Member-only story
The future UI trend of 2025?
No, it’s not Neumorphism. But it all depends on the success of one device.
Humans are restless.
Once we find something that works, we get used to it and we crave the next big thing. The next innovation. When will the future finally arrive? And when it does, how long will it take us to get used to it, and eventually be bored with it?
Let’s jump five years ahead and try to predict where UI design will be then based on what we know now.
One style to rule them all?
With their recent WWDC announcements, Apple has cemented the rule of a variant of the popular Modern/Soft UI style. Obviously they had their own twist on it, and it wasn’t without controversy. The main issues were too big of reliance on Skeuomorphic elements and some alignment problems with iOS home screen widgets.
The UI revolution (in the futuristic, touch-enabled sense) started in 2007 with Skeuomorphism, because touch interfaces with that fidelity were new and scary.
People had to learn the patterns and understand the possibilities. That’s why our virtual books were on a shelf, and our notepads were stitched leather and a paper texture.
Then, as we got more accustomed to the UI’s, the “modernization” phase kicked in. Textures were slowly removed, except for the notes app, which to this day has a barely visible paper texture under the text.
Corners were getting progressively more rounded, as the target audience of touch interface grew from early-adopters and the tech-savvy to “the general population”.
You use the same apps as your Mum, your barista, your bus driver and Elon Musk. People like the rounded corners, readable…
