7 Most Useful UI & UX Trends For 2022

Do you know if you invest 1$ in UX, you get 9,900% ROI?

UI and UX are key concepts in digital marketing, but they are still unclear to many. And even those who know these concepts are unaware of the current UI and UX trends favored by internet users.

This post is helpful to all of them. Things we will cover:

• What is UI Design?
• What is UX Design?
• The Difference Between UI and UX Design
• UI and UX trends 2022
• Examples to understand how to implement these trends.

Let’s dive in.

What is UI Design?

The term UI Design ( User Interface Design ) refers to the design of a user interface. It is a key element taken into account in the process of creating a website. UI design includes all the graphic and textual elements that allow interaction between the user and the website.

It comprises all interactive and clickable items, such as the site navigation bar, buttons or links, text colors, and styles.
The main purpose of UI design is to offer a fluid and intuitive navigation to the user so that the user’s experience becomes as smooth as possible.

“A good UI is intuitive, easy to understand, and attractive. It encourages Internet users to continue their website navigation and to visit back to the site more often.”

What is UX Design?

UX – User experience relates to the experience of users on a website. It is quite similar to UI but goes further in the process. The user is at the heart of all design strategies. UX ensures that the website design is pleasant and easy to use for the user. Its main motive is to make usage of websites comfortable and satisfying for internet users.

Some of the important elements of the user experience are:

• Credibility of the website: company’s real identification, genuine reviews, no errors, etc.
• Website’s appearance and efficiency: consistency in design, placement of elements, etc.
• Easy to find the information sought: internal search engine, content categories, etc.
• Ease of use: for example, a smooth ordering process for an online store
• Responsive Website Design: The ability to adapt to the different gadgets: mobile, tablet, laptop, large screens, etc.

The Difference Between UI and UX Design

Do not confuse UX design and UI design. UX Design takes care of how users feel about a product, UI design focuses on its design.

UI Design

To put it simply: UI design = design of the user interface.

UI Design focuses on the aesthetic aspect of the interface. It uses technical skills to shape the visual elements of an app or website when designing them. So, it mainly deals with the graphic environment of a product/service, such as the font, the colors, the typography, the flow of images, the organization of the structure, etc.

Its role is to visually or significantly improve an interface – to make interactions more pleasant.

UX design

UX design relates to the feeling and satisfaction of the end-user in interaction with the website/application. Its goal is to guarantee the user a positive impression throughout their browsing. It helps to understand and anticipate user needs. Also, it helps to create a pleasant interface, intuitive and accessible to your target.

UI and UX Trends for 2022

1. Dark Mode

Most people favor websites/applications in dark mode. It is becoming immensely popular. Social networks were the first to offer this mode and make it popular with millions of Internet users. Twitter since 2016, Instagram since 2019, and, more recently, Facebook since 2020.

Operating systems have also given in to the call of dark mode: Windows 10 includes a native dark theme, just like macOS since 2018.

Benefits this mode offers

Energy-Saving:

Your device’s screen is one of the most power-hungry components. Dark mode saves energy savings, especially if you have an OLED screen. This is because dark-colored pixels consume less power than light-colored pixels, about 20% less.

“Google performed tests using YouTube in dark mode and found power savings of between 14% and 60% (depending on screen brightness).”

Enhance Text:

Dark colors enhance bright light colors. So your text in bright light colors becomes more catchy and easier to read. Moreover, dark mode makes it easier to read content in low light. It also produces less blue light than classic mode.

Eye- Friendly:

Dark Mode reduces eye fatigue by simplifying the hierarchy of content and minimizing visual distractions. It, therefore, helps prevent headaches or dry eyes to a certain extent during prolonged use of a screen. This helps reduce the negative impact of screens on the sleep cycle.

Some Dos and Don’ts About Dark Mode

Where should we use it?

For applications/websites focused on entertainment (Netflix, YouTube, Spotify)
On an interface that is used all day long (messaging, intranet)
For a site that needs to bring out an image of luxury.
On websites that need to play on emotions (for example, to bring out a feeling of intrigue and mystery.

Where shouldn’t you use it?

For interfaces heavily loaded with text.
On websites with numerous forms.
For sites with a design that is too complex (set of textures or range of colors).
Websites that have many different types of content displayed at the same time on the screen (text, images, video, tables, etc.).

Key Examples of Dark Mode

2. Create Unique Animation illustration

Have you ever clicked a button multiple times, just because you liked the animation it caused? Every three out of five people prefer doing so, including me.
With advancements in technology, designers can now integrate quality animations without worrying about the loading speed of the web pages. That’s why now the UX process includes animated UI graphic creation.

The Benefits of UI Animation Concepts

Makes Interaction Attracting And Fun:

It is often said that a picture is worth a thousand words. If a picture is worth a thousand words, imagine how many words it can be worth when it comes to life – animation. Using animation will allow you to present your brand in a fun way. Moreover, with animation, you can avoid long texts on your interfaces that often bore visitors.

Guides Visitors:

Animations also act as guides during navigation. It facilitates the presentation of your site or your application. They draw visitors’ attention to the next step in the navigation. Or to the various steps to follow.

Highlight Your CTAs:

Animation allows you to highlight your most important CTAs effectively. It is a good way to perfectly highlight the action to be performed. In addition, it ensures that the message you wanted to convey went well.

