Neumorphism will NOT be a huge trend in 2020

So… what will?

Ok I admit it — it was fun to co-create a name for this “exciting new trend” but I never imagined it will go that far.

Many blogs and twitter posts are calling it the “next great thing for 2020” already. Let me pop that little bubble before it outgrows us all.

Shots with #neumorphism started showing up but most of the “light” ones look almost exactly the same…

Neumorphism is not versatile enough to be a popular design style. Especially in real, coded products.

Sure you can do it in Dark Mode and you can choose from a variety of a couple different off-white background colors. That gives us six possible styles but the differences between them are too small.

Don’t do buttons!

Currently the style is being overused to create anything from cards to buttons, often breaking the rules I tried to outline here. I know it looks nice as a pressed state but for many people it’s not visible enough as the change is too subtle.

And by many people I don’t only mean the ones having vision impairments but also people with lower quality screens / lower screen contrasts etc.

Buttons are probably the worst scenario to use those double shadows. Especially the pressed state. For many people there will absolutely be no difference between those states — like on the right side here.

Comparing the neumorphic buttons to either Skeuomorphic or flat ones that have any contrast is also a good example. Those shapes simply don’t work well as actual buttons and are TERRIBLE as Call To Action.

Which one would you click?

How about using them as cards?

Cards and sliders are probably the best use-cases of this trend. But this is all given the structure of the card is done right. The hierarchies…