Top Mobile App Trends 2024: What You Should Know to Stay Afloat
Updated in January 2024
- Mobile app market at a glance
- What are the latest mobile app design trends?
- #1 Face ID
- #2 In-app gestures
- #3 Voice-based assistants
- #4 Chatbots and conversational design
- #5 Dark mode
- #6 Personalized communication
- #7 Laconic interfaces and content-focused designs
- #8 Material You
- #9 Motion: Video and animation
- #10 Serif fonts
- #11 Futuristic colors
- #12 Organic shapes
- Summary Table
- QA: Mobile app design trends
- Concluding thoughts
The mobile application industry has been performing overwhelming growth since its advent nearly 15 years ago. The general internet traffic is convincingly relocating from desktops to mobile devices. Specifically, mobile applications account for 90% of the overall time spent on mobile phones. These numbers emphasize the need for companies to expand access to their products or services through advanced and user-friendly mobile applications.
So, how can you supercharge your app to make it win customers’ hearts? We will introduce a comprehensive range of mobile app design trends in 2024, which will help you remain competitive and keep up with the galloping market.
Mobile app market at a glance
Year after year, people tend to use mobile applications more and more intensively. Overall mobile application downloads are forecasted to generate a whopping $935 billion in revenue in 2023.
Here are some other impressive statistics regarding mobile app usage:
- 1.96 million apps are available for download in the Apple App Store and 2.87 million in the Google Play Store.
- 49% of users open an app 11 or more times every day.
- The average smartphone user opens ten apps each day and 30 apps per month.
However, these figures don’t mean that any new app is bound to succeed. To push your product through in this highly cluttered and competitive market, you should understand which apps consumers will likely retain and why.
What are the latest mobile app design trends?
Mobile app development is a multifaceted process encompassing technology, design, style, functionality, and other aspects influencing customer interaction with the solution. To highlight this complex nature of mobile applications, we will split the fundamental mobile app design trends of 2024 into three groups according to their types.
Group 1: Demanded tech features in mobile apps
This segment displays the implementation of breakthrough technologies in mobile app design.
Face ID
The breakthrough Face ID technology has dramatically altered the way people utilize applications and devices. Using fingerprints and Face IDs to unlock the device, confirm an action, or access an app effectively supersedes passwords, which sometimes can even be unsafe.
As one of the latest mobile app design trends, facial recognition enables designers to enhance the application design and help users stay confident in the security of their devices.
In-app gestures
Gesture navigation has become the new normal in application development since delivering this feature for iPhone X in 2017. However, Android devices still can’t completely fulfill such options. The thing lies in the market variation where there are plenty of manufacturers and less control from Google’s side. In fact, the number of Android device producers is so huge that each company can implement the gesture navigation feature in different ways.
Despite the lack of common standards for Android smartphones, in-app gestures significantly enhance the user experience by bringing the whole interaction process to a new level. Gesture controls are entertaining and allow users to tap, swipe, play with rotations, and more. Gesture-driven interaction feels natural and intuitive; therefore, it increases comfort and helps users grasp the application seamlessly.
Voice-based assistants
Global technology leaders, such as Google, Amazon, and Apple, keep investing in voice interaction as this technology significantly simplifies routine operations. Smart speakers, voice-controlled homes, and other intelligible equipment now make users’ lives easier. For example, Google Duplex eliminates the need to make phone calls. In such a way, you can rely on your voice assistant to make online orders or restaurant reservations. This AI-based technology accurately imitates real human voices and manner of speech.
Voice interaction is also a great way for businesses to enhance their operational and sales processes. Companies can use this feature to monitor and analyze customer phone conversations. For example, American financial institutions now frequently deploy banking chatbots allowing them to improve the quality of incoming calls and enhance customer care services.
If you require such services, Coreteka can do a great job. Earlier, we successfully developed the Philip Morris Quality Control platform. This solution monitors and analyzes the performance of consultants, sales representatives, and sellers. It is used in retail chains and call centers. Philip Morris Quality Control utilizes voice recognition technologies based on Google API. If needed, our team can develop a similar solution for mobile devices. Read more about this case.
Enhancing your app with different voice-enabled capabilities can boost client engagement and drive more leads, which means advanced promotion and refined conversions. However, some consumers consider this technology can harm their confidentiality while tech giants are watching them through smartphones. Believe it or not, the choice is yours.
Chatbots and conversational design
The combination of conversational design and chatbots provides an exceptional opportunity to establish uninterrupted communication with your customers and partners.
Chatbots and the right conversational design will help your company handle tons of customer requests maintaining a smooth performance. Such mobile app design trends drive efficiency, speed up request processing, and increase trust in your company.
Group 2: Global trends in design
This group summarizes the trends dictated by changing consumer behaviors and preferences as well as the altering business landscape.
Dark mode
Changes in the outside lighting may require respective adjustments in your device’s screen settings. Fortunately, modern applications offer light and dark interface design themes that differ in text and background color.
Light mode allows your device to display dark text on a white background. Conversely, the dark mode displays white text on a dark background. By including the dark mode feature in your application design, you’ll deliver advanced comfort and increase the usability of your application.
Personalized communication
Today, personalization has become a vital factor in getting the audience’s attention. About 72% of customers claim they will engage only with personalized messages. Consequently, personalization in mobile apps also becomes a powerful revenue driver.
