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Ben Halpern
Ben Halpern

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What are your favorite and least favorite 2021 design trends?

This post gives a lot of examples:

I'm wondering if folks have an opinion of what trends they like and what they hope don't last.

Top comments (32)

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egilhuber profile image
erica (she/her)

My favorite is by far Dark Mode! I even use an extension (Night Eye on chrome) to keep sites from blinding me (I'm looking at you, Google search). I'm very prone to eye strain, so I look favorably on any site/app that offers a dark mode.

My least favorite is Conversational Design. I've always found chat bots and voice control more frustrating than not. I like being able to navigate and use a website without that kind of 2 way interaction. Chatbots have never made me feel "special and appreciated" per the post - they're more likely to make me feel bombarded and frustrated, especially when they just pop up and start talking to me.

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smart_egg profile image
Dmitriy A.

Great comment! Just curious β€” Have you ever had to switch night/dark mode off? Like due to surrounding bright light?

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egilhuber profile image
erica (she/her)

I haven't had any issues with surrounding bright light making it difficult to use on PC. Occasionally on my phone it's been a problem, but that may be more due to glare.

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smart_egg profile image
Dmitriy A.

Do you prefer to enable/disable dark mode manually or when website detect OS preference and selects dark/light theme for you?

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egilhuber profile image
erica (she/her)

I definitely prefer if a site detects my dark mode preference right away. The only time it gets messy is if it doesn't agree with the dark mode extension.

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smart_egg profile image
Dmitriy A.

Thank you πŸ‘
Got to run a poll β€” twitter.com/smart_egg/status/13552...

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mauro_codes profile image
Mauro Garcia

I just wanted to let you know that I didn't know about Night Eye until reading your comment. My eyes are grateful to you πŸ˜€

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mauro_codes profile image
Mauro Garcia

Is neomorphism still a trend? If yes, It's definitely my least favorite, mainly because it has several accessibility issues: uxdesign.cc/lets-talk-neumorphism-...

I can't think about my favorite trend though

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

Yeah, trendy designs are often radically inaccessible, and neomorphism seems like one of the worst offenders of all time.

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mauro_codes profile image
Mauro Garcia

What about you Ben?

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

I am skeptical of anything that involves too much animation, especially with scrolling.

When done well, it is certainly delightful, but it seems to be reinvented the wrong way over and over again and I'd strive for more simplicity when possible.

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mauro_codes profile image
Mauro Garcia

Scroll animations are fantastic but only in very few and specific scenarios. For the rest of the standard apps or websites, I think it's better to stick with the basics in favor of achieving greater accessibility

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egilhuber profile image
erica (she/her)

Neomorphism is one of those design trends that does look really cool, but I can't imagine having to actually use it in any practical application.

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andrewbrown profile image
Andrew Brown πŸ‡¨πŸ‡¦

I am waiting for a design trend based off of MS Paint

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egilhuber profile image
erica (she/her)

Be the change you want to see in the world!

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mellen profile image
Matt Ellen

Wasn't that geocities/anglefire era?

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faraazahmad profile image
Syed Faraaz Ahmad

What exactly in MS Paint? all of it, cause that would be sweet

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smart_egg profile image
Dmitriy A.

Something like win 95 β€” alexbsoft.github.io/win95.css/
OR
Like win 98 β€” jdan.github.io/98.css/
IMHO both should be banned

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faridzif profile image
Faridzi • Edited

When done poorly, the animation, video or parallax will give me a headache, but when done right it's awesome. However my least favorite is the abstract art composition because I think it's fine to see some abstract art once in a while, but to have my frequently visited website like that its just too much

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mellen profile image
Matt Ellen

I've always liked minimalism. I guess I'm easily distracted, so the less there is on the page, the easier it is to focus.

With my distractibility in mind, anything that has animation for style annoys me. I will stare at it waiting to be sure I've seen the whole animation, before I can move on.

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rwalroth profile image
rwalroth

Lately I've seen a few websites like the ipad pro website (apple.com/ipad-pro/?afid=p238%7CsO...) that are just painful to scroll though. They make your scroll not actually scroll down but instead advance an animation. I like some scroll animation, but this takes it to an obnoxious level, and I've seen it in two other websites since then.

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metalmikester profile image
Michel Renaud

Oh yeah, that stuff drives me crazy.

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laviku profile image
Lavinia

I definitely don't like the Glassmorphism, it looks so weird to me, it looks good on pictures but I wouldn't use it for a real app or website.
I like websites that have bright colors, but with a minimalistic touch.

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livetvchannels profile image
Trieu.iv

Glassmorphism :)

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

What do you like about it?

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livetvchannels profile image
Trieu.iv

While Neumorphism was imitating an extruded, plastic surface (but still looking like one layer), this new trend goes a bit more vertical. It’s most defining characteristics are:

  • Transparency (frosted-glass effect using a Background Blur)
  • Multi-layered approach with objects floating in space
  • Vivid colors to highlight the blurred transparency
  • A subtle, light border on the translucent objects.

That verticality and the fact you can see through it, means users can establish hierarchy and depth of the interface. They simply see which layer is on top of which, just like pieces of virtual glass.

Because of that glassy look, I believe the best way to call it is GLASSMORPHISM.

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hiders90 profile image
Hiders90

Why people like Dark Mode so much?

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theonlydarkuser profile image
TheOnlyDarkUser • Edited

It might be just me, but I really like the Windows 95 theme. About the least favourite : Glassmorphism.

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bias profile image
Tobias Nickel

should 2021 be the year of the backdrop filter in css. blur and hue shift are very useful.

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tnypxl profile image
tnypxl

Infinite. Scrolling. STOP IT. You're not TikTok or facebook.

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simme profile image
Simme

This, for sure. Many websites add a footer with links not present elsewhere. Add infinite scrolling to it, and suddenly there are UI options you can’t get to.

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Joshua Amaju

Neumorphism, it's horrible, I don't understand why people like it.