Best UI/UX Trends for 2024

2024 is being seen as a very game-changing year for the UI and UX Industry. Not only it is being predicted that this year will give us lasting innovations in the way we perceive UI/UX design, but we are also seeing a shift from traditional design towards XR design and IoT design. There have been rapid changes in the field of UI/UX design and new trends came out that took this industry by storm. Trends are a great way to understand what’s happening in the industry and what the things that one should focus on to have more leverage in their job.

Therefore, In this article, we will discuss the top UI/UX design trends for 2024 as of now and what that tells us about where the industry of UI/UX design is going.

UI/UX Trends

Usability over UI

The three key factors that are given more emphasis these days rather then how the design appears are Effectiveness, Efficiency, Satisfaction or EES. Usability or User-centered design is the process of designing an application or a product while focusing on the needs and wants of the user and keeping user in the top priority then aesthetics, features or interactions. Usability or User-centered design ensures that the eventual application or website will be easy to understand and operate by the users. There has been a clear shift of designer focusing more on the functionality of a feature rather than adding features to make the UI look better.

Increased Web Accessibility

2024 as of now is seeing a lot more focus on the accessibility part of the design. Accessibility is the process of designing websites in an all-inclusive manner. In simpler terms, it means designing for everybody, keeping in mind the people who might have some special needs and taking care of those needs in the product experience and interface. The idea behind Accessible Design patterns is to have such design patterns that make the user feel comfortable and make them feel that the website or application is similar to most of the websites or applications they use in terms of interactions.

IoT UI/UX Design

IoT design is the new buzz word for the year 2024, as the number of Internet of Things increase and appliances become more smart, demand of IoT designers is increasing continuously. IoT Design or Internet of Things design refers to a process of designing the interactions for a user with an IoT device such as Smartwatches, Screens for smart cars, and other smart devices like Amazon Echo, etc. An IoT design enables the user to easily navigate through the interface resulting in higher user retention and user satisfaction and IoT UI/UX design is coming up as a good career to pursue.

Generative Design

Generative Design is the latest trend that has taken design industry by storm. Generative Design is a technique that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create Computer Aided Design. In simpler terms, Generative Design lets us designer create professional or semi- professional designs by taking a set of system design requirements as an input. With applications and processes becoming more automated and AI taking away jobs, as designers we can be future ready by learning how to use AI to our advantage or else we may get replaced by it.

3-Dimensional Animations

2024 is seeing a growing emphasis on 3-Dimentional animations rather than conventional animations that are in 2D. The creative movement of text or visuals in a web application to catch the user’s attention or bring the user’s attention to a particular component in the design is called animation. 3-Dimensional animation is simply any animation extended into 3 dimensions. A good emphasis is given by designers on 3-D dimensional design because it make the design more natural and more realistic for the user since our eyes are only habitual to see 3 dimensional objects all around us. Like we say, designing is all about capturing the user’s attention, so this makes it important to use some form of animation (whether 3D or 2D) to communicate the value of our business/our client’s business delightfully.

XR Design (Extended Reality design)

XR design or Extended Reality design is the process of designing the user experience for XR products and services. In XR design, we design user interfaces, interactions and experiences for products and services in the Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR) field. Similar to VR which is a part of XR, XR design is also booming, the reason being that demand of XR designers is a lot while the supply is quite less. There are high quality designs in the field making it quite popular among professional and aspiring designers.

Increasing Importance of Design Thinking

Rather than designing without any strategy, designers are not focused more on design thinking before starting the designing and ideating part. Design thinking is basically a creative way to solve problems. It is the sum of all the processes that results in designing of a prototype, The most important skills for design thinking are – having empathy for the users and prototyping. Design thinking involves of steps like understanding the challenge, defining the problem, coming up with solutions, creating a prototype and at the end testing the prototype and iterating.

Emphasis on Bolder Typography

Typefaces simply are the way of designing typography. Typefaces are distinct styles of writing for any font. It includes design for everything every set of characters – from letters, numbers, and punctuation marks, to symbols. Typefaces define the visual appearance of character and hence the visual appearance of the entire typography. It is one of the most important parts of typography that sets the tone of the text. In order to emphasize on any text in your design, bolder typography is being used as a best practice rather than increasing the font size or changing the font style.

Conclusion

In 2024, UI/UX Design is becoming more focused on the user experience and how to the user interacts with the website or application above everything. Like we discussed, there is a clear shift from traditional design towards XR design and IoT design and Generative design. According to the current trends, industry is focusing more on design practices like Usability testing, bold typography, 3D animations etc. Also since the market of XR design has been increasing, VR design and XR design was also treading in the industry. Make sure to act upon these insights and plan your future in the design industry keeping these trends in mind for a more impactful career ahead.