There is a plethora of reasons behind the success of online businesses today. Amazon has become one of the biggest eCommerce websites in the world. Additionally, mobile apps have also grown in popularity along with eCommerce websites. One of the more prominent reasons behind this is the interface design. For those of you who are into web app development and mobile applications, you might want to know about trends in UI/UX design and development today. Let us understand what exactly UI and UX are, and their differences, in brief. Then we will get into the top UX trends in 2021, specifically for eCommerce websites and mobile apps.
2021 UX trends for eCommerce Websites & Mobile Apps
Generally, UI and UX refer to the complete experience of a user when they use a software. In the context of mobile applications and eCommerce websites, it is no different. For users to have an overall positive experience, these designs must not only be innovative but should also be easy on the eyes.
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Let us discuss the top trends with UX amongst eCommerce platforms and mobile applications.
1.Automated Core Designs
Almost all of the notable applications today contain some amazing artificial intelligence running in the back end that suggests choices for them. This concept being integrated into the core design is what gives birth to ideas like the Netflix mobile app. The user interface and experience are customizable.
This was popularized by eCommerce websites. What adds more value to designs like these is that it not only eases experiences for the user – but it also benefits the business. There is never an instance when a business would not want more profit, and this aspect of UX designs helps such causes.
2.Customized, Personal Designs
One of the more popular kinds of web applications today lets you customize your design. It can be as simple as a dark theme on your YouTube mobile app, but that counts too. What is great about such an idea is that it helps the user get invested in the software or website without even realizing it.
You enter a new website for the first time and find it looking all generic. So, you want to customize it, as you would want to with all other things. Luckily, you can! Thus, in an instant, you have been made to put effort into making your account and profile look how you want it to.
3.Micro-interactions with User
Before we start talking about micro-interactions, we need to understand what it means. Micro-interactions, in terms of software development and agile development, refers to the small details that go into making a more delightful experience for the user. This includes ripple effects on touch, slight animations, and transitions on the slide, and so on.
While it may sound like these are not too important in the grand context, a little can go a long way. In web design, tech companies have tried to do this for years now. For desktop versions, this has not really turned out to be true in a lot of cases. However, for mobile apps, this has worked out fantastically.
4.Voice Integration
Interface interaction is essential when it comes to mobile app and eCommerce websites, but times have changed. Nowadays, many users simply prefer using their voice assistant over buttons and touches. This is why it has become essential in 2021 to include voice integration in mobile app development.
Generally speaking, it is more sensible to include voice integration in mobile apps only. While it may be a good idea to do it for the main website, it may not be cost-efficient and thus fail as an idea. The main goal here is to leave the user with the option to choose. Maybe clients will prefer to use the interactive interface instead, but the voice assistant integration is always a nice touch. It also shows your clients that you are willing to go the extra mile.
5.Neumorphistic Designs
This term may be new to many of you, especially if you are not familiar with interface designs. UI and UX have some conventions that are generally followed and have been for years. Neumorphistic is a term that is a combination of ‘new’ and ‘skeuomorphism’. Essentially, this is referring to the appearance of the platform in question.
Neumorphistic usually refers to a simplistic, soft, and plastic-like look to your interfaces. It may sound strange right now, but in today’s context, this is actually one of the most widely popular conventions followed. Most tech companies tend to use this technique to attract more clients just out of visual appeal. Surprisingly, it works most of the time!
6.Less Flashy Designs
When you think about a decent website, web app, or mobile app, what comes to your mind? A few windows linked to one another, some similar aesthetic colors involved, or maybe some vivid colors with some excessive animations? If so, seemingly the current software industry would not agree with you. Users tend to like web apps and mobile apps when they are more simplistic, in both appearance and color.
This may be caused by the state of being outdated, but vivid colors and bright animations have lost their charm. Moreover, the fact that these mobile apps and eCommerce solutions cater more to adults is an important factor to take into consideration. While it may be fun to include brightness and flashiness on video games and children’s websites, it would not do well for almost any other situation.
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Factors to Ensure
So, when making this software, there are some things to assure before it leaves the development phase. This will make sure that the product is not only engaging with more customers, but the UX experience remains to be great too.
