2013-Year inventory of 13 design trends

1. Flat Design

Flat design is exactly what Apple once admired as the opposite of the skeumorphism of the quasi-materialism. One company, though not the first to implement it, is the company that pushes it to a new level. This company is Microsoft.

It seems that the entire Windows 8 operating system has been developed around a thoroughly flat UI, with Metro and Live Tiles everywhere. This style has pros and cons and should be weighed against needs.

The recent adoption of this flat design is a rising star, its name is called rise-an alarm clock app. Its entire UI is not a bit of three-dimensional elements, concise throughout the entire application, with grayscale combined, we see a beautiful appearance of the alarm clock.

Of course, flat design is not suitable for all applications, but more and more designers and developers will continue to use minimalism as the direction of app UI design.

2. Fewer buttons, more gestures

Once the application lacks a variety of buttons and visual dimensions, users unconsciously turn to gestures. Clear is an excellent use of the application of gestures, highlighting the magic of four-dimensional thinking. Google's recently released Google Maps wants to do the same with flat design and use of gestures at two points. Gestures will be the design trend of the 2013.

3. Auxiliary Animation: Feature visible

There is no button to press, no icon to choose from, you may not know how to complete the task. At this point, a little bit of animation indicates that the user may be able to guide the operation.

Perhaps the best example is the IOS lock-screen camera button. People who are unfamiliar with IOS may see the first response to the button, perhaps by clicking instead of dragging. Instead of being indifferent to the user's clicks, Apple is demonstrating a bouncing animation. The user can then intuitively know how to turn on the camera.

With a little animation to provide the visibility of the functionality, you can save the button to guide the user to familiarize themselves with the UI, which is a solution to minimize visual cues.

4. Left navigation, Menu drawer

Three horizontal line, also known as "Hamburger", many apps have it as a menu icon selection. This is a simple way to show that there is a complex set of options that do not draw three horizontal lines. There's an app that even makes it fun, as long as you hold the three-line icon in the upper-left corner of the magazine for more than three seconds, it really turns into a hamburger. It's a delicious Easter egg.

Although "hamburgers" are already very popular, this form of visual representation will become more prevalent in the future.

5. Native overwhelming web

The website does not explain the reasons for this view in detail. However, from the current situation, the primary application is still the mainstream. Compared with the Web technology, the native application has the features of multiple functions and strong monetization ability. But with the initial finalization of the HTML 5 standard, the functionality of WEB applications will be refined, coupled with the advantages of flexible deployment and cross-platform compatibility, and this trend may be reversed in a year or two.

6. Responsive Web Design

This trend obviously runs counter to the previous one, but this year will undoubtedly be popular in web design. With the advent of new publications, a single platform is clearly not enough to expand audience coverage.

The best example to date is quartz. It can be easily run on any device, displaying the same information on the IPhone, IMac, or Surface tablet, and the same beauty.

Responsive design is becoming a popular way to showcase web-based content. It is almost impossible to make a special design for each device, and this alternative is a very trustworthy option to keep content consistent across different platforms.

7. Wider website

By providing a wider web site, visual media can be rendered more prominently next to the text. A picture wins thousand words.

8. Larger font size

The 12-14-pixel font has always been the standard size for the web body. Most recent Web sites tend to be 16-18-pixel sized fonts. This site is an example.

This is because in responsive web design, typography plays an important role in the readability of content. On the IPhone, a 18-pixel font is much easier to read than 12 pixels. The trade-off, however, is that a lengthy article with such a large font will not work if it is displayed on a larger screen with a lower resolution device.

9. Larger search box

Search is becoming an important factor in all aspects of design. From social networking UX to publication UX, search is the essential feature for distinguishing between needs and unwanted things.

The Noun project and the new MySpace all use a very large search box. For the first time in the past year, Google's share of search has reached a stable level, due to the fact that Web site deployment-specific search replaces the general search method.

In addition, Path has customized a unique social content search feature for its own services. More of these features are expected to occur in the future.

10. Animated GIF becomes design element

Animated GIF is increasingly used in content, and perhaps the next step is to apply it to the design. An animated GIF provides a way for a particular element to change and animate without coding. Although there are still problems with animated GIFs appearing on mobile devices, more people are sure to try this year.

11. humanized Design

This is more of an idea than a trend. We tend to get into all sorts of details and not be able to look at the whole picture of why we are so designed.

Everyone attaches great importance to good design, but the element of value is largely embodied in humanism. As we learn more about the true capabilities of our equipment, designers should not only keep the UX in mind, but also put this philosophy into creation.

Marco Arment's magazine did a good job. Although the electronic magazine is tailor-made for technical people, he can also appreciate the magazine's lack of technical knowledge. He designed it as a publication of value, potential, connection and philosophy. People crave objects that are capable of having a relationship-either physical or virtual.

As important as technical details are, the experience of design can also have an impact on people. If you can dramatically change the way people interact with everyday devices, you can influence their overall productivity and/or state of mind, and thus directly relate to their input to the world.

If you can't simplify or improve your life to some extent, it doesn't make sense to have a nice design. This is often overlooked by everyone.

12. Fresh Color

If you want to list the lack of anger in the design community, that color is definitely a creative idea. My main screen 60% of the application is a color-blue. Yes, there is a color theory behind the blue, but the App Store has a history of 5 years, but there is still only one color governing it.

It's not just the icons that are boring colors. From Tumblr to Pandora, the Web site's use of blue has reached absurd proportions. To avoid the sameness, you need to try other colors to stand out.

13. Vector Adaptive

With a vector design tool like sketch, you can easily implement a design that meets the different screen resolution requirements. More designers are expected to use vectorization tools in 2013.