Understanding Design Trends

Design trends can be a topic that brings out many designer opinions for better and for worse. With that being said, I can only speak from my experience and share with you what I’ve learned so far in my career, so take what you need and leave the rest.

For those that are new to design or an unfamiliar with what a design trend is , design trends are patterns/ layouts etc that you start to consistently see across products. Some examples of this is how profile pictures became circle shaped instead of square, parallax and gradients. Design trends can help us establish commonalities and expected functionality for users which can help make products more modern, delightful and intuitive. So it can seem as though following popular design trends can be an automatic go to when designing/ re-designing for a product but that’s not always the case.

Design trends should be viewed as possible “tweakable” solutions to the problem you are trying to solve instead of an end all be all. I say this because, as with many of the projects/ products you will be working on, they will have nuances that were not a factor when a trend was initially designed. When using design trends focus on what problems you are solving, who your users are and how/ why utilizing that trend in your layout helps to solve that problem, and does it make sense for those patterns that are you seeing being used in other products to be used for this particular one, and in which ways will your user be impacted by implementing it.

If the answer is yes, then by all means add it to your design. However, more often than not, it won’t be a “perfect cookie cutter” solution ( in my opinion, nothing ever is but don’t let that stress you out. Sometimes a “good enough”solution works just as well.) . When that happens, figure out how you can tweak the pattern / trend in ways that it can become a solution to the nuanced problem you’re solving.


So what are some current design trends in both B2C and B2B platforms that I’m seeing lately that I like?

- UX writing being used more when it comes to communicating with users. It simplifies the process of using certain products for users. It makes layouts less confusing for users to navigate.
- Illustrated animations being used in micro-interactions that show the progress of orders or actions that are being taken place after a user’s confirmation “triggered” it.
- Voice UX being integrated into products. While from a security aspect I see some tweaks that may need to be done but from a UX aspect, I like the convenience it provides users.

What are some trends that you like or would like to see implemented more?