People in Germany and around the world are spending more and more time in front of screens. Computers and especially smartphones accompany us everywhere and at all times. With the Corona pandemic, average screen time in Germany has once again increased significantly: from around 8 hours a day to 10.4 hours. This is what a Bitkom study from March 2021 found out. This means that it is becoming increasingly important for companies to present themselves professionally and attractively online and to offer customers a pleasant and carefree experience – so it is more important than ever to have a good UI/UX design.
But “good” is a rather meaningless word that is in a constant state of flux, especially in relation to design. Designers need to be familiar with this change. They need to know what users and other designers currently consider “good”. Therefore, we would like to present our selection of the five most significant UI/UX design trends for 2022. These trends already started to establish themselves in the past years and are expected to gain further importance.
#1 Animated illustrations
Illustrations have been a key design element for UI/UX for a long time. They illustrate written content and catch the eye of customers. With animations, UI/UX designers can now bring illustrations to life and add engaging character to your app or website, as well as the product being presented. The vitality of these moving drawings refreshes the customer’s experience on the otherwise rigid website interface.
#2 Micro-interactions
For good UI/UX design, there’s no way around micro-interactions – and in this case, “good” is not trend-dependent. Because even though you may not realize it, micro-interactions improve your personal user experience every day. They’ve long been used in nearly all apps and on many websites. The thumbs up on Facebook or the like heart on Instagram are well-known examples. When they are pressed, a sound comes, the color changes and there is a small animation. In this way, users receive feedback about whether an interaction was successful.
#3 3D graphics
New web browser features enable the creation of stunning 3D graphics that can be implemented in modern interfaces. While integration is complex, 3D graphics can take the user experience to a whole new level. Apart from the fact that using this new design technique gives your app or website a modern makeover, it also provides customers with an incredibly realistic experience. For example, products can be viewed in a 360-degree view. Until recently, this was only possible in a store – but now it’s also easy to do from home.
#4 Personalization
Sometimes too much of a good thing is just too much. The huge range of products and services on the Internet can seem overwhelming. For example, no one can keep track of the thousands of movies and series on streaming platforms like Netflix. When browsing the offer, users are in danger of drowning in the abundance.
This is where personalization can significantly improve the user experience. Based on collected data about the consumption behavior of the respective users, UI/UX designers can tailor the experience to them individually. Netflix, for example, displays suggestions for movies and series that are similar to the content streamed by users.
#5 Scrollytelling (scrolling storytelling)
Scrolling can do more than reveal the bottom of a website or app. Scrolling can tell stories. With scrollytelling, a website changes as users scroll further down – it comes to life. Text blocks, illustrations, and images appear and disappear. Users only see a small section of the entire website at any given time, which keeps their attention completely focused on that section. In order for the next part of the story to reveal itself, they have to keep scrolling. Step by step, users discover the website and have the feeling that they are interacting with it.
Scrollytelling keeps users on the website and makes them actually read it. However, it is important that only the most necessary information is included in the scrollytelling in a short and concise way. Otherwise, accessing the information is too inconvenient, and the user’s experience suffers.
These five UI/UX design techniques give you the opportunity to make your online presence trendier – and therefore also better. This will ensure that your customers and users spend a large portion of their daily ten hours of screen time in your app or on your website – happily and carefree.
If you want to learn more about UI/UX trends 2022, you can take a look at our latest whitepaper. There you can also learn why now is the perfect time to invest in a good and modern UI/UX design and how it will benefit businesses. You can easily download it here on our website.