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UI Design Trends That Make a Mobile App Popular

It’s not surprising that our galloping lifestyle inserts its amendments into gadgets and appliances we use every day. For instance, we can’t even imagine a single day without checking our mail box, hanging out on social sites, reading some blog posts highlighting the news essential for our personal matters, viewing a weather forecast for week end, chatting with our relatives living in other cities, listening to our favorite music and so on. Of course, all these would be rather awkward exploiting only our home or office desk computer as our boss wants us to be super efficient and when we come home we need to cope with all household chores and pay attention to each family member. Keeping in mind all these points our mobile apps become simply indispensable and a decent UI design is able to save us much time and efforts. As the market of smartphones, tablets and other portable devices continues to grow, new impressive, more and more convenient user-friendly interfaces emerge and are being implemented by the first-rate manufacturers, caring about their customers.

In our blog post we will try to enumerate the newest and the most apt UI design trends for mobile apps.

• Minimalism
  Impressive graphics, gradients, cool visual effects and artistic icons were excluded by the ultimate functionality and high intelligibility of modest yet stylish interfaces. Minimalistic approach is a great solution for mobile apps, although such layout may seem too simplified for some extremely demanding users. Nevertheless, practical customers aiming to complete their tasks rapidly and successfully prefer minimalistic UI without excess decorative elements, occupying the space on their screen.
• Skeumorphism
  The word itself supposes that familiar objects we use in our everyday life should find their reflection in digital interfaces of our mobile devices. Most of the users find the technique extremely helpful as the UI becomes highly intuitive and they don’t need to study tons of documentation on how this or that button works.
  It’s absolutely unnecessary to make the design skeumorphic to the bone and imitate the whole space around us, but incorporate separate recognizable objects helping the user feel comfortable and aware.
• Hidden Navigation Links
  The gist of this paragraph comes to cutting down the number of navigation buttons which should be present on the screen all the time, visualizing the others only in response to certain user’s action (click or hovering). The method enables to create the illusion of simplicity and avoid messy designs. The same principle works well when you conceal additional options or widgets under one link or Read more button.
• Content Styling
  It’s a well know fact that we grasp great amount of information better when it comes in tables, smaller blocks, entitled, listed and mixed with images illustrating the content. Style your content; make it easily readable and convenient for scanning.
• Extended Pages
  If content is closely related, it’s better to present it on one page no matter how long it is. Scrolling is habitual for users and can hardly cause their irritation. When the information is diversified nothing can prevent you from arranging it on subsequent pages.
• Space for Individuality
  It’s a good tone to provide the users with the possibility to customize their interface. Surely, some of them will be quite satisfied with your default settings, but a few personal strokes can make the client happy and involved.
• Images and Simple Words
  Images can explain better and faster than words, make use of this theory and you will be a success. Post short sentences and simple words as people are more likely to skip everything that steals their time and seems abstruse. This is true for various prompts and instructions: avoid complicated terms and vast technical details, make the users feel clever and able to fix what they need when something goes wrong.
• Make Complex Things Fun
  It’s great to provide tools which let the users make things they never experienced before in few easy steps. Even a kid can apply impressive photo effects if there are shortcuts facilitating the process.
• Unique Textures
  Beautiful textures can single out your application among the competitors. There are plenty of them to choose from: wooden, leather, paper etc. A carefully selected, custom looking texture will become you original brand feature.
• Attention Grabbing Splash Image
  When the user turns on a newly purchased mobile device, a start up image may turn to be a pleasant surprise forming his/her impression about the app and its manufacturer. Next time this launch image will smooth over the seconds of waiting till the gadget enters its operation mode.
• Smart Grids
  Instagram is a classic time-tested photography app appreciated by iPhone users. The app is spreading all over the mobile market now. The trend is being implemented by UI designers in different variation as a cool popular practice.
• Catching Interface Elements
  UI designers’ creativity and enthusiasm has no boundaries, especially now-a-days when technology has reached substantial heights. Custom design is always welcomed, unique elements mark out your app, stress its powerful points and draw users attention.
• Vintage Layouts
  Elegant retro designs are in vogue again. Their gentle colors and decorative elements feast the user’s eye and evoke the feeling of something warm, well-known and trustworthy.
• Glossy Magazine
  Ultra modern, fashionable interfaces reminding a glossy magazine are also on the peak of popularity. It is easy to read the information and turn over the pages like in the printed analogue.

Now let’s proceed to the practical part of our post, below you will find some amazing, cool creative UI designs for mobile apps. We hope the enumerated trends and striking visual examples will inspire you in future projects.

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