Trend for User Interface which you need to know

User interfaces have already proved to be the key deciding factor for “lovable” websites. As a matter of fact user interfaces are applicable practically everywhere from mobiles, internet, microwaves and wrist watches. Generally people prefer to buy or work with devices which are easy to use as well as functionally rich. Similarly websites and applications which are very useful, functionally rich and has a good user interface will be appreciated and quickly gain popularity.

As a web designer or developer our biggest challenge is to create and build authentic and innovative websites which are attractive to look at, handy to use as well as great to work with. In short the user and user experience has to be the prime focus and every aspect of the website or application has to be designed to make things easier for them.

Let's take a look at the latest design trends that have made an impact on the usability aspect of websites:

Minimalism: After a long period of fancy and elaborate designs, websites have now taken to minimum frills and flairs. At least the big players seem to be getting away with it, and it looks like this trend is catching on and is here to stay. Take a look at Google and Microsoft for instance, their plain and simple backgrounds with clear and legible text makes these websites easy to understand and maneuver. Their text buttons and rich gradients with single or solid colors have made it comfortable to use and comprehend.
Though you might question the attractiveness of these sites, audiences across the world have accepted them with open arms due to their easy-to-use and comprehend interfaces. They keep the user focused, removes all noise and disturbances and hence ensures that the user achieves his goal.
This approach works well for applications that work on user generated content.

Skeumorphism: A Skeumorphic approach to design is when your design is made to imitate the look and functionality of traditional and familiar objects offering the advantage of an intuitive interface.

Such interfaces were first used by Apple in their apps and they were well received. An example is their newsstand app which is present in all the iPhones. This newstand with its wooden shelves and texture give it a realistic appearance and imitates the functionality of a traditional one.
Though the designer community is still not entirely convinced whether skeumorphism is a good idea, it seems to be well received in the case of the Newstand app. The major reason why the skeumorphic approach to design is debatable is that; one set designers believe that imitating real objects might highlight the limitations that come along with these objects and often, the limitations might weigh more than the benefits.
So, when you use skeumorphic designs do so carefully. However, they seem to work particularly well with objects that have easy functionalities and when employed on touch screen devices.

Laser focus: Such interfaces are quite productive once they are accepted, as they focus the entire attention of the user on a single obvious task. The main advantage of such applications is that the user knows immediately what it is all about and what is expected of him in order to finish a task. Google homepage is the biggest example of this approach.

This approach works exceptionally well in the case of ‘search’ and ‘browse’ functions.
Context sensitive navigation
This type of navigation is particularly useful for huge and vast websites that require quite a lot of navigation. Context sensitive navigation is an excellent way to Declutter your design. You just have to arrange your navigations such that all the most necessary or important ones are displayed at all times and the contextual ones are displayed only when there is a particular action like ‘hover’ over a particular part of the website to show the other navigation options or for that matter any other link/button.

An example is the Twitter, Facebook options on the top right hand corner of Dailymotion which appear when you hover over that area.

This feature can be used almost anywhere, you just have to carefully choose the right gadgets and buttons that have to be hidden and the actions that are required to reveal the hidden buttons.

Collapsed content: Yet another way to Declutter and make your design look more neat and arranged is the collapsed content approach to design. Here you get to hide the non essential options and widgets by categorizing them and putting them under one link which would expand and collapse on the user’s request to reveal or hide the rest.

Google plus seems to have put good use of this design approach making it easier for users to handle their accounts.

Content chunking: This technique aims at simplifying a large amount of content into small chunks which are easy to read and understand by inserting relevant images or by splitting the whole content into several bits and then giving each a heading and relevant pictures. This makes a long and monotonous text, interesting, easy to understand and fun to read.

Long pages
Off lately long is in, gone are the days when there used to be extensive horizontal scrolling. With the introduction of the scrolling wheel on the mouse, long websites are easily read. This seems to be a better option than splitting content into separate pages which are not as easy to find as simply scrolling down a page
This approach works well when applied along with content chunking, in order to make a lengthy content attractive and interesting.

So, these were some useful design trends that seem to be staying, have fun implementing them in your designs and enjoy the benefits of a quality design.