Side Scrolling
Most digital interfaces incorporate some form of vertical scrolling, but the rise of mobile app stores brought rise to side-scrolling. Its usage is usually limited to cases where not much scrolling is required e.g. a small number of choices are present, and is a very effective way of effectively making use of the small real estate without having to squash or truncate the content.
Flat Skeuomorphism
After skeuomorphism lost favour in the UI/UX community, extremely flat graphics and layout became popularised primarily by the Windows Metro UI. Apple helped to find a medium between the two with iOS 7 onwards, and Google with the Material Design language of Android. Currently, the overlaying trend is to treat user interfaces in their own right without having to play to their physical equivalents, but by also including a layer of metaphorical material or physicality to them e.g. through the use of drop shadows to create depth/distance/scale, and homages to their physical equivalents (e.g. the use of ticket shaped digital tickets)
Cards
Smartphones popularised a card-based user interface because of their efficient use of space combined with their highly usable press areas and ability to display a large (and adaptable) range and scale of content or imagery. In the above example you can also see a continuation of the colour gradient trend.
Smartphones popularised a card-based user interface because of their efficient use of space combined with their highly usable press areas and ability to display a large (and adaptable) range and scale of content or imagery. In the above example you can also see a continuation of the colour gradient trend.
iOS 11 and its use of Negative Space, Drop Shadows, Translucency and Large Type
Apple's most recent smartphone operating system iOS 11 improves on a variety of aspects within its human interface. The wide ranging use of literal 'white' space corroborates the importance of the colour white to Apple's brand. A universal example of this is their white headphones - if you see someone walking down the street with white headphones in, your assumption is that an iPhone resides in their pocket. Major parts of Apple's industrial design have also included white materials, and their Human Interface team is now making it a key part of their UI. The use of large type headers helps the user understand exactly where they are at all times, and the almost universal presence of a bottom nav bar gives the user a way to go somewhere else. The top location of iOS's back buttons is not good for reachability, especially considering the much larger dimensions of contemporary devices, but the only alternative would be to create a bottom-heavy, cramped bottom bar. Instead they have adopted gesture-based back swipes; a welcome feature with only a small learning curve. Translucency helps to create the metaphorical sense of physicality and material through its visual links to materials like glass and plastic. Transitioning iconography from being outline-based to fill-based helps reduce cognitive load on the user, subsequently improving recognition and usability.
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