UI/UX Trends 2021
We take a look at what’s been trending in UI and UX design as we head towards the halfway point of the year 2021.
But first, what exactly are UI and UX?
UI or User Interface Design takes a look at what a user is going to do on a website and designs features and elements, such as buttons, search fields etc to make their navigation easy to do.
UX or User Experience takes a look at the entire customer experience with a company or brand. Again the focus is about customers being able to reach their goals with as much ease as possible and so the two terms are often used interchangeably.
Trends 2021
Making it seem human. After living through pandemic lockdowns and isolation people are now seeking a more human touch. So hand-drawn, not perfect images give personality to web design. Including images of people interacting will also be a way to attract views.
Together with humanizing, personalization is becoming an important trend. If you are a Youtube or Spotify user you will be used to being offered viewing or listening suggestions tailored for you. Website interfaces can now change elements and appearance according to the user.
In order to offer a personal service to as many people as possible the website needs to be accessible to as many users as possible so those with impairments are now being considered in design elements which can include adding alt.tag text for those visually impaired or making sure a clickable area is larger enough for those with mobility issues to use it easily.
Animation continues to help brands tell their stories as it is seen as an effective communication for complex ideas. It is becoming more widely used in such things as micro-interactions e g interactive error pages. It’s also being seen in more and more creative website navigation with such things as both horizontal and vertical slideshows, scroll colour changes and other animations triggered by the scrolling.
3D continues to be a popular design choice, especially because of the rise of VR and AR. AR and VR both saw a lot of development because of Covid. They became necessary in some sectors, for example in the property sector for virtual tours etc.
Having just written so much about interaction and a human touch we are also seeing more methods of interacting with devices that don’t need us to actually touch them. Again this has been triggered by the pandemic and they include VUI (voice user interfaces) and air gesture controls which allows you to wave your hand over a device to control it. This method had already begun appearing on some smart phones although its usefulness is being queried.
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