They say if you love your job, you’ll never work a day in your life. And if you love UX design, visitors will never have to work a minute in the life of their visit to your site. And though year-after-year Brand Labs adds to its list the most notable and user-friendly design trends to help businesses stay competitive, a few tried and true have become the backbone of its repertoire.
But are design trends like fashion in that they are here today gone tomorrow? Fortunately, we say no. Sure, some become obsolete, but others just pick up where many leave off, becoming more robust, efficient and functional.
Here are a few of Brand Labs’ designers’ favorite enhancements that are cutting edge in the UX/UI realm that help users better enjoy (and navigate) eCommerce sites.
1. Parallax Animation: |
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Elements that move at unlike speeds relative to one another. This is a very widespread technique of creating effects and an illusion of depth. |
2. Comfortable Colors: |
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Today’s tech is more powerful than ever and this includes hardware. Having the ability to control bright colors and high contrast for those who find this distracting or fatiguing, now have the ability to soften palettes by using warm, earthy tones to make users feel more comfortable. |
3. Dark Mode/Low Light UX: |
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Dark theme is better for readability in low light environment and reduces eye strain by modifying the brightness to present lighting conditions while saving battery power by lessening the use of light pixels. |
4. 3D Colors: |
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Creates an overall more engaging, informative user experience through photorealism and 3-dimensional reality (without the kooky glasses) using shading to create depth on backgrounds and images, helping elements jump off the page. |
5. Minimalism: |
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UX design whose purpose is not to deliver a feature-heavy product, rather make the product leaner and amplify its functionality through the philosophy that going the extra mile with design might not actually make a product better. |
6. Abstract Illustrations: |
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The rise of custom, more engaging imagery that span the playful to the sophisticated, have organic texture and a sense of the human hand having created them are quickly replacing standard vector graphics and cute illustrations. They are cleaner, avoid stock imagery, can be tailored to better fit the company brand, and are more welcoming due to their natural feel. |
7. Accessibility: |
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Not really a trend, as optimizing websites so they are accessible to all is here to stay, and it will only be more accommodating. Today, it’s about ensuring website elements like image captions, color contrast, and font selections are cognizant of all users. |
8. Micro-animation/Interaction: |
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The concept of interacting with the user through small things, from drawing a user’s focus where they want it to go, helping progression through a task or form, providing feedback, answering questions, and even just entertaining |
9. Gradients: |
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An oldie but a goodie, color gradients (a gradual blending from one color to another) are not a new design concept, but are very much having a moment right now and is a way for designers to add depth and interest while creating a sense of proximity and distance to images as well. |
Trends can be really fun to see and act on, but what’s more important is looking at longevity. Some trends are not made to last, so it’s important to be selective with the trends you implement. If the trend doesn’t go with your brand or business goals, you should definitely skip it.
Thinking a new trend might be a missing element keeping your site from maximizing its potential, or trying to figure out which trends make the most sense for you? Get in touch with us today!
These (and more) are just the tip of the design iceberg at Brand Labs.