UI design trends are ever-evolving owing to the transformative nature of the software market and the emergence of novel and advanced technologies. The design patterns that were highly popular in the yesteryears are most likely to be replaced by fresh and futuristic styles. Therefore, UI Design Companies, UI design services as well as UI designers must be well versed with the recent market trends to stay competitive.

Modern users enjoy the flexibility to choose from innumerable websites and applications for obtaining the desired service/product. Hence, businesses need to be extra creative, provide enhanced usability and a distinct visual appeal as well as offer new and exciting experiences to grab the attention of their targeted audiences.

Take a quick glance at the distinct and cool UI design trends that are dominating 2021! Adopting the right set of the latest design patterns will not only accelerate your UI designing abilities but also elevate your designing skills to the next level of excellence.

Cool and Exciting UI Design Trends

Glassmorphism Effect

Glassmorphism is the most recent UI design trend and is garnering humongous popularity. Apple’s macOS Big Sur launched in 2020 and Microsoft’s Fluent Design System has adopted such a design pattern.

It refers to a frosted glass effect used for blurring out the background for providing transparency. It possesses a multi-layered approach with floating objects such that the users can see through the layers and can establish the hierarchy within the structure and the depth of the interface. This design functions best when several translucent layers appear on a colorful background. Vivid colors are utilized for highlighting the blurred transparency and a subtle light border is used on the translucent objects. And, for achieving the desired effect, only the fill needs to be transparent and not the whole shape.

Immersive Experience with 3D Designs

Delivering an immersive experience via apps and websites is the trendiest practice of modern times. This is executed by employing 3D designs. The depth, special lighting effects, shadows, and textures offered by 3D designs make it possible for users to get an experience that is much closer to the actual world. Whether it’s through typography or illustrations, three-dimensional designs provide an additional dimension to the overall look and feel of the end-product. The increasing usage of augmented reality is one of the reasons that necessitate incorporating 3D designs.

Mixed Typeface

The concept of mixed typeface is predicted to gain prominence in 2021. This phenomenon establishes content hierarchy to create visual interest and plays a major role in boosting the focus as well as the emphasis of a sentence or a title. The best practice is to select a ‘sans serif’ virtually and then merge it with a serif of your choice. This combination will not only function well together but also help you build a nice design. The ‘sans serif’ approach elevates readability as compared to serif and so such a practice perfectly befits the body of the text.

VUI (Voice User Interface)

Interacting with voice interfaces is one of the hottest UX design trends of 2021. The voice interface is an internal one and is related to data synthesis and context. Applications that provide the service of translating words/sentences into the desired language are good examples of this kind of UX/UI design pattern. In such apps, the device starts recording a person’s voice after a button is clicked and then translates the speech. Thus, it becomes easier for individuals to communicate with others who speak a different language.

The Usage of Soft Gradients

Simple web designs and minimalism rules the modern era and as such, the practice of using bright and flashy gradients is no more considered effective. This is because as gradients impart volume and depth to images, it is difficult to achieve the desired effect with screaming colors.

Hence, the practice of using pastel colors in UI design is gaining popularity. This helps in highlighting the unobtrusiveness and lightness of the UI design. Moreover, pastel colors perfectly fit into a wide variety of concepts and establish the ideal environment for various websites such as SaaS applications, eCommerce platforms, etc.

The Usage of Geometric Structures

The usage of geometric structures in interfaces is an existing trend that is expected to expedite in 2021. Here, individual shapes are used for creating bigger and complex shapes for imparting a conservative as well as tidy visual structure. Several UI designers integrate this concept with the phenomenon of optical illusion for generating a memorable momentum.

Employing Micro-interactions

Micro-interactions refer to the pleasing and delightful moments experienced by customers while using a product. These short moments add immense value to your product by offering a truly humane experience to the end-users. Such visual elements function best when combined with users’ action triggers. Micro-interactions prove beneficial as they enhance the usability of a product, promise an improved ROI, and work wonders in retaining customers and making a product popular. 

The implementation of Pop-art and Comics

The recent times are all set to launch feel-good designs that make use of colors in an unexpected and quirky manner. Designs that display pop art and comics are ideal examples of such statement designs. These innovative and fun-filled designs are sure to attract users and engage them in a meaningful way.

Emoji Design Patterns

Emojis undoubtedly enable app creators to express a lot despite having a minimalistic UI design. This emotion–expressing concept makes an interface far more enjoyable and engaging. This is the reason why most popular apps these days have adopted this concept. Emojis are being used in empty states, onboarding screens, push notifications, dialogs, etc. by not only social apps, but also applications belonging to serious business domains like eCommerce, banking, and finance.

