Do Design Trends Really Matter?
Many of you are familiar with the wave of design trend reports and predictions that surface at the start of each year. Some are built off the foundation of previous years’ successes, while others are wildly experimental — continually pushing the boundaries of our carefully plotted guides and principles.
While such forecasts are often useful, as a Product Designer it can be challenging to make updates to your product based off what’s hot — Brutalism anyone?
Here at Creative Market, we’ve been spending a lot of time discussing design trends and their impact on user behavior. Based on our research, we’ve identified a series of UI and IxD design patterns that should help futureproof any design you’re currently working on.
Illustrations
Illustrations are not only helpful in making your website or product more distinctive, they also serve as a means of creating a unique personality for your brand, which in turn, leads to more delightful and memorable experience for your users.
Introducing UI elements with supporting illustrations can provide users with a greater sense of context and brand recall as well as drawing the eye to the UI element.
Diversity
We’re fortunate to be living in an age that recognizes and celebrates our differences. Our users aren’t cookie cutter, so why should our design solutions be? Whether we’re creating illustrations, choosing imagery, or defining user pathways, we should consider it our responsibility as designers to accurately represent these diversities wherever and whenever possible.
Storytelling
Visual storytelling is a great way to convey difficult concepts to users. Through the utilization of motion design, we can transcend our audience types, providing users of all backgrounds with the understanding they need at a glance. Most users today have limited attention spans, so using animation to help tell your brand story is a great tool to keep in your arsenal.
Functional animations (or micro-interactions) can provide users with instant feedback, making the experience feel more immediate and impactful. These animations should always be subtle and seamlessly integrated into the UI.
Contextual Navigation
A number of sites today offer additional context within their navigation menus in order to establish user expectations prior to actual click-thru. These descriptive elements may include illustrations, photography, or icons and generally serve as a means of orienting the user to the different categories or sections contained on the site. While certainly not a must-have, these delightful, unexpected features, often lead to additional user engagement.
Guidance
Designing systems to provide guidance to our users at the onset has become a commonly adopted solution across many products. These onboarding or guidance tools are not only a way to ease users into the product, but also provide the opportunity to add value to their experiences by enhancing their personal perspectives of the service.
Structuring onboarding so users can understand the benefits of the product while capturing their information in a conversational setting, can serve as a means of creating a more personalized experience early on.
Experimental
Go bold or go home. Bigger, bolder fonts and larger headlines set up the space for a lot of text heavy layouts. More sites are experimenting with editorial-style or custom fonts with creative layouts and placements involving imagery, and bolder variations in alignment and kerning.
Similarly, there is a push to explore alternative layouts — some treatments are asymmetrical, some offering an overlap of elements — each give a visual impression of pushing the boundaries of our existing grid systems.
Responsive
The proliferation of mobile devices has led to some interesting UI design choices. Some of these mobile design patterns have begun to seep into the desktop space as well — more for stylistic reasons than due to viewport size limitations. Some examples of these include burger menu, drawer slides, and anchored navigational elements which are common UI patterns in mobile, but are now being implemented more and more across both breakpoints.
Logos are another interesting example of how going responsive has crossed over to areas that aren’t exclusively mobile.
So do design trends really matter?
Yes…. aaaaaand no.
As Product Designers, we should take design trends into consideration, but always focus on delivering the best possible experience for our end users. Asking the following questions can act as a springboard for evaluating which trends to follow, and when to leave well enough alone:
- Will this trend improve the usability or overall experience of my product?
- How will this trend affect our current user base and conversion rates?
- Can this trend scale with the life of your product? Can it evolve easily?
- What is the end goal for implementing a change based of this trend?
- How can you test the success of this trend?
Iterative product design should always remain focused on function over form. By making these connections between design trends and the goals for your users, product, and overall business, you will develop the habit of approaching your work with a more thoughtful mentality — always ensuring you’re keeping your users top of mind.
How do you use design trends in your product work?
We’d be happy to hear your thoughts. Please feel free to share in the comments below and let us know what you think! 🤘
We’re always looking for amazing people to join the Creative Market team. We value our culture as much as we value our mission, so if helping creators turn passion into opportunity sounds like something you’d love to do with a group of folks who feel the same way, then check out our job openings and apply today!
