March 15, 2022

2022 UI Design Trends

New technologies and features change user expectations from a digital product, like a website or an app. It also affects how they interact with it changes. As a result, UX design standards also evolve.
The main focus of UX design is to adapt to ever-changing trends to meet consumer demands and boost user engagement and satisfaction.
Last year was an exciting year for designers — the introduction of Metaverse caused quite a disruption in the industry. Let’s see what 2022 will bring to a designers’ table!


Minimalism

Take a look at the most well-known, leading tech companies and you can spot a strong preference for simple, informative, minimal interfaces (Revolut, Meta, Oculus etc.) Year by year, this trend is getting bigger and bigger and more brands are starting to use it.


Brutalism

Another trend from 2021 is on the rise. Brutalism seems to be a counter trend for all the designs that are full of gradients, shadows and smiling 3d characters. Brutalism embraces flat design, strong outlines, contrasting colors, bold typography and real/life photography.


Glassmorphism

Glassmorphism is everywhere – that’s a fact. There’s a background blur, semi transparent objects like cards, "watercolor" glass-looking spheres and more. From native elements in Mac OS Big Sur and Windows 11, to applications, glass inspired effect is here to stay.


Aurora backgrounds

This was a trend from the previous year – it became very popular and even got a proper name – Aurora backgrounds. Subtle, colorful, blurred splashes of color look very friendly and organic – and definitely more visually attractive. Those splashes can be used as an entire background or just an emphasis under some important UI elements.

Neon

This cyber holo/neon trend seems to fit well into the era of Metaverse, VR and hologram interfaces. Designers are getting inspired by all the new possibilities that the virtual worlds have to offer. Vibrant, glowing colors, abstract, round shapes, hologram-looking textures, are typical for this trend.

It’s also widely used in a lot of the crypto-space, as a way to show how futuristic those interfaces are.

Eco-conscious

We, as consumers, are getting more and more eco-conscious every year. Most of us are willing to choose eco-friendly solutions on everyday basis. It looks like you can incorporate that “eco” look and feel into digital products.

Backgrounds are usually greyish to resemble a recyclable cardboard. Typography is minimal in style. Contrast is high. Colors are quite strict and seem “dimmed”. No cute 3D objects this time — this style embraces real life photography, real life textures and doodles.


Claymorphism

3D is evolving into a more simplified version of what we already saw. The newest, trending style in 3D illustration and 3D UI elements is claymorphism. The 3D objects resemble an object made from clay (simple in shape, cylindrical/oval, with both inner and outer shadows to create depth, but in a different, more fluffy 3d way than it was done in neumorphism.

Metaverse

Virtual reality has gone from bulky, uncomfortable and low-fidelity headsets and more into the mainstream with the new devices from Meta and a wide range of apps coming to the platform.

The Apple Glasses are still unannounced, but it seems like a style for both VR and AR emerges, with gesture based window control, eye-tracking and holographic, 3d shapes.

While the headsets still need to catch-up on processing power, most of the visuals are purposefully presented as easier to render, lower polygon representations, giving them a bit of a claymorphic look.

If you want to know more, here is an interesting blog: The Allure and Impact of Minimalist UX Design