Brutalism

As the name suggests, this design seems quite unusual due to the usage of strong contrasts and unpleasant typography that might seem chaotic to many. This design often causes issues concerning readability and accessibility. Yet popular brands such as Foursquare and Dropbox have adopted such a concept. The primary objective behind employing such designs is to offer a deconstruction that is perceived as attractive and handy.

Concluding Lines

Well, what are your views about these refreshing and stimulating UI design trends? Please share your thoughts in the comment section provided below. If you are looking for assistance to decide on the right set of UI design patterns for your website or mobile app solution or planning to hire high-end UI designers; contact Biz4Solutions, a prominent and highly experienced offshore software development company, and reliable technology partner.

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Software testing and quality assurance have become important cogs in the overall process of deployment. The margins between software development and QA too, have been steadily diminishing, bringing us to a question- what do QA and testing have in store for 2021?

Software testing and quality assurance- these two practices have been consistently evolving over a long period of time now, making rapid improvements in their stride. Till a very short while ago, Quality Assurance, or QA, was considered to be an entirely separate function but is now increasingly becoming a crucial part of the entire development process as a whole.

In fact, such has been the increasing dominance of QA these days, that a number of software development service providers have already begun adopting it as a part of the software development process.

As far as the overall evolution of the IT industry is concerned, this change in perception of QA has had a big role to play. With increased competition, delivering products and services on time has put somewhat undue pressure on the companies to deliver. This is where quality control has become so very important.

Such has been the interdependence of cutting-edge software development and QA that the current software trends encompass the best security and performance measures on offer.

Because technologies are changing at a rapid pace, quality assurance analysts tend to face a number of issues in their daily lives. However, reaching the market as quickly as possible is something that’s always at the back of the mind.

1- Blending AI & ML With QA

Bringing AI and ML into QA eliminates the problem of companies getting sucked into an automation trap, wherein testing teams fail to take care of the issues found in the previous test runs due to a lack of time.

If traditional software testing methods are anything to go by, the business functionality brings about an evolution in the applications with changing requirements.

With Artificial Intelligence and Machine Language in the midst, there can be a better sorting of the test cases, where the ones on a high priority get tackled first. The test automation code also gets the liberty of automation in itself- a huge plus.

2- QA Automation To Play A More Vital Role

With continuous delivery of paramount importance today, the same could not have been achieved without the advent of automated testing. Thanks to the overall agile approach, any bugs and problems get timely detected, making QA enjoy a higher degree of efficiency.

With QA automation, it becomes easier for QA engineers to establish a proactive testing frequency, facilitating quality checks at every level of SDLC (software development life cycle).

3- A Change in The Traditional Roles of Testers

Because the overall situation is becoming pretty dynamic as time goes on, testers will be required to enhance their skill base with the motive of being able to handle more job roles.

With Agile methods and DevOps coming into the foray(more on these two later), the collaboration between developers and testers is imminent in the near future. With such a situation, coding skills will only take things so far.

4- DevOps and Agile Methods

As digital transformation continues to become the staple of today’s world, digital testing too is also set to continue for the foreseeable future. With increasing competition, companies are continually experimenting on the methods, and agile methodologies are taking all the accolades there.

QA that’s driven by customer experience is definitely a trend to look out for in the near future.

As far as DevOps is concerned, the traditional lines between testing, operations, and development get taken care of. The agenda behind this is to lead to a better pace of deployment, reduce the time taken to hit markets, and also ensure higher ROI in the process.

With more elaborate demands, project and release changes, automation of software testing and QA outsourcing will take the world in the coming months.

Mobile applications have been in the world ever since the first mobile device came into existence. As devices became more ‘smarter’ with every passing day, mobile apps too became increasingly important for companies to reach out to the increasing user base over the years.

Fast forward to 2020 and mobile applications have completely changed the way the entire world eats, shops, interacts, travels, gets treated, and this list goes on and on. With the pace of technological innovations, every mobile app development company has become increasingly advanced, offering unique and different features and functionality in their developed apps as much as possible.

As far as this particular year goes, the COVID-19 pandemic is still making most of the headlines. Like everything though, life cannot stop, and innovations keep coming. With this year almost gone, it’s high time to gear up for 2021.

As far as mobile app development goes, here are some trends that we think will govern the next year in areas like Artificial Intelligence(AI), IoT(Internet of Things), Augmented Reality(AR) and more-

Augmented Reality Will Become Much More Than A Gaming Experience

The term AR got introduced to the world with a couple of games that made use of the technology for a highly immersive user experience. Then came the wave of these AR based games being produced from companies, which is still pretty prominent.

While on an initial stage as of now, Augmented Reality will strongly move beyond just games where different apps will find their use for varying purposes. The biggest one will be how live events could be enjoyed at the comfort of homes while they happen in real-time.

