New Year Edition: Top UX/UI Design Trends Rushing to Us in 2021
By: Dana Kachan
Tags: UX Design, UI Design, Trends, UX, UI

The Earth is now completing the full orbit around the Sun and going to enter the new year. We all have experienced events that will leave nobody the same as before. Things across different industries have changed, as well as the design for mobile and digital web experiences.

The voice tech innovations flashed a new understanding of how the user wants to interact with digital products. The full-screen interaction, voice commands, low contrast gradients, a lot of animation, and more — we anticipate a lot of new amazing digital trends in the upcoming year. Just like a phoenix, the UX design is now striving to be reborn in our minds into something even more exciting and breathing with the innovation of 2021.

How will UX design change? Join our discussion about the top trends to learn more about it and share your thoughts with our community in the comments below (we want to hear you too!).

Motion Graphics: Design That Breathes with Dynamics

The animation is still breathing dynamics into user interfaces in the upcoming year. Contemporary users consume increasingly more information in digital space. They don’t want to spend time reading bad-structured texts without relevant visuals. People prefer information spiced up with animation and unobtrusive micro-interactions. These techniques turn data into better-digestible content, facilitate comprehension, and make the user interface feel more natural.

Consequently, we expect to see the rise of website animation, new dynamic effects, and mobile interactivity. In-app and site motion graphics will amaze us by its “intelligence.” It will react to the user interactions and will help navigate the UI.

Bike Configuration by Den Klenkov for Fireart Studio

Medical eCommerce catalog interactions by Eugene Paryhin for Fireart Studio

In 2021, motion graphics will transform the UX by…

attracting attention to what should be done or what will happen next;

creating fluid and visually pleasant transitions;

bringing aesthetical delight to users;

guiding us through complicated operations;

confirming actions during the user journey.

Mona Microsoft A.I. — Play Music by Aurélien Salomon

Voice Innovations: Even Louder and More Amazing Than Before

Voice visual design for brand CGI by Gleb Kuznetsov✈

Users are becoming more and more bored with the usual touchable screens. They want alternative interfaces allowing them to control devices with voice. The opportunity to interact with digital experiences via voice commands opens new horizons of user-product relationships and daily operations, making them much more convenient and natural. Voice-driven user interfaces are the next step in UX design.

Voice tech brings us even more convenience. However, it doesn’t mean that it extends our comfort zone. On the contrary, it allows us to step outside our many-year digital habits and try something completely different. Yes, it’s more convenient, but it’s also more disruptive for most of us at the same time.

Realistic Textures: So Real That You Want to Touch Them

JU. — Abstract Art by The Glyph

Users don’t love sleek and pixel-perfect mobile app design and web design as before. Today, people want a pinch of something authentic, realistic, and even “raw.” Thus, realistic textures are becoming even more trendy in 2021. We will see them on the website backgrounds, mobile UI design elements, and other digital platforms.

In 2020, the flat design has been taking over. On the contrary, the perfection of vector design takes a backseat while realistic textures are gaining popularity in 2021. This year, we’re going to meet more “organic-looking” digital designs that bring us back to the roots, instincts, and offline-like interactions.

Full-Screen Performance

New designs for new mobile devices will likely surprise us with immersive full-screen performance. Every year, the screen sizes are getting bigger, while the user’s attention spans are becoming shorter all the time.

The only chance to grab the user’s attention and avoid the increase in bounce rates is by making an immersive interface. This trend will open a whole new world of digital interactions that are free from distractions and a lot of limitations.

We used to see notification bars on the top. That’s one of many distractions that a full-screen display overcomes. We also anticipate the begging of the new era of foldable devices in 2021. Foldable mobile devices are another vast area for the evolution of full-screen user experience design.

Dark Mode: We Still Love The Dark

What to do, people still love the Dark. Sure, we mean the Dark Mode, one of the biggest UI/UX trends in the upcoming year. Dark UIs are usually modest, elegant, stylish. They make intrigue and add charm to a digital product.