While there is certainly admiration for those who forge their own path, it’s often prudent to follow current trends. This is true when it comes to the UI/UX design of your mobile app. Doing something unique and outside the norm may gain notoriety but it’s typically better to stick to tried and true methods of design. Design styles become trends for a reason: because they work.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at 5 UI and UX trends that should be on your radar going into 2022.

Minimalist Design

At one time, it was an accepted design practice to pack a lot of visually stimulating elements onto a single page.

This ideology has since been replaced with the pursuit of clean, minimalist designs. We now live in a fast-paced world, and users want efficiency. Instead of filling the UI with an abundance of content, the current trend is to use plenty of white space in between page elements to make the page easy to navigate. The key is to give the user exactly what they need, and only what they need on any given screen.

Dark Mode

Incorporating a dark mode into your UI is a trend that has been ongoing for several years, and it’s only becoming more prevalent. Many people use mobile apps in dark rooms, and a bright white background can be hard on the eyes. When you switch into dark mode, this eases the eye strain that users may experience and makes the app’s UI much more pleasant.

Not everyone wants dark mode, though. A well-done dark mode gives the user the option to switch between light and dark, so they can tailor the app experience to their personal preferences. This makes for great UX.

Bottom Edge Navigation

Navigating apps and websites used to primarily rely on navigation links or buttons along the top edge of the screen. On mobile, this evolved into the well-known “hamburger menu,” which appears as a button with three horizontal lines at the top left or right corner of the page.

The hamburger menu type is still very common, but a popular trend we are starting to see in UI design is the practice of putting navigation icons along the bottom edge of the screen. This is a great choice for the user experience because phones have become so large that most people cannot reach the top of the screen while operating the phone with one hand. This issue is solved if you simply put the navigation links along the bottom edge of the screen.

No More Passwords

Let’s face it, trying to remember the password to 50 different apps and services is frustrating. On top of that, passwords are not particularly secure unless they are backed up by two-factor authentication methods.

Most new phones these days come with some way to unlock your phone without the use of a password. This is primarily through fingerprint sensors, facial recognition, or iris scanning technology. With phones having these capabilities tacked on, the modern trend in UX design is to forgo the password for app login, and instead take advantage of the phone’s biometric hardware.

Augmented Reality

The implementation of augmented reality in UX design is becoming more common every day. This allows you to break free from the flat screen of the user’s phone and to have a portion of your app enter your user’s world.

There are many uses for augmented reality. It can be used to add game characters into the real world, as seen with the incredibly popular Pokemon Go. Augmented reality can also be put to more practical use by allowing the user to view what a product would look like in their home before buying, which is well-implemented by the Amazon app among others.

UI & UX Continue to Evolve

The trends in UI and UX design are constantly changing. An app designed five years ago would be considered to be poorly designed by today’s standards. Apps designed today will, likewise, be considered poorly designed in five years. This is why it’s important to keep an eye on current trends and follow them as best you can. If you don’t, you’re sure to fall behind.

If you want the peace of mind that your app’s UI/UX will be designed and marketed with current trends in mind, Camber Creative can help. We make sure we stay at the forefront of today’s trends, so you don’t have to.