Either you love it or hate it, but this modern UI design is everywhere and it’s nothing to sneeze at. What is it? Flat website design.
Sure, it’s a design that has been around for a long time, but it’s become one of the biggest web design trends in recent years ever since Microsft implemented it in both their mobile interface and Windows 8 OS.
If you’re looking for that modern UI design that’s sure to be a hit, then read on to find out everything you need to know about flat web design.
What Makes it so Popular?
For a long time, designers have placed an emphasis on using flashy designs to show off their techniques and impress users. Then, Apple brought semi-realistic design to the forefront, which focused on shadows, layers, and three-dimensional effects.
Among other trends, modern UI design has since taken a turn towards simplicity.
Part of the popularity of flat web design is that it puts aside all the flashy effects and focuses on functionality. The simplicity of the UI design makes it more straightforward for the user to interact with it, and user experience is at the core of the design. With the optimization of customer experience being one of the biggest trends of 2018, this is something to keep on your radar.
Where other web designs sometimes blur the line between what the user can interact with and the background, flat web design creates a clear and simple distinction.
Main Features of Flat Web Design
There are 5 things that clearly set this modern UI design apart from others.
1. Minimalistic Design
The most standout aspect of flat web design is that it is minimalistic. Any aspects of the design that don’t have any functionality take away from its purpose. It acts as clutter and takes away from the user experience. A quick look at the stats shows that cluttering elements are annoying for users.
Minimalism filters out all the unnecessary aspects and leaves only the important parts of the design. This makes buttons, fields, and other elements obvious to the user, making it simple to interact with.
2. Solid Colors
Flat web design uses a variety of solid colors. The bright and contrasting colors are what grab the users attention and help guide the eye towards the different interactive elements of the interface.
These colors are what differentiate buttons, fields, and other elements from the background of the design.
3. Featured Typography
Typography is an essential part of this modern UI design. It plays a big part in giving the design its personality since the rest of the design is so minimalistic.
While most typography used in flat web design is still somewhat minimalistic, hints of flair go a long way to adding polish to the design.
4. Simple Iconography
Another important feature of flat web design is the use of flat images and icons. The two-dimensional aspect plays into the minimalism and avoids the confusion of complex images.
Simple images quickly and easily get the point across. Why spend your time trying to get your users to understand a complex idea when you can simply show them?
Icons also act as a universal language that anyone can easily understand. Rather than using a fancy image that imitates a three-dimensional real-life object, a plain icon gets the job done just as easily, and much more efficiently.
5. No Flashy Effects
There are no spinning buttons, flashing lights, sparkles, jewels, shadows, or any other wonky effects in flat web design. It is just stripped down to the basics needed for functionality.
Everything has edges that are crisp, sharp, and clear, making it obvious what elements are interactive, and which are just part of the background. It’s also easier on the eyes when you’re looking at such a clean-cut design.
This lack of special and flashy effects makes it easier for the user to actually focus on the purpose of your web design. There’s nothing to distract them, and everyone can get right down to business.
How To Make Your Flat Web Design Work
There are a few things you need to focus on when designing your own minimalist website if you want it to be successful.
Simplicity
Make sure that your design is intentionally simple. If too many elements are added to the design, it takes away from the whole purpose of it.
Functionality
The purpose of your flat web design should be to make the UI as functional as possible. It’s all about the user experience. Once you strip away the flashy and unnecessary effects, your users can focus on what your site has to offer. This is especially important considering that these effects load poorly on on smartphones, and more than half of traffic is now mobile.
Sensible Visual Design
Make sure that the visual design you choose makes sense for the interface you’re using. Nothing is worse than finishing your design only to find out that it doesn’t look good with the interface.
Make Sure Flat Web Design is the Right Design
Most importantly, you need to make sure that flat web design is the right modern UI design to use in the first place! As trendy as it is, it’s not something that works for every project and you really need to consider if it’s appropriate for what you’re working on.
There’s no sense in trying to force a flat design to work where it doesn’t belong. There’s a design that works for every project, and sometimes the trendiest one isn’t it.
But if the flat web design is the best choice for what you want to do, then, by all means, make the most of it!
Trending Modern UI Design
Flat web design has proven that it is here to stay. The minimal and functional design puts user experience in the spotlight, which has made it a popular choice among web designers.
Now that you’ve got everything you need to know about flat web design, you’re ready to get out there and make one of the best minimalist websites.
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