Mobile App Development, Page 21 Category

UI design trends are ever-evolving owing to the transformative nature of the software market and the emergence of novel and advanced technologies. The design patterns that were highly popular in the yesteryears are most likely to be replaced by fresh and futuristic styles. Therefore, UI Design Companies, UI design services as well as UI designers must be well versed with the recent market trends to stay competitive.

Modern users enjoy the flexibility to choose from innumerable websites and applications for obtaining the desired service/product. Hence, businesses need to be extra creative, provide enhanced usability and a distinct visual appeal as well as offer new and exciting experiences to grab the attention of their targeted audiences.

Take a quick glance at the distinct and cool UI design trends that are dominating 2021! Adopting the right set of the latest design patterns will not only accelerate your UI designing abilities but also elevate your designing skills to the next level of excellence.

Glassmorphism is the most recent UI design trend and is garnering humongous popularity. Apple’s macOS Big Sur launched in 2020 and Microsoft’s Fluent Design System has adopted such a design pattern.

It refers to a frosted glass effect used for blurring out the background for providing transparency. It possesses a multi-layered approach with floating objects such that the users can see through the layers and can establish the hierarchy within the structure and the depth of the interface. This design functions best when several translucent layers appear on a colorful background. Vivid colors are utilized for highlighting the blurred transparency and a subtle light border is used on the translucent objects. And, for achieving the desired effect, only the fill needs to be transparent and not the whole shape.

Delivering an immersive experience via apps and websites is the trendiest practice of modern times. This is executed by employing 3D designs. The depth, special lighting effects, shadows, and textures offered by 3D designs make it possible for users to get an experience that is much closer to the actual world. Whether it’s through typography or illustrations, three-dimensional designs provide an additional dimension to the overall look and feel of the end-product. The increasing usage of augmented reality is one of the reasons that necessitate incorporating 3D designs.

The concept of mixed typeface is predicted to gain prominence in 2021. This phenomenon establishes content hierarchy to create visual interest and plays a major role in boosting the focus as well as the emphasis of a sentence or a title. The best practice is to select a ‘sans serif’ virtually and then merge it with a serif of your choice. This combination will not only function well together but also help you build a nice design. The ‘sans serif’ approach elevates readability as compared to serif and so such a practice perfectly befits the body of the text.

Interacting with voice interfaces is one of the hottest UX design trends of 2021. The voice interface is an internal one and is related to data synthesis and context. Applications that provide the service of translating words/sentences into the desired language are good examples of this kind of UX/UI design pattern. In such apps, the device starts recording a person’s voice after a button is clicked and then translates the speech. Thus, it becomes easier for individuals to communicate with others who speak a different language.

Simple web designs and minimalism rules the modern era and as such, the practice of using bright and flashy gradients is no more considered effective. This is because as gradients impart volume and depth to images, it is difficult to achieve the desired effect with screaming colors.

Hence, the practice of using pastel colors in UI design is gaining popularity. This helps in highlighting the unobtrusiveness and lightness of the UI design. Moreover, pastel colors perfectly fit into a wide variety of concepts and establish the ideal environment for various websites such as SaaS applications, eCommerce platforms, etc.

The usage of geometric structures in interfaces is an existing trend that is expected to expedite in 2021. Here, individual shapes are used for creating bigger and complex shapes for imparting a conservative as well as tidy visual structure. Several UI designers integrate this concept with the phenomenon of optical illusion for generating a memorable momentum.

Micro-interactions refer to the pleasing and delightful moments experienced by customers while using a product. These short moments add immense value to your product by offering a truly humane experience to the end-users. Such visual elements function best when combined with users’ action triggers. Micro-interactions prove beneficial as they enhance the usability of a product, promise an improved ROI, and work wonders in retaining customers and making a product popular.

The recent times are all set to launch feel-good designs that make use of colors in an unexpected and quirky manner. Designs that display pop art and comics are ideal examples of such statement designs. These innovative and fun-filled designs are sure to attract users and engage them in a meaningful way.

