Top 10 Mobile App UI/UX Design Trends of the Year

【51CTO.com Quick Translation】UI/UX is the abbreviation of User Interface / User Experience, which is what we often call user interface and user experience design. Nowadays, from artificial intelligence to the night dark theme mode of Android 10 and iOS 13, the relevant technologies of application interfaces are constantly iterating and updating. Therefore, as developers, especially mobile developers, we need to be good at keeping up with the current design trends and continuously improve user satisfaction with software products. Below, we will discuss with you the UX/UI design trends of the top ten mobile applications of this year.

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1. Buttonless design

Samsung Galaxy S8 may be the first smartphone to get rid of the Home button. Nowadays, many phones are considering removing all buttons, even the volume and lock buttons. Without any buttons, the phone will rely entirely on the screen for various navigation. Therefore, when designing mobile applications, UI/UX designers must keep in mind that the application needs to adjust and adapt to hardware changes through in-app gestures to achieve smooth and button-free navigation.

2. Voice Powered Design

Nowadays, voice interaction has frequently appeared in our lives. In 2018, Google released the Duple product. It combines natural language processing, deep learning, automation, and text-to-speech.

When developing applications related to artificial intelligence or machine learning, UI designers must consider the real needs of users and possible technical constraints. By providing both text and voice input methods, the mobile application you design will be able to facilitate different users to switch and use freely in different scenarios.

3. Gradients 2.0

In 2019, UI/UX designs across industries have adopted gradient design styles. Bright and vivid colors with subtle gradient features, paired with simple layouts, bring harmony in depth and dimension to mobile app designs. By abandoning monotonous or grayscale color combinations, mobile app designers can use the warm effect created by such gradients to convey harmony and positivity to users.

4. Bottom Navigation

Over the past 12 years, the screen size of the iPhone has evolved from the original 3.5 inches to the latest 6.5-inch screen of the iPhone 11 Pro Max, allowing users to see a wider range of information and perform operations.

It’s obvious that as device sizes continue to change, the way we use devices must also keep pace. Since it’s difficult for users to easily reach the top of the screen, many mobile apps have moved the navigation bar to the bottom of the screen. It can be seen that only by paying attention to the subtle differences in this regard can mobile app UI/UX designers create better navigation flows that users are happy to experience and continue to use.

5. No Password Required

Just as a goldfish in a fish tank only has a seven-second memory, most of us find it difficult to remember overly complex passwords. In order to provide continuous data access, smartphones often provide new password-free methods to ensure user login and protect the data stored in the phone. By using biometrics such as fingerprint or facial recognition, and one-time passwords (OTP), users no longer need to force themselves to keep remembering all commonly used passwords. Obviously, mobile application designers should keep up with such UI/UX design trends and spend some time to make their application login pages more friendly, flexible and efficient.

6. Night dark theme

Let's take a look at the so-called "dark side". The night dark theme uses a low-light UI to display a dark user interface. From the user's point of view, dark mobile application themes not only help save the battery power of the phone, but also reduce eye fatigue.

Today, the new versions of Android 10 and iOS 13 have introduced a dark theme for the entire system. With this, users can switch all applications on their phones from light theme to dark at once. As the saying goes, "I have what others don't have, and I am better than others." When we are designing the UI of mobile applications, if we can call such interfaces or design our own dark themes, it will undoubtedly make the application icing on the cake. If you want to learn more about enabling dark mode in iOS applications, please refer to the tutorial: "How to Enable Dark Mode for Your iOS App" (https://dzone.com/articles/how-to-customize-dark-mode-in-ios-app-with-ios-13).

7. Device Independent

With the rise of smart devices (especially smart speakers and wearable devices), users are no longer limited to in-depth interaction through computer web interfaces and mobile devices. Today, users with multiple devices want to switch seamlessly between different media. Therefore, the current UI/UX design trend will mainly follow the usage trajectory of user accounts, rather than just based on a certain device. With dynamic and highly adaptable mobile application UI design, users will be able to more easily and smoothly perform various operational tasks on any of their smart devices.

8. Augmented Reality

Have you ever used smart glasses with relevant applications installed to predict how to place a new refrigerator in your kitchen to make it more beautiful? Have you used Google Maps with AR mode? Thanks to augmented reality (AR) technology, many mobile applications not only have cool service functions, but also provide fascinating UI/UX effects. In the past two years, the cost and complexity of designing and creating augmented reality mobile applications have dropped significantly. And in the design process, we can easily integrate existing augmented reality interfaces and services into our own mobile applications.

9. Microinteractions and animations

Microinteractions increase user engagement in the form of simple animations. Such animations should have the common characteristics of all good designs. In other words, microinteractions must not only be easy to use and not cause inconvenience to users, but also have rich and fascinating content. It is worth noting that those seemingly "exhibiting presence" infinite loop playbacks and harsh music sounds will make users unhappy. When designing, we should try to achieve seamless transitions in animation effects and maintain predictability in specific scenarios.

10. Support for foldable phones

Foldable phones are a newcomer in the smartphone market in recent years. Although users are full of expectations for their working principles and usage effects, many mobile application designers are cautious about them. In order to ensure smooth operation and a new user experience for users, UI designers should create applications that can be used with dynamic adjustments and multiple windows in their planning.

Summarize

The development of new technologies is changing with each passing day, but in the design of mobile applications, the introduction of new technologies does not necessarily guarantee an excellent user experience for end users. On the contrary, some new applications that are hastily launched are not only unhelpful in helping users solve real problems, but also reduce their patience during use. Therefore, in order to maximize the value of mobile applications, we must keep up with the development trend while fully considering the user experience in different usage scenarios when designing.

Original title: Top 10 Mobile App UI/UX Design Trends to Look for in 2020, author: Pradeep Makhija

[Translated by 51CTO. Please indicate the original translator and source as 51CTO.com when reprinting on partner sites]