Provoke Interaction:

Our eyes always turn to light, movement, and sound. If you stare at an almost deserted landscape, the slightest movement will inevitably catch your eye, and you will more easily distinguish it from the rest. That’s how animation guides the user’s gaze to important points on the journey. A highlighted text, an image displayed gradually, will create an offset with the context/background and allow the desired element to be highlighted.

Pro Tip: Here’s a detailed guide on how to use animations.

Some key examples of Animation Integration

3. Advanced Micro-Interactions

According to Dan Saffer, creator of the term, the definition of a micro-interaction is:

“Small moments during which the user and the interface interact. “.

A micro-interaction is a creative, short, and simple event integrated into a web or mobile interface to give it a dynamic touch and stimulate user empathy. This feature is used to:

• Explain to the user the action to be performed.
• Inform the user about errors that may occur during the interaction.
• Guide the user in an intuitive way during his interaction with the interface.
• Attract the user’s attention.
• Reward the user.
• Provide an entertaining environment while the customer waits for the system to accomplish a task.

A micro-interaction is integrated into the interface design and has three main characteristics:

• A trigger such as a hover, a click, a scroll, or even a page display that generates an action;
• Rules that define what happens, such as zoom, a shade, or appearance;
• The feedback to inform the user of what is happening or where they are in a process;
• Loops and modes, like a system, repetition, or cancellation action.

Importance of Microinteractions

The micro-interactions play a critical role in your user interfaces. They stimulate the user’s emotions to personalize their interaction with the interface. These objects entertain the user and bring more life to the UX experience. As a result, micro-interaction helps to enhance the link between the user and the product.

Common Examples of Micro-Interactions

• Scrollbar
• Digital alarm
• Pull-to-refresh animation
• A loader with a progress indicator
• Swipe animation
• An animated Call To Action button
• Animated emoticons in social networks, etc.
• Email notification

The best-known example is the thumbs-up of Facebook Messenger:

4. Artificial Intelligence

Harry West, Director of Frog Design, says:

“Artificial intelligence is no longer a technology of the future. It is the present.”

Artificial intelligence is developing more and more in our daily life. For example, we have all been targeted by advertisements on search engines (Bing, Google), in mailboxes (Gmail Outlook), or even on social networks (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter). All because of AI.

Moreover, brands are considering how to further improve customer experience. The AI ​​will be able to automate tasks thanks to predictive analyzes.

For example, chatbots on most websites allow users to get quick answers to their queries. The improvement of these bots will make it possible to advise better, which contributes to UX and also boosts conversions.

AI Components to focus on in UX

• Voice Search
• Chatbots
• Automation of tasks
• Personalization
• Advanced Visual Effects

You can read about these in detail in this UXmatter blog.

5. Scroll-Triggered Animation

In today’s highly competitive market, if you want to grow your business – you need to meet the changing expectations, behaviors, and interests of your audience. Scroll-triggered animation is a popular way to boost website interactions by improving the user’s interests.

Basically, it’s a technique to animate major elements of your website like – graphics, videos, photos, texts – giving them life as the user scrolls down a page. Scroll animations grab the user’s attention more easily – making your website appear more interesting, dynamic, and feel alive.

What Does It Look Like

The scroll-triggered animation has three main categories:

1. Moving The Background And Foreground – Also Known As The “Parallax” Animation:  Parallax animation adds a sense of scale to a website. Combining multiple backgrounds offers an illusion of depth and directional navigation.

2. Animation Of The Elements When Comes Into View:  When an element of a webpage comes into view, they start animating. For example, sliding texts, vibrating text, exploded view, self-filling graphs, etc.

3. The Scroll Triggered Video:  A scroll-triggered video is a better and more visually exciting method than over-animated texts. With it, visitors can control the playback of the video as they scroll through your website.

Why Use it?

• It makes it easier for you to grab your user’s attention to specific areas of your website. For example, infographics, special offers, call to actions.
• Scroll-triggered animation also boosts user engagement by offering visitors an active user experience.
• It also affects the loading time of your web pages. Instead of waiting for the whole webpage to load, the scroll animation enables the loading of only those elements that are needed.
• Scrolling animations prevent the visitors from getting lost in your website, by making the navigation extremely streamlined.

6. Voice User Interface

Voice user interface VUI is a trend that has been dominating since the starting of 2021. Here are some stats that reflect the popularity of voice interface –

“Around 122.7 million Americans will be using the voice search interface till the end of 2021″

Voice user interface guides users and helps them navigate through complex digital products reducing the substantial assistance from other features like screens.

In fact, by the end of 2020, 30% of the total Google searches were projected to be made without screens (using VUI).

The most significant benefit of using VUI is – “it eliminates the need for a graphical user interface, and improves the user experience of your app or website. Let’s discuss more such benefits of the voice user interface trends.

Benefits Of Voice User Interface

• VUI makes multitasking easier. Users just need to command the request, while doing whatever they want, and it will be processed automatically.
• The users will feel more engaged with your website as their navigation will be easier. All they need to do is command and that’s it.
• It also helps you improve the speed recognition skills of your website – it impacts SEO positively.
• And many more.

7. Glass Morphism

.This trend is based on the effect, which we are sure you will be aware of, “background blur”. It creates a “through the glass” look and feel on the elements of your website. In other words, it makes your elements appear glass-looking translucent by providing them with a well-defined hierarchy.

This trend was introduced in Windows Vista first and then later in iOS7. Moreover, the new macOS update which is also called macOS Big Sur also implemented this style. If you want to get to know about this effect more deeply and practically, you can try out this tool “Glassmorphism Generator ”.

 

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