Emojis undoubtedly enable app creators to express a lot despite having a minimalistic UI design. This emotion–expressing concept makes an interface far more enjoyable and engaging. This is the reason why most popular apps these days have adopted this concept. Emojis are being used in empty states, onboarding screens, push notifications, dialogs, etc. by not only social apps, but also applications belonging to serious business domains like eCommerce, banking, and finance.

As the name suggests, this design seems quite unusual due to the usage of strong contrasts and unpleasant typography that might seem chaotic to many. This design often causes issues concerning readability and accessibility. Yet popular brands such as Foursquare and Dropbox have adopted such a concept. The primary objective behind employing such designs is to offer a deconstruction that is perceived as attractive and handy.

Well, what are your views about these refreshing and stimulating UI design trends? Please share your thoughts in the comment section provided below. If you are looking for assistance to decide on the right set of UI design patterns for your website or mobile app solution or planning to hire high-end UI designers; contact Biz4Solutions, a prominent and highly experienced offshore software development company, and reliable technology partner.

The journey from app ideation to prototyping – checking the relevance of the app idea before jump-starting the app development process – is one of the most crucial milestones for crafting an impeccable application. The reasons are:

However, to successfully prototype an app, you must be aware of the right steps. So, I have penned down the key steps involved in prototyping an application.

Prior to prototyping, check whether your app idea is financially promising and technically feasible.

The crucial questions concerning app ideation that should be answered during this stage are:

So, the very first step is capturing the app idea and visually representing it on a piece of paper. Paper prototyping should be kept simple without using any colors, or art and should include only a rough list of the doodles or features of the UI of the envisioned app. This is a rough visualization of the app idea that will be recreated as well as refined into digital format during the later stages.

For validating the effectiveness of your concept, one should conduct a mobile market analysis for understanding the following particulars:

This stage determines whether the idea is effective, is capable of competing with similar apps existing in the market and whether the app launch timings are suitable for its success.

The next step is to create relevant types of personas for subsequent testing processes. These personas represent the preferences, predicted behavior, values, etc. of the would-be app users.

A wireframe is a simplified, low fidelity outline of the proposed end-product comprising of words, lines, boxes, and even descriptions. It is simply the structure of the app designed by first formulating the requirements. User flows (the sequence of actions needed by the end-user for reaching their destination) are created for every major feature of the app. Wireframes are created either on paper or using the graphics editor software. Check out the key steps.

Now, develop a static prototype based on the outcome of wireframing. This stage can be executed alongside wireframing as well. Its prime intention is to establish and display the transitions amongst app pages.

The next step is conducting the A/B testing of this prototype. It involves creating interactive prototypes and sharing them with software industry veterans, volunteering individuals, and various personas that represent the app’s target audience. User testing helps in receiving feedback on the app’s crucial usability aspects such as:

Prototyping helps the investors get a real view and feel of the product. It allows the testers to get an idea about the app’s usability, and the developers to be well-versed with the intended UX prior to finalizing the design.

This stage involves resolving the flaws detected and revamping the app based on the testers’ feedback. This ensures that the app’s functioning is intuitive and convenient, and the app becomes more attractive to potential end-users in the future. Once this stage is completed, the prototype comes back to the testing stage and this cycle goes on till satisfactory outcomes are achieved.

Once all parties approve of the prototype, the app’s UI design is finalized. This includes finalizing the app idea, the shape of buttons, etc., and achieving a consensus on the use of colors. After the design creation process is completed, testing is conducted for checking the validity of the selected UI solutions and the appearance of the visual elements.

Now, it’s time to combine screens into a prototype; either a clickable one or one with arrows; for demonstrating it to the clients or potential investors. Remember to be transparent with them about whether the prototype is the actual functioning product or not. The key points to highlight in the demo meeting are:

After the demo, the customers would wish to make certain changes. These requested changes should be executed at the earliest and arrange for another demo. Once, the clients are satisfied, the finalized user flows are handed over to the developers for preparing the cost estimate.

Prototyping is undoubtedly a crucial aspect of the project planning stage and app creators shouldn’t ignore its importance.

Having trouble transforming your app idea into a fully functional app? Contact Biz4Solutions, a highly experienced offshore app development company. It is a leading firm offering mobile app development services that will be your technology partner all through your app development project.