Top 10 Mobile UX Design Trends in 2021

Mobile user experience will become more important than ever in 2020. A recent estimate from Statista indicates that the number of online shoppers will grow to more than 230 million by 2021; it’s vital to reflect the most recent trends in your mobile ux.

For online businesses, it’s crucial to focus on user experience trends (also referred to as UX trends) and maintain a mobile-friendly website in order to keep a high rank in search engine results pages (or SERPs) and generate higher conversion rates. 

In this article, we will go over some of the top mobile UX trends to stay on top of throughout 2020.

Phasing Out the Button

Since the release of the smartphone, buttons are becoming more and more a thing of the past. Mobile devices now have smooth touch screens without any sort of button to push. This design gives digital marketers more real estate to work with on the screen. 

A current UX trend improves the mobile user experience by completely eliminating the use of buttons across mobile apps. Buttons can be replaced with gesture interactions which makes the content the center of attention.

Bottom Navigation

Like the outdated button, small screens are also unlikely to be found on mobile devices in 2021 and beyond. Today’s larger touchscreen displays can load more information and are optimal for multitasking. However, with longer content to scroll through, it can be tedious to get back to the top of the page of poorly designed mobile sites. 

That’s where bottom navigation elements can come into play. Bottom sheets or cards featuring navigational elements can help make the mobile user experience much smoother. Instead of rummaging around trying to locate a certain feature or get back to the top of the page, the user can simply push the key element that corresponds with what they wish to do.

Personalization

One size no longer fits all. Mobile users want to see things that are catered specifically to them. This is where the growing trend towards personalization come in. According to a recent Statista report, 90% of mobile users find content personalization very effective ㄧ with email campaigns being the leading type of personalization experience used by marketers.

Take Spotify, for example. Using personal data and preferences, Spotify can customize the user’s interface to display songs that they might enjoy. It can even go as far as to suggest specific playlists and introduce the user to lesser known artists they might like. 

Other personalization tactics you can use to improve mobile user experience include geo-location, geo-fencing and behavioral profiling.

Curves

Modern mobile devices are sleek hand-held machines that feature curved edges lending a futuristic style. It only makes sense that your website or app would also begin to incorporate these curved elements into the mobile-friendly design. 

Mirroring curved corners gives the illusion of cohesiveness. It’s aesthetically pleasing and can go a long way in subconsciously making users feel at ease. This is because familiarity makes information easier to process.

Eliminating Passwords

Almost everyone has forgotten or lost a password to an online account at some point in their lives. And recovering passwords can be annoying, arduous, stressful and can even lead to a loss in sales. 

Consider this: if you are trying to make a purchase online and you can’t remember your password, how likely are you to go through the tedious process of recovering or resetting it? It depends on how much you want the product in question, but many users will simply exit the site and try somewhere else.  

A top UX trend currently is eliminating passwords and replacing them with some sort of biometric authentication method like a fingerprint or facial recognition. Other replacements for passwords can include time-sensitive sign-in links and one-time passwords.

Functional Animation for Mobile UX

This is a fun one that plays more on creativity. Dynamic movement and animations used in mobile-site transitions can be quite pleasing to users. 

It can help you tell a story and present information in a smooth, seamless manner. Movie-like scenes can be used to confirm actions taken by the user or even add rhythm to the interactions taking place. It can even be considered part of your branding. 

If you want to create a beautiful website or app that optimizes mobile user experience, then incorporating frame-to-frame advanced animations is a great way to go.

3D Graphics

Similar to advanced animation, 3D graphics is another UX trend that is coming in strong for 2020. 

Back in the day, it was mainly used for entertainment purposes. However, today we can use 3D graphics to enhance mobile user experience by adding elements of realism to a digital site. For example, adding a virtual 3D tour of a home on a real estate app can help potential clients visualize the house better.

Gradient Color Palettes

It’s no secret that color plays a huge role in affecting human emotions. That’s why choosing the right colors for your brand is critical to growing your business. 

Smartphones, of course, don’t display in black and white. They display colors beautifully, so designers no longer have to create visuals in greyscale. Adding depth and dimension to mobile sites, color gradients are rapidly gaining popularity as a UX trend. For example, using a gradient containing the gradual transition between vibrant hues can cultivate a feeling of warmth and positivity among users.

Dark Mode

On the flip-side, incorporating a dark mode can also help to improve your site’s mobile user experience. By automatically adjusting the screen’s brightness to match the lighting environment, dark mode can reduce the strain on the user’s eyes and even help preserve battery life. 

People like to lay in bed at night and scroll. If you offer a dark mode option for them, they will most likely stay on your site longer.

Enhanced Voice Interactions

Voice interactions with mobile devices are becoming more commonplace every day. 

Adding a more conversational voice interaction interface to your mobile app or site can help reduce any bumps that may be inhibiting the UX. 

Wrapping Up: Mobile User Experience and UX Trends for 2021 and Beyond 

Now that you have learned about the current and upcoming UX trends, you can incorporate some of these elements into your mobile website or app to enhance the user experience.

Remember to stay on top of changing trends to keep your customers happy and coming back for more. To learn more about UX trends and how they affect your marketing strategy, you can read our blog post. If you want to partner with SharpSpring for help with marketing automation, you can get a demo or visit our website.