The latest colour trends for mobile app design

Colour belongs to the most powerful tools of designers when talking about mobile app design together with usability. Colours can be used to impact the users’ emotions, draw their attention, and put them in the right frame of mind to make a purchase. However, in order to do so, it is essential to understand how colours affect people.

In e-commerce, as the interaction user-internet device is mainly based on graphical UI components, colours play a decisive role to free up emotions that trigger spontaneous purchases.

There are countless studies and also very comprehensive articles that explain how colours (warm and cold) affect human perception through the colour theory and the psychology of colours. Even Goethe was concerned about the influence of colours on the human psyche.

Today we focus on the latest trends in mobile web design that no designer should miss. However, it is important to note that colour trends depends on sector, CI, and country.

Simplicity without killing usability

In mobile design, the speed is a plus because users are accustomed to live in a fast-speed world where being the first to answer a message, post an article or receiving the latest trendy dress as soon as possible matters. These details make the difference in a sector with a lot of competition. That’s why simplicity plays a decisive role in mobile app design.

Steve Jobs always fought for simplicity in design and talked about it as follows:

» “That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” «

Unsurprisingly, the latest trends in mobile web design insist on making user tasks simpler and more intuitive:

• “Rose Quartz” and “Serenity” have been chosen as Pantone Colour of the year 2016.
  They are halfway between warm and cool colours, reflecting a full sense of balance that it is increasingly demanded nowadays. The digital and busy user is crying out to calm down and relax. Precisely, peace of mind and wellness are the feelings that Rose Quartz and Serenity transmit when you see them.

• Minimalistic design.
  The user’s preferences shift toward simplicity so UI is returning to its basics to succeed. Minimalism totally meets these specifications, as its major strength is clarity of forms, what means, clean lines, whitespaces and minimal graphical elements. However it is not as easy as it seems because the big challenge here is to provide the same high level of usability with less interface with the main objective of giving the users’ eye a rest.

• Monochromatic scheme.
  They are made up of different tones, shades and tints within a specific hue. The monotone colour starts a single hue, for example blue, and the design is created with a palette using derivatives of that colour. It is in vogue because one colour again reflects harmony and simplicity, simple design gives content more chances to stand out and it is applicable to users with colour blindness.

However, the monochrome trend is giving way to diverse and vibrant colours in some countries like USA.

This is how the new trends look like

App icons: First impressions matters

Colours are also meaningful when designing an app icon. The app stores are full of icons with different colours. However, Medium has conducted a comprehensive study in which they analyse and compare the designs of hundreds of apps.

They’ve reached the conclusion that the most prevailing colours are blue and red. Therefore, if you want to stand out from the competition without being too daring, green or orange can be your colour. Pink and purple are underrepresented, so they are a great alternative if you bet on a breakthrough design, while yellow is entirely owned by Snapchat.

Usability, the king

However, it is a must to say that all efforts put in finding the perfect colour palette can be useless if the mobile app is not functional and user friendly enough. Usability is critical to determine the success or failure of an app and in combination with the most suitable colours to increase conversions.

More mobile web design tips

Our white paper “Success in Mobile Commerce” gives more info about the pros and cons of apps, mobile sites and their mixed forms. Tips on optimisation factors and good perfomance are also included. The white paper can be downloaded free of charge here.