Essential UX Design Trends for 2015 – Part.2
Latest News and Trends • 7th Jul, 15
Continuing on in the most innovative and useful tools and trends concerning UX designs, we have a look at five more important elements to implement for 2015. As with our previous look at the first five top design trends – many of these have been seen or released in 2014, but those will of course be more popular in 2015 due to the increasing use of mobile devices.
#6 Parallax Scrolling
Parallax Scrolling is one of those hot and impressive design trends that came out of 2014 but looks to be more popular and important in 2015. More and more internet access from mobile devices means that the act of clicking is slowly becoming extinct. Scrolling has very much taken over from clicking as most devices are touch screen – and this is where parallax scrolling is key!
Not only being imperative for users, parallax scrolling means that content is delivered seamlessly to visitors while more importantly cutting down on website load time. In the case of one-page websites, there’s no better design element than parallax. Information is presented and conveyed in an easy and simple storytelling fashion, making 2015 the year of extended use of the design feature.
#7 Content-focused Design
Heavily in conjunction with Typography (mentioned in Part.1); content is an all important feature of a site and 2015 will be the year that this becomes more highlighted through the use of content-first website design. The way which users consume your content, irrespective of the device being used, is one of the most important factors to take in consideration. Long gone are the dynamic menus, heavy graphics or “12pt” font sizes. Now designers need to make the core focus on making the site more readable, accessible and usable. Elements used should be aimed at decreased page load time with increased responsiveness, all without negatively impacting the complete and overall design aesthetic of the site, much in the vein of the default WordPress theme, Twenty Fifteen.
#8 Icons over Text
The use of icons has extended to be used in many more forms, from Infographics and sprite sheets to apps. Designers have started to produce a more lightweight and attractive look for icons, making them the perfect replacement for heavy images and traditional text labels. Just a quick glance from the user gives them an exact idea of what the functionality is all about. Icons therefore play a vital role in grabbing user’s attention and conveying an instant message or idea. Caution needs to be made about creating icons that might be ambiguous, so make your message, symbol and design clear and concise.
#9 Demand for Native Apps
The intense growth and explosion of mobile and tablet devices will see an increasing demand for native applications. Researchers say that users find it more comfortable to use native apps rather than accessing mobile optimized sites via the mobile browser. Push notifications, reminders and especially offline functionality make an app that much more successful and appealing, than a mobile-friendly/responsive site. Native apps more especially provide a smoother experience to users using app-specific controls, meaning it misses the risk of cluttering an already small interface. If a business has both a native app and responsive design – it should therefore be covered from each end.
#10 Personalized User Experiences
With an ever-growing need to obtain finer data – tracking users’ activity is now rated at an all-time high. Cookies are therefore being used on a much larger scale than ever before. Using cooking means large-scale quantitative data about users, such as browsing habits and where they may be located. There’s therefore an opportunity to personalize the user’s experience by providing relevant content. When used accurately, cookies give a great deal of flexibility to you, the designer. Personalized user experiences excite users and may be a determining factor behind higher conversions. A simple example of personalized UX in practice is YouTube, which takes advantage of cookies to remember viewed videos and may therefore generate relevant video recommendations.
The continuous evolution of UX design techniques means that the possibilities of what you may achieve with your designs are endless and ever growing. This directly impacts user interaction with the user interface. So while incorporating these designs, user experience should still remain first priority as you aim to enhance the interaction – user experience is after all about the human experience and not just technology.