10 App Design Trends for 2015
The ever-evolving technology market demands that design moves with it — or sometimes, ahead of it. The trends shaping 2015 are a mix of refined ideas carried over from previous years and genuinely new approaches worth paying attention to.
Here are ten trends worth watching this year.
1. Interactive Storytelling
When timed and executed well, interactive storytelling gives websites a powerful way to engage users. By combining visual cues — animations, videos, images, and subtle parallax — designers can deliver richer experiences, surface more informative content, and add meaningful context to a site or application.
Expect to participate in more of these interactive journeys as the year unfolds.
2. Responsive Design
Responsive design — the practice of building websites and applications that render optimally across all desktop and mobile devices — is a discipline that keeps improving with time rather than reaching a finish line.
The continued shift in user behaviour, combined with the reality that most people now move between multiple devices to view the same content, means designers will keep exploring new approaches to responsive design throughout 2015.
3. Flat Design
Flat design and matte-painted cars have something in common: both prove that things don't need to be shiny to be visually appealing.
Ongoing improvements to screen resolution mean designers can now drop visual effects like gradients, 3D elements, shadows, and embossing without sacrificing aesthetics. Flat design clears up the user interface and lets designers avoid heavy graphic elements that can disrupt the overall look and feel of a composition. Companies like Google and Microsoft have applied flat design principles to their products with notable success, so variations on this approach will only multiply in 2015.
4. One-Color Dominance
Few things communicate simplicity as effectively as a single dominant colour.
Committing to one primary colour creates a memorable experience, draws attention to key areas and features, and strengthens the association between that colour and a brand.
5. Data, Graphs, and Infographics
Big data is no longer a buzzword — it's a growing industry. Real-time web analytics and data-driven applications are becoming increasingly vital to the survival of modern businesses, and the traditional spreadsheet is no longer sufficient. The design challenge for 2015 is making all of this data look compelling and accessible.
Infographics will continue their rise in popularity for the simple reason that a well-designed graphic can convey the same information as an 800-word article in a fraction of the time.
6. Subtle Parallax
Designers who used parallax heavily in previous years are dialling it back in 2015. Full-blown parallax can feel intrusive and compete with content and more critical interface elements. Subtle parallax retains the attention-grabbing quality of the effect while allowing the core content to take centre stage.
7. Personalized UX
Many sites have already introduced personalized UX elements through cookies, but 2015 will see designers go further — drawing on social media data and other sources to deliver genuinely tailored experiences.
8. Background Images and Videos
Attention-capturing background images and design-embedded videos do more than grab user attention — they extend the amount of time visitors spend on a site. Cleverly produced background video in particular is emerging as a differentiator worth watching this year.
9. Human Touch
The uniqueness and warmth of hand-drawn illustrations and lettering create an intimate connection between user and brand that polished digital graphics often can't replicate. These human-designed touches will continue to appear throughout 2015 for exactly that reason.
10. Scrolling, Not Clicking
The left mouse button is getting a rest while the scroll wheel picks up the slack.
Scrolling-based page layouts have proven popular with both desktop and mobile users alike, and designers will continue leaning into them in 2015 for the optimized interaction and ease of use they provide.
