The smartphone market has witnessed growth at an almost breakneck speed over the last decade. This aggressive growth has led to many businesses investing more into mobile apps to make their products and services readily available for a larger audience by overcoming geographical limitations.
Mobile internet usage is expected to touch almost 50% in 2022 – this means that almost half the population accessing the internet will do so using their mobile devices. Revenues from mobile applications are expected to cross 800 billion dollars this year. Such statistics indicate that the usage of smartphones – and by extension mobile apps – are not only on the rise but are fast becoming the primary point of access worldwide.
To ensure a seamless experience for new and returning mobile application users, it is important to improve the mobile app design – one that not only makes it easier for users to navigate but also enriches their experience.
Many mobile application development companies are implementing modern app designs by leveraging the latest mobile app technologies. We look at some of the best mobile app UI and UX design trends that 2022 has in store.
In-App Gestures
Many app users are already familiar with gestures such as swiping, tapping and rotating – so much so that these gestures are almost second nature to them. Mobile application development companies are incorporating more and more gestures in the app-building process to make life easier for app users. These include:
- Swiping up from the bottom while an app is open – To go to the home screen
- Swiping up from the bottom on the home screen – To open the application drawer
- Swiping across the bottom – To switch screens
- Swiping diagonally – To launch the Assistant
In addition to this, many apps and mobile operating systems also allow users to define their in-app gestures to perform tailor-made tasks such as swiping from the left or the right of the screen to the opposite side to bring about a specific result.
Transparent Elements
These elements are used to bring a depth effect to the design and are also a very effective method to attract the user’s attention to specific features of the app.
Dark Mode
An increasing number of mobile phone users have become aware of the harmful effects of prolonged exposure to the white light emitted by smartphones. Although many users toggle to the night mode at the device level to negate this, the device only goes into a dark mode for apps that support it – with many apps originally not seeing the necessity of providing such an option. A large number of apps now see the wisdom of offering dark mode as a default setting and also provide an option to toggle to a dark mode when the user chooses it at the device level or during night hours.
Asymmetric Elements
A touch of asymmetry in design – be it in menus or galleries – brings specific aspects into focus and grabs the user’s attention. In many instances, users scroll in a particular direction and may miss certain elements or products. By making these patterns slightly irregular, app developers can catch the eye of the users. This is especially useful in product galleries while building e-commerce apps.
To take this one step further, the layout of the copy can also be placed asymmetrically to target users who typically read from left to right, by incorporating text that is placed vertically or diagonally.
Multi-directional Navigation
This feature is becoming increasingly popular in many modern app designs. Traditional mobile app designs typically involve a top to bottom navigation without putting the other directions – left, right and top – to much use. Multi-directional navigation helps ease complex flows to encourage users to interact with the app more dynamically.
Presenting horizontal sliders periodically while the user is scrolling vertically makes for interesting navigation for the user.
Super App Designs
Super apps are typically aggregators of multiple apps in one platform and are gaining in popularity in many app markets around the world as they reduce the load on the device by having one app for multiple services. Mobile app developers utilize bright colors and detailed icons to highlight various services within the super app to help users identify specific services immediately without having to scroll too much.
