Every now and then a set of new design trends arises promising to transform user experience and improve the quality of navigation. Some trends delight and inspire, some make your eyes ache. Our experience with complex design projects has given us the opportunity to experiment with some of these UX trends and interactions. Whether it has to do with scrolling, engagement or data visualization, read how we approach these trends and try to make them work for users of our digital products.
Personalized experiences in UX
Personalization is a buzzing trend that has proved to engage users more effectively, mainly because it delivers a tailored experience that makes them feel taken care of. If users are served with content, products and services personalized for their needs, it helps them develop a sense of identity and connectedness with your brand. In our projects we have been incorporating more and more elements of personalization with the help of AI and hyper personalization. With Expresia, we can offer curated content experiences by analyzing user behavior and serving them articles or products that might be of interest to them. See how we did this for La Silla Vacia.
UX copywriting and microcopy
Copywriting and microcopy play a very important role in the user experience. Although it depends on the case, we encourage less formal and more casual communication styles when it comes to content in apps and websites. The trick to engagement is to make users feel comfortable and more at ease. Users want clear functionality with direct language that does not get in the way of the experience but that makes it easy to understand. This is why microcopy has become a new domain of expertise for UX designers.
Scrollytelling
Scrolling is an experience implemented in almost every digital experience, but it’s getting more and more creative, interactive, and interesting. This is a powerful trend that can add a lot to the regular customer journey as it is an opportunity to bring in animation, storytelling and engaging content. In many storytelling web experiences, during scrolling, elements change, texts appear, graphics take life, and all other kinds of interactions that you can only imagine, happen. The scrolling becomes a composition that delivers a message and tells a story.
Microinteractions
Microinteractions are small moments where the user and design interact. They are small details in the design of a website or app that enhance the user experience. Subtle changes that guide users through a website and make navigation easier. When they are well designed, micro interactions help the user experience, when they're poorly designed, they damage the experience. See how we implemented microinteractions to help the user experience in our recent projects, Nulicious.
Gamification elements
Gamification is the technique of inserting game mechanics into non-game products. It is a trend in which websites and apps focus on playful content that mimics the typical interactions of video games. It brings joy, ignites interest, and is capable of bringing interactive dynamics to new spaces. Gamification has the potential to influence and increase people's engagement and encourage certain behaviors. It is a complicated design technique that requires using various game mechanics referring to interactive UI elements. But be careful, the main task for designers applying gamification is not to turn the product fully into a game.
At BACKBONE, we design digital products with the intention of a seamless user experience. In this article we have shared some trends that have helped us deliver digital products that work better for our customers. That is not to say, that all these trends need to fit into one particular product to make its usability better. Instead, it’s important to carefully select trends depending on each case and apply the ones that fit best!
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