It is a known fact now that there are more mobile online users than computer users. Therefore, most the websites are having mobile-first design and even it is a determining factor in SEO. But developing mobile-friendly is not enough as companies hire freelance App developers to create dedicated mobile apps for different platforms like Android and iOS. When it comes to apps, along with its functionalities and features, the design has to be stunning yet user-friendly to make the great first impression. The trends in app designing world keep on changing every year and that is why companies post freelance jobs to hire developers to make the adjustments as per the trend. If you already have an app or you are going to develop one in 2018, make sure you follow the following latest app design trends to be ahead of your competitors.

  1. UX Over UI

UX or user experience will be given more priority than user interface or aesthetics. The apps which are providing consistently great user experience, users are preferring those apps irrespective of how simple the app’s design may look like. In other words, apps with minimalist designs but robust performance are getting better response and engagement. Therefore, you have to trim out the excessive graphical elements and distractions and make UI clean and simple for better user experience.

  1. Responsive Design

In the current scenario, app designs do not need to be responsive because there is no scaling involved. But if you see the smartphone and laptop world’s trends, companies are developing laptops where you can fit in your smartphone and the app will be maximized on the laptop screen. Since this is the upcoming trend for next 2-3 years, it is better to design apps with responsive graphics to get an edge over others.

  1. Customized Illustrative Design

Customized designs are hugely popular for websites and banners for promotional purposes. They are not over-the-top graphics and hence, they are well perceived. Furthermore, they are extremely unique and hence, they make the brand stand out easily from the rest. Several new apps have started to use customized designs for the UI and this is likely to be one of the biggest app design trends in 2018. Graphic designers are also gearing up for the same and so are the app developers.

  1. Progressive Disclosure

There are various games apps where you get to know what the next step is only when you reach the specific stage. Similarly, showing too much information on one screen of the app is a very bad information from the designer’s perspective. Therefore, some of the companies have launched apps whereby the information required to be shown are displayed only when the users need them or trigger a particular action. This makes the app have a minimal design and a better user experience. A lot of functional animations are becoming part of app designs.

  1. Gesture-Based Interface

Even though there are questions whether the gesture-based interface is really good for user experience or not, but the release of iPhone X surely suggest that gesture-based interface will become a reality for most of the popular apps in 2018. Therefore, if you are posting freelance jobs to hire app designers and developers, make sure the design is equipped with gesture styles and it is programmed to have in-app gesture-based features and animations. Furthermore, the animations and other alert systems should be such that the user may not have any problem understand the gestures and their associated functions.

  1. AR and VR Based Designs

AR and VR are becoming the biggest reality and 2018 will truly cement its place in the smartphone world as big companies are coming up with smartphones to support the technology. Naturally, AR and VR apps are crowding the app market and they require a different type of creative design which is quite different from the traditional design. The possibility of checking out items through AR and VR headsets before purchasing is also breakout trend for 2018.

  1. Conversational Design

The use of chatbots and voice assistants will increase tremendously in most of the apps. The emergence of Artificial Intelligence will make it more viral for apps and therefore, there would be a lot of sections that will no more be there in apps. Whether it is a messaging app or e-commerce app, this trend is likely to increase user engagement with automated conversations.

Apart from these, Google is focusing on Accelerated Mobile Page(AMP) for mobile apps too and hence, there should be designs that should qualify to provide users the fastest versions of the mobile app pages when they opt for it. The next time you hire freelance app developers, make sure their proposition for your app design has these trends included in a significant amount to truly create a futuristic app with latest trends.

Kitty Gupta
Latest posts by Kitty Gupta (see all)