Best Online Platform Material Design Guidelines for 2021

Image courtesy of Pexels

Though 2020 was not our year, 2021 will come with lots of enthusiasm and positivity. To the fact, designers are pushing their limits to come up with the best possible designs, and grow the user experience to a whole new level. Just to let the brands break through the tough competition, designers come up with the exciting trends in the illustration, colour, forms, and hundreds of design elements.

There is no denying to the fact that Google is one of the biggest influencers in the design trends every year. The designs by Google have a tremendous impact on how new products will be designed and launched.

So, in this write up, I will take you through the new material design guidelines introduced by Google. With that, I will even share a few tips for applying the designs in your business and products.

Let’s sail through the material design to enhance your business in 2021.

#1 Go With Motion for Brand Identity

In the user’s journey through your online platform, the motion will let you express your brand identity in a better way. For most of the online platforms, motions will act as a key element. With the help of the motion, you can express the idea of your business quite easily to the users.

With the help of the motion, your product will really stand out of the crowd and will provide you satisfying results. Know how the motions will help to display the various parts of the information you want to highlight.

Though, never forget that speed and efficiency are important for the users. Hence, never compromise the speed for applying the motion to the UX/UI design for your app.                

#2 Animated Icons Are in Trend

Animated icons will reflect the acting which connects the relationship of the two elements. The best example to consider for the animated icons is the play/pause button of a video. When you click on the play button, it will be converted to the pause button.

This was just a simple example, now consider the same thing for the “Add to Cart” option. It will take the user experience to a whole new level, and ultimately increase the ROI of a business. To the fact, creating such animated icons are less time consuming and easy to build. You can do it with the help of the Adobe XD by using the animated effect (auto).

Take a note of the point that you don’t make overuse of such animated icons. As it may spoil the things rather than making it up.   

#3 Dark Themes

We all need to agree to the fact that we all are attracted to dark themes. Yes, it is not a new concept, but you can implement the dark theme design in a different way. UX designers are taking full advantage of the dark themes these days by giving it their own creativity.

Some of the popular apps like Netflix, Amazon, Spotify, YouTube, and so on have already implemented the dark theme concept. The reason to implement dark themes to these apps is they are mostly used during the night time or in the leisure hours. As people would mostly prefer to use such in the later hour of the day. While for social media apps light themes are more preferable.

Henceforth, before choosing the theme for your online platform, have complete research on users who are going to use your app, and which time of the day will have the maximum traffic.

#4 A Good Judgement For Colors is Must

Material design guidelines of Google even contain some amazing tips for the colour of your online platform. The colour selection is based on the elements which need more focus and the one that requires less attention.

The colour plays a major role in catching the attention of the users on some important elements. To establish a hierarchy between the various elements, you can use the colour and colour weight. Here the weight of the colour refers to the standard of the colour.

For instance, consider apps like Instagram or Twitter. They have a light interface as users will keep posting so many colourful things on the app. Henceforth, reinforce the colours of your app elements with research on customer behaviour.  

#5 Use Some Hero Sounds

Hero sound is the area which most of the product designers often miss. Sounds and music will connect a user emotionally to your product. Sounds help a user to be more aware of what happens in the interface.    

Make sure you place the sounds at the appropriate place so that it can attract the users rather than annoying them.

#6 UX Writing

Gone are the days wherein the creative and decorated words used to attract the attention of the users. The time is for minimal and simple writing. People these days want things straight to the point that brings value to them. Writing content straight to the point will bring more customer engagement.

For instance, take an example of Google, they have analyzed that the users are more into browsing the hotel rooms rather than directly making a reservation. Thus, it is advisable to change the “Book a Room” text with “Check for Availability”. To the fact, when many hotel browsing websites change this text a 17% increase was observed in the user engagement.

Points to take note here,

• Stick to the point, rather than keep on changing
• Provide an objective to the users
• Focus on “Present Tense + Active Voice”
• Use numerical when needed

#7 Inclusive Designs

Above all, inclusive designs are where all the above trends lie. Placing a design in the right place is crucial to get the perfect execution of the trends.

To put it short, inclusive designs are the core part which takes care of the user expectations. The designer needs to work in a way that design is emotionally, physically, and cognitively suitable for everyone. Remember a single point here to learn from diversity before finalizing a UX/UI design of your online platform. Start with wireframes and then, go ahead with designing.    

#8 Color

An online platform has a lot to do with the colours in order to attract the attention of a user. As per the guidelines, try to use the brand colours at the time of highlighting any memorable part of your online platform.

For instance, think of salt and pepper sprinkled on avocado in a white plate. That’s how colour branding works. Similarly, for your online platform, increase or decrease the colours near the elements based on the focus you want to give it to.   

To put it short, the colour indicates which element to attract and which one to not. Colours are all about making an element interactive. To build a hierarchy among the interfaces, you can use colours and colour weight.

Conclusion

So, these are the top 8 material designs that you must take into consideration for your online platform. Hope this article will help you to build the best designs for your platform.