It helps add the effect of immersion in a digital product. Users nowadays prefer engaging with highly optimized interactive applications that have the right placement of work items and appearance. This is something new to the users and companies can take advantage of a UI design for AR to impose certain desires on their customers. So, this specific development is expected to be one of the major trends of 2020.

6. Hero Illustrations
Images not only serve as an element of attraction but also help deliver the intended information more easily and effectively. Hero images improve perception and, therefore, have been used for web pages to provide better user experience in terms of navigation, content, and call-to-action buttons.

Coming to the trends, diverse digital illustrations are very popular in the recent year when compared to photos. This is because digital art offers endless possibilities with the other layout elements of any web page.

7. Gradients
This is an already established trend that will continue to remain popular in 2020. It adds vibrancy, uniqueness, and aesthetics to the design without creating a visual obtrusiveness. It’s time to work with duotones and more complex gradients. Depending on your product, gradients can be subtle, bold, mix or a blend of different shades to create new, unique colour combinations to give a distinct feel to the design.

8. Transparent Background for Navigation
Transparency behind navigation elements has been one of the hottest trends of this year and it will remain equally popular in the coming year. Instead of marking out special zones with a different background, designers are making the navigation legible and visible through a good level of contrast.

9. 3D Graphics
Various 3D graphics has seen rocketing growth in both web and mobile interfaces as they breathe life into your projects and make them pop. Although they require a lot more resources for developing as well as loading pages, there are several benefits that can’t be ignored. They transfer detailed information, increase competitiveness, simplify the perception of information, eliminate the need for physical prototypes, and make pages more dynamic and original. The users engage with such web pages and app screens from the first seconds of interaction as a result. So, there is no chance that this 3D trend will lose its importance any time soon. However, designers should not overdo it. Select the most basic elements to deal with loading time.

10. Full-Screen Video Content and Backgrounds
The integration of diverse full-screen video content and video backgrounds into web layouts is becoming more and more popular. It’s a great way to capture user’s attention, provide a promo or explainer view on the product or service, and create the right atmosphere for perception by providing core information. Video content based on high-quality animation, graphic design, and power of storytelling is helpful to increase brand awareness and achieve marketing goals as it is an attractive and dynamic way of communication.

The years pass and the design trends continue to adapt and evolve. Stay in tune with consumer behaviours and preferences to meet the various challenges of the ever-changing digital space. Note that the main trend of 2020 that’s worth your attention is to create user interface designs that eliminate waste of time at the user’s end while providing rich information that is easy to read and perceive. Remember to aim at saving user time when developing the UI design for your products.