Top UX Trends To Follow For Best Design

Trends come and go. Some fade away as if they never touched our lives, some stay and change the course of history. Here are our picks for the most influential and ‘must-be-practiced’ UX design trends to follow in 2018.

Neural Networks

Neural networks are machine modelings of the human brain. Cousins to AI, they are the next big thing in changing our interaction with technology. Already, Facebook and Instagram are using neural networks to enhance their user experience. Neural networks have been here for quite some time now, but the recent breakthroughs have turned them into Tech-divas. The next-gen neural networks will not only simulate our mental nerves but also be able to register emotion and mimic what and how we FEEL things. As Chase Buckley puts it, ‘they will be neurotic networks.’ That means you control what your users experience while using your app. Facebook accomplished the very same thing by experimenting on their users and learned they could make Facebook users feel good or bad by modifying their news feed. Get your hand dirty with neural networks today, if you want to dominate the world of tomorrow.

Design Feeling

If you wish to keep your job in the coming years, you need to adapt to Design-Feeling.

Designing is often perceived as a process, while it’s not. Design is art and art is everything that is emotion. Gone are the ways when web-pages or app layouts were designed to appeal logic but show no emotion. That bred homogenous designs and dull, lifeless products. The raison d’être of Design Feeling is to invoke passion, creativity, indulgence, and impulse.  Some of the great websites and apps cajole emotional responses by a mere ‘That’s great’ or ‘wow’ or keep users emotionally occupied by more creative ways.

Get inspiration from these websites and mobile applications:

24/7 Happy, Paper Plane, Citymapper

Voice-User-Interface

2018 will be 5 steps more closer to touch-less interaction. Voice-User-Interface, VUI, have greatly replaced ‘tapping-and-touching’ interaction. Organizations like Microsoft with their Cortana, Apple with their Siri and Amazon with Alexa are pioneers in generating screenless experiences. Gartner said that by the year 2018, VUI is expected to replace user interaction with technology by an increasing percentage of 30%. No matter the potential, VUIs are not likely to fully replace GUIs because of the limited use of capacity like conversing with a VUI in a crowd, etc but are still a force to be reckoned with.

In-App Gestures

Gestures are the new cool kids on the mobile app development block.  After Apple’s dominance of multi-touch technology, which enabled users to pinch and swipe, Gestures bid farewell to the ‘clicking-days.’ Not only are gestures popular but they are very convenient and entertaining for mobile app users to register emotional responses. Nowadays, a mobile app is highly dependent on the level and quality of gestures used. In-App Gestures enhance on UX by making the app more content-focused and do not distract users from the main task. They provide more space by eliminating the use of buttons.

A minimal design with maximum interaction, that’s what Gestures are all about. As long as interaction is dependent on touch, gestures will continue to raid the spotlight.

Rumble Strips

Funny reading about rumble strips on a UX trends article? Laugh it off because this could be the best thing you ever learned. Rumble strips are typically found on freeways and highways to jolt sleepy or unattentive drivers back to their lane. Similarly, with so much spam, malware, viruses and what-not on the internet, you could implement a mechanism that would warn users of taking a potentially harmful action. Preferably through haptic feedback or a tactile vibration.

Rumble strips could be added like plugins for users to install and work automatically to prevent users from having a negative experience like wandering off to the land of malware and spam. Also, Rumble Strips could be used to keep weary users attentive, like guards who monitor screens often fall asleep. Only the wise UX designers understand the importance of rumble strips. Are you one of them?

Progress Bars

Moving closer to 2018, Pioneers of the technological Industry, have realized that the more natural a user experience is, the more satisfaction it derives. Measuring user progress has been neglected by paramount levels. We experience everything in the world as connected series of events. Then why should our progress be measured in broken up steps.

As Chuck Beckley, A design Evangelist says, ‘Progress is a spectrum, not a bar’  And I could not agree more. LinkedIn displays an illustrious example of progress spectrums in play.

The idea of using Progress Spectrums might sound a little feeble to you, but mind you,

its always the little things that matter! So gear up on using these instead of measuring progress step-by-step.

Conclusion

No matter what turns and trends the future holds, UX is going to be a part of all IT endeavors. Whether its mobile app development, creating website or even hardware related projects, providing excellent and flawless User experience will always take the lead. Satisfied users bring satisfying results.