Interesting trends in user interfaces

Trends - this is good or bad?

People tend to read topics about trends for two reasons: to get the examples to be used or a list of cliches that should be avoided. What is the true reason?

I think the trends are neutral. They are not necessarily good or bad, they just show that people feel cool at the moment. As they say, after the abuse trends, a point is reached, after which "remains a bad taste in my mouth." For this reason, I always recommend designers to look around and take note of what is popular at the moment in the design. Being familiar with these trends, you can easily do their job, no matter whether you follow the crowd or trying to do something on its unique.

The wooden background

This is not a new trend, Garage Band has long demonstrated her and I'm sure there are many other examples. However, this trend is definitely at the peak of his popularity. In fact, the abuse of a wooden background is closer to the popularity of glossy Web 2.0 a few years ago.



There are a number of wooden textures at the moment. You can see them in the mobile and web applications. One of the things that caused this trend is popular - it is a large selection of beautiful and free textures.

One of these was the texture textures MatthewSkiles. It could be used free of charge and with no mention of the author.


As a result, the popularity of these textures werecreated by a huge number of applications.

retro interfaces


Designers love to restore the device of the past with the help of "pixels."

At the same time, some really nice retro interfacesto use. Retro components in such applications are a key aspect for a nice use of applications. For example, an application Instant for Mac, you drag aphoto in an old Polaroid, and then waiting for, when he "spits" photo in the good old days. It is notsuitable for normal photo processing, but to createa retro-style images in the Polaroid - it's fun.


strips of notification


As you can see, it's just a rectangle with a triangle.Triangle helps to connect the contents of a windowwith a form or a button and can be placed on anyedge of the window. Do not believe that it is popular? Here are a few examples that I found a few minutes of searching.


An application that helps you create and edit anotification window on pure HTML and CSS - CSSArrowPlease

Snow-white interface

Many designers choose a light gray or all whiteinterface for their projects.


As you can see from these examples, buttons andform elements are simple in this design. Subtlegradients, contours and shadows of one pixel, you can create an easy and rather formal interface.

It is interesting to note the increasing popularity ofvarious sets of UI. I do not know the man who laid out the elements of this interface is publicly available, but the idea has gained popularity andcontinues to be relevant.