Moreover, learning apps will also make use of AR to become more interactive with their tutorials and skill-building features as well.

5G (No more words needed)

The expected speed of 5G technology in full flow will make a speed of 100gbps perfectly attainable. With such speeds, data transmission is going to witness a revolution of sorts, with more than 1 billion devices to become 5G capable within the next five years.

Rising dominance of the beacon technology

Beacons are small transmitters that facilitate easy searching based on locations with the help of Bluetooth signals to other devices. As far as customers go, this technology gives a more personalized experience to all the potential customers.

This beacon technology can become more robust in 2021 with better mapping, and an efficient product display as well. To add to it, beacons make it pretty easy to identify target audiences and lend them personalized discounts and deals in the meantime.

As far as cross platform mobile app development goes, edge computing will be a trend that won’t be exactly visible to every user, but looking at the way the Internet of Things(IoT) changes daily lives of the people, impeccable data processing will surely be the need of the hour.

With edge computing, the entire data can be easily transmitted to a local device, say a smartphone, translating into jobs that can be completed much faster and also with an added efficiency.

If we talk from a comprehensive perspective, mobile apps are actually getting more and more entwined in our lives than ever thought possible. The few trends mentioned above are the ones which,according to us, will have the most impact in the area of mobile app development services in the year 2021.

If you are getting your mobile app designed soon, it is best advised to reach out to Consagous Technologies so that these trends and their objectives can get incorporated into your app well in advance!

Mobile app development sounds like a simple procedure. Get an app and launch it. However, the contrary is true here. It’s a delicate process and sticking by some points before the launch can help you get assured of success.

Ideas, wireframes, and prototypes. These are a few terms that are usually thrown across quite a lot whenever mobile apps are a primary point of discussion. With a really professional company that has a vast experience in mobile app development, an app does get ready.

 

But, what after that?

Will the app be deployed and distributed directly to different platforms? Should this actually be the case if the quick deployment is the thought process?

Give it a little thought.

After such long hours into the entire app development process, it is not viable to launch the app abruptly. Like the case with every new tangible or intangible product in the market, a fair bit of groundwork is essential in mobile apps too. With countless apps making their space everyday, spending a little time in thinking out the best ways to take an app live will get that initial attention needed from users all over the world.

To help you all out with this very task, we have compiled a checklist- the most critical things you need to keep in mind about how to release an app perfectly.

Read on then!

• Have both- an objective as well as the audience

Research is something that holds the key to success, even before the first round of wireframing happens. To be sure that you are not simply wasting your time, conduct thorough research, and be worry-free about your product and its uniqueness.

Don’t go overboard by putting up a lot of expectations. Instead, set real and practical goals by identifying your target audience. Having a hold on these two important factors will pave a positive way further on for your mobile app.

• Know about the competitors within your market

With your app under development, no checklist will ever be complete if there is a lack of awareness about the competitors. Browse through the app stores for similar apps and conduct a thorough analysis about their advantages and flaws.

Addressing their flaws can help your app enjoy benefits on the same grounds, helping it become a better choice for potential users.

• ASO (App Store Optimization)

ASO is aligned with SEO in a basic sense. Just like SEO increases website visibility, App Store Optimization enhances the visibility of an app, leading to favourable conversions in terms of more app installs. Ensuring perfection of all related ASO elements before the app launch will give you an edge before the launch itself.

• Social media presence

Long story short- social media is an integral need of the hour. The traction from consistent social media profiles cannot be overlooked at all. Apart from social media profiles, a website landing page also helps in the establishment of a strong online presence, while guaranteeing organic website traffic at the same time.

If you promote your app appropriately on this landing page, it is going to work wonders, undoubtedly.

• Incorporate catchy & creative content

Create an aura of a community with your social media content. Get peoples’ attention with content that leads to a curious interest towards your mobile app.

As far as building an engagement goes, you can also seek assistance from social media influencers who already have higher levels of engagement on their profiles. Highlight the benefits of your app functionalities and benefits in your content.

• Be very aware of the submission guidelines

If we talk about the App Store and Google Play Store as the application stores, both have a different set of guidelines for accepting and publishing an app on their respective platforms.

Therefore, it is best to stay in tune with the submission guidelines even during the app development, so as to not hamper the mobile app release cycle later on.

• Ensure a beta release

While a beta release of the app is a great way to gauge out your app’s feasibility, keeping a strong feedback mechanism in place brings the right kind of data back with this ‘indirectly direct’ communication from the beta users.

MVP (Minimum Viable Product) service is also gaining a lot of momentum as far as the initial versions of the app are concerned. Take a little time to figure out what’s best for your app, and only then proceed ahead.