One of the essential 2024 mobile app design trends, mobile app personalization implies using specific information about each customer to provide valuable insights into user behavior and preferences. Based on this data, marketers can craft personalized messaging and experiences through their mobile applications.
Laconic interfaces and content-focused designs
Minimalistic interfaces aim to drive users’ attention toward content instead of distracting them with decorative elements. Restrained graphic designs simplify and streamline the user experience.
Group 3: Style and color trends
This group unites design tools that can help your app stand out visually.
Material You
Since companies tend to personalize user experience, Google introduced Material You as a new design system in its Android 12 operating system. This new approach allows consumers to choose their own color palettes and typography for their devices. For example, when you change wallpapers on your smartphone, the system will automatically match complementary interface shades according to the main colors of the scene.
Material You also features a color picker that lets users select their favorite color and apply it to their device’s user interface, including the system theme, app icons, and other elements. It also includes a typography section that allows users to choose from a range of font styles and sizes.
Material You is built on the principles of Material Design, which emphasizes simplicity, consistency, and usability, and it provides a modern and flexible look for Android devices. Overall, Material You is a major step forward in the evolution of Android’s design language and offers users a more dynamic and expressive way to personalize their devices. Third-party mobile application developers can also implement Material You in their projects to bring new interactive experiences to their users.
Motion: Video and animation
Videos and advanced animation in application design help you drive more leads, increase conversions and sales, raise brand loyalty, and even more. Dynamic visuals jazz up the user’s experience as they are entertaining, informative, and easy to consume. By advancing your application interface with videos and animation, you can amplify the way your content impacts your audience.
Serif fonts
The use of Hermann, Linotype Didot, Recoleta, and other Serif family fonts also belongs to the mobile app design trends of 2024. Such fonts enrich the way your text looks, making your messages eloquent and memorable.
Serif fonts catch the eye with their exceptional elegance and clarity and drive readability. Remember that matching fonts and UX is the key to professional, well-designed applications. To learn more about the difference between user experience and user interface, check our What is UI/UX blog post.
Futuristic colors
Although neutral, plain interfaces prevail in mobile app designs, it doesn’t mean you can’t invigorate your solution with catchy futuristic colors. This will help emphasize essential parts of your design and make it look captivating. Just make sure to set the necessary highlights while keeping the overall harmony of the UI design elements. Explore UI design patterns for mobile applications to make your interfaces user-friendly.
Organic shapes
The correct shape of your design elements directly affects the overall impression of the interface design, hence the importance of competent graphics development.
The latest mobile app design trends promote organic shapes that help create accurate and coherent mobile app designs. Nature-inspired, rounded shapes bring effortless and appealing shades to the entire design.
Summary Table
The following table will give you a clear snapshot of the trends’ summary with a brief description of each trend.
Group | Trend | Description |
Demanded tech features in mobile apps | Face ID | A face recognition feature that verifies your identity on a specific device. |
In-app gestures | A technology that allows for using gesture-driven controls when operating a device. | |
Voice-based assistants | AI-powered voice user interfaces that enable voice search and other actions initiated by voice. | |
Chatbots and conversational design | Automated interaction tools with an intuitive and convenient design. | |
Global trends in design | Dark mode | The interface design displaying white text on a dark background. |
Personalization | Delivering high-quality, personalized experience through a mobile app. | |
Laconic interfaces and content-focused designs | Neutral interface designs focusing on content rather than design elements. | |
Style and color trends | Material You | Delivering personalized user experience through color palettes and typography preferences. Applicable to devices operating on Android 12. |
Motion: video and animation | Implementing dynamic visuals into a mobile app. | |
Serif fonts | The prevalence of serif fonts group in mobile apps to distinguish the text and improve its memorability. | |
Futuristic colors | Using eye-catching, futuristic color accents in the mobile app interface design. | |
Organic shapes | The dominance of nature-inspired, soft shapes in the mobile app design. |
QA: Mobile app design trends
The three major groups of trends will shape the mobile app industry in 2024. New technologies, including AR, face ID, in-app gestures, voice assistants, and chatbots. Global design trends, such as dark mode, personalization, and minimalism. Style and color trends, like videos, serif fonts, futuristic colors, and organic shapes.
New technologies are emerging every day while the existing ones keep evolving. The most recent advancements applied in mobile app design include the massive penetration of artificial intelligence (AI), AR and VR tools, intelligent chatbots, gesture-driven controls, facial recognition, and higher personalization based on big data.
The mobile app developers will likely continue their endeavor towards more profound UX/UI, pervading AI, and AR/VR techs. Internet-of-Things is also expected to impact the industry, as this technology enables the creation of amazingly innovative apps. Cloud computing likewise has its input, redefining the development of apps for multiple platforms.
Concluding thoughts
Mobile app design trends for 2024 are diverse and exciting. They encompass the impacts of various spheres, including technology, visual design, and overall traditions and behavior patterns. We at Coreteka have remarkable experience and expertise in mobile app development and a comprehensive understanding of the fundamental industry trends. We carefully keep track of technical novelties and know how to implement them for your business. Our team can provide the right specialists with the optimal sets of skills for your project.
Open the door to the world of innovations and let us be your competent guides. Start creating your one-of-a-kind app right now.