1.1. Malfunctioning Artificial Intelligence
When managing development, or developing artificial intelligence algorithms, it is easy to give in to temptation and include it in your web app or mobile app. This is highly ill-advised and not right. Doing this would result in poor suggestions for the customers and lead to an overall bad experience for the software company. It will drive your clients away from using your application, and also send the wrong idea about the competence of the platform.
Suggestions should only be included if they can be made to be good. If a user’s suggestions are poor, i.e., not accordingly to what they want – it should not be implemented at all. This means your system should stay in testing phases for longer periods to test out the suggestions before deployment.
2.2. Controlled Micro-interactions.
When including micro-interactions, it can be easy to get lost in the charm of it and add far too many of these. While you would want such a website that lets the users engage in smaller interactions, like mild animations and such, excess of this can be terrible. For example, a wire-transfer application on your mobile device should stay limited on the micro-interactions. Users are mostly trying to perform monetary transactions, and too many micro-transactions can result in a poor user experience.
Additionally, it should be noted that eCommerce solutions and other online shopping means should also stay reserved. Too many micro-transactions can cause the user to become distracted, thus resulting in an overall poor user experience. These factors should be taken in during both android app development and iOS app development.
3.3. Cluttered Windows
This happens more often than it should, and it ends up resulting in being bad for everyone involved. It may be tempting from an advertisement point of view to include all the features of your website or application in the same window. However, that is actually going to result very poorly in practice. The main issue lies in the context of this, let us understand what this means.
For a user to see a plethora of options in the same window is annoying, inefficient, and redundant. They might be looking for one particular feature, but might get lost in a large number of options. Such a situation can easily be avoidable by using, for example, sub-menus. With a submenu, you can continue to include your features in a more organized manner. This eases up the UI and improves the experience.
This issue is more commonly found in new eCommerce startups, as they need all the potential marketing. It is also found in mobile apps that are not optimized or have not been reviewed properly before release.
Things to Avoid Amongst the UX Trends
4.Vague User Purpose
The purpose of the user should define the purpose of the platform. That is actually quite simple to say or write, but very difficult when developing an interface. Quite often, it is seen that eCommerce websites are unnecessarily flashy, and have too many unnecessary features in them.
It is of the utmost importance to avoid situations like these. No user wants to go into a map navigation application, and be met with redundant animations. It is fine if it is being implemented to reduce the more boring aspects of using an application or website, but going overboard can be fatal for the user experience.
Moreover, when designing the web app or mobile app, the software development team must be concerned with why they are making it. It should be made clear by management far ahead of time, or else it can lead to some unnecessary results like mentioned above.
5.Slow Loading Times
When providing a user with the services, the web app or mobile app’s primary concern should be effectiveness. This means that the windows should load fast, not be consuming too much memory, and definitely not contain bugs. Software enthusiasts are sure to know how bad it is when a mobile app suddenly crashes without any valid reason. Moments like those can actually make it or break it for the user.
To avoid these issues, the concerns are actually more on the UX side of things than the UI. The back-end design, servers, requests, and responses are quintessential for effectiveness. No window should be taking too much time to load, and a user’s input cannot be met with invalid responses. These are just some of the examples to remember when thinking about effectiveness.
6.Lack of Security
So, you have started your own eCommerce solution or website, and you are managing it. Suddenly, you find out that one of your buyers is complaining about how their user data has been leaked to someone else, and they are being threatened with it. This is an absolute nightmare for just about anyone, and even more so for managerial positions.
In UI/UX trends, design and development, passwords, social security numbers, and other personal details will enter the scenery eventually. Only a single user’s data getting leaked might be enough to tarnish your entire business or service. This does not matter if the mobile app in question is a B2B app or a B2C app.
Make sure that you have provided your eCommerce mobile app or eCommerce website with the necessary security checks and measures before deployment. Any risks of data leakage or risks of source code breaches must be avoided at all costs.
Final Thoughts on UX Trends
Overall, the trends that are most popular amongst UI/UX trends and design and development in 2021 can be followed. Just make sure that you implement them correctly. The key to a good UI/UX trends is simplicity for the user, regardless of the complexities that will be handled in the back end.
Moreover, features should only be implemented upon completion. Do not expect users to respond positively if the features that are deployed are not complete. No matter how complicated or simplistic a feature might be, it can be terrible for the user to have them poorly implemented.
We hope this article was to your satisfaction. If you are looking to build your own eCommerce mobile apps, web apps, or eCommerce website, you can contact Enozom who are pioneers in this field.