As 2021 is coming to a close, we are taking the time to review some of the most notable trends for the upcoming year. These past couple of years serve as particularly strong evidence of the constant and fast development happening in the UX/UI industry — both in terms of technologies and design trends implemented. Explorations are unfolding in all sorts of directions — some short-lived, some reimagined, and some recurring with a greater focus than ever before. Below we present to you in greater detail some of the explorations that will stick throughout 2022.
Supersized typography
The big typography trend from past years is just getting bolder and sizes are going up! Stylish hero sections with big bold typography and little to no imagery will be everything in the following year.
Designers and users alike have become increasingly accustomed to big typography standing loud and proud, front and center on their landing pages. Be it large and grotesque sans serifs or contemporary and lux serifs — the bigger the better is what this trend is all about. With a careful selection of fonts, websites are making bolder statements than ever, to catch their audience’s attention and to communicate their messages effectively.
These typographic choices are further brought to life with engaging animations. Designers are implementing creative effects that make the typography move and interact with the user through their mouse movement or while scrolling down the page. With bold, animated, and interactive typography as the centerpiece, many websites also do without the use of any background images — for a clean and sophisticated look.
So be sure to give this trend a try; blow up the text size and place it over some imagery (or don’t!), animate your large titles, and let your users have fun with it. Most importantly, don’t be afraid to make a bold and loud statement, one that will catch the user’s attention instantly.
Retro UI Comeback
After two very isolating years filled with uncertainty and grimness, we have learned to seek out and cherish any occasion for happiness and enjoyment. The digital spaces we spend much of our isolated time in are no exception to this phenomenon.
Companies and designers have been responding to this demand by taking a big inspiration from the 80s and the 90s; bringing back colorful, textural, and retro motifs with a hint of modernity for an authentic look. Vibrant colors paired with pastels, quirky typography, textured backgrounds, off-grid object placement across the page, unconventional imagery, and quirky illustrations are only some of the things that will be catching a lot of your attention in the following year.
With everything going on, we would go so far as to say that everyone has learned to take themselves less seriously over the past few years. This has afforded us the wiggle room for more experimentations and certainly more enjoyable outcomes — in design and beyond. That said, designers have felt compelled to move away from plain and pragmatic user experiences in favor of fun, funny, and even silly interactions. As surprising as it is, making someone smile might just be the way for your website or app to leave a strong and memorable impression.
Neo-Brutalism
The brutalist design draws inspiration from the brutalist architectural movement of the 1950s adopting its unfinished and rugged look and the almost purposeful ugliness of the movement. Much like in buildings, brutalism in websites exposes and deconstructs (and even celebrates!) the underlying structure and materiality of the medium. The rawness, boldness, and reactionary nature have kept the brutalist design on the fringes of digital space ever since rawness was all there is to the internet. Yet, over the recent years, brutalism has been making a slow but steady resurgence, now branded by some as Neo-brutalism.
With the internet becoming ever so saturated with clean and conventional websites, it becomes challenging for individual websites to stand out. Turning to brutalism to provide honest, raw, but also unique visual experiences might just be the way to elevate your next website.
Gridless layouts, intense color palettes, overlapping elements, and crowded and almost chaotic designs are only a part of your brutalist toolkit. Combine them with monospaced and oddly sized typography, lack of or minimal navigation, and what is the equivalent of an “open floor setup” with no additional “rooms” or subpages, and you’ve got yourself a striking brutalist look.
Of course, there is a little more to it, but the defining rule of brutalist web design is that there are no rules; it reacts against the established rules and conventions. More importantly, you need the strength of meaning and intention to differentiate your brutalist masterpiece from yet another poorly designed website.
Native desktop apps
Web and mobile apps such as Figma, Todoist, Slack, and Messenger, among others, are focusing their time and efforts on desktop native versions.
More and more apps seem to follow suit as research reveals that users feel more comfortable and safe that way. They want their apps away from the internet browser and away from all the opened tabs, and back in designated app windows that feel more spacious and focused. Not having to handle tens of distracting tabs while using these apps undoubtedly feels like an improvement! Plus, having the notifications come directly to the desktop, certainly improves our notification management.
Localized User Experience
Using insights from the field of human psychology, as well as usability testing, design research teams have been able to shape interfaces so as to provide utmost satisfaction and a pleasant user experience. This has been at the core of user experience design for a couple of decades now.
With rapid technological advancement, we have seen an unprecedented increase in the fidelity of digital product experiences. This development has also provided a new understanding of the nuanced differences between various user demographics. Differences in age, culture, geography, daily habits, societal structures (among other things) can lead to significantly different expectations about what constitutes a satisfying user experience. As such, these experiences require, perhaps similar, but certainly not the same design approach.
With the technology and research methodology in place, we are beginning to see multiple variations of a product being launched to cater to separate user demographics at the same time. With many big brands pushing to expand their user audiences, creating localized variants of a product experience will likely become a big trend — if not the standard.
Honorary Mention: Inclusivity
More than just a trend, inclusivity is a mode of operation; an undeniable and vital aspect of human existence and coexistence. In an increasingly globalized but complicated world, we are constantly made aware of the spectrum of differences between ourselves and other individuals, as well as between our and other communities. It is our duty to navigate these differences with empathy and to strive for meaningful inclusion of all cultures, genders, sexualities, races, abilities and disabilities into proper global society.
With the digital space spearheading our world’s globalization, it has unsurprisingly become the frontier of our inclusivity efforts, as well. Brands and companies are evermore expected to adopt an inclusive narrative and language, and to move towards more inclusive platforms, products and services. They are encouraged to push for diverse representation in imagery, language, and visual language — and to do so meaningfully, not purely for marketing gains.
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These are some of the trends and phenomena we expect to see more of throughout 2022. Remember that they are there to remind us of the general design tendencies at the moment. Use them to support and empower your design decisions, but don’t be afraid to challenge them or build off of them in creating more positively impactful experiences for everybody.
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Written by Maja Mitrovikj & Andrej Blazhevski UI/UX Designers at Codeart
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