5 UX Design Trends for 2019

1) Voice User Interfaces and AI

With voice assistants such as Alexa, Echo, Siri and Google Home becoming more prevalent they will continue to be utilised more widely in UI and UX design in 2019. Accuracy of voice assistants has now reached 90% making it a user friendly and handy tool, particularly for users with limited ability to type. Smarter tech in general is changing design as better developed AI helps to give rise to more widespread anticipatory or predictive design, smoothing the user experience and taking the admin out of many user actions.

2) Device Agnostic Experiences and Consistent Design Systems

The past few years have made Responsive design a necessity. With one UK survey showing that 63% of users samples now preferred to be on tablets or smartphones, gone is the fixed desktop webpage. Fluid, flexible layouts have become a must with the rise of the mobile phone and tablet as more and more people browse on the go and conduct business on their mobile devices. Even that may not be enough to give you the edge any more as technology moves on and wearable and wireless devices become more popular. Good UX design has to take all of these digital interfaces into account in order to make the most of them and make the users experience even better. Part of this is having a strong design system across the service being designed so that cohesion is maintained.

3) Movement in Design (Animation, Interactions and Video)

Devices are getting more powerful, so smooth animations, use of video and smart interactions can be incorporated without sacrificing speed. Movement can make your layouts much more engaging and also more intuitive, indicating what action the user might take next.

4) Material Design Over Flat Design

The trend of flat design (exemplified by sites such as InVision) has come to an end, and as displays become sharper 3D is making a come back in subtle ways. Shadows and gradients add depth to display layouts, coupled with smart animations. These changes help to distinguish areas and give a sense of space. A great example of this is found on the waark web agency website. 

5) Clear, Quickly Accessible Content

As ever in UX and UI design, content is king. Everything should be built around it and this isn’t changing anytime soon. However there is an overarching need to minimise the time delivering this content to the user. The quicker the desired content is in front of your user the less frustrating your users experience will be.

Trends are obviously not the be all and end all of design. But it is useful to be aware of them to stay ahead of the curve, challenge old conventions and keep your work fresh and interesting.