Around this time of year, plenty of articles start to circulate about “Design Trends” for 20XX. Although these articles are nice to browse through, they serve more as inspiration (like Dribbble) rather than a checklist or guide.

I wanted to take a different approach to this. I came up with 4 design “improvements” that (as a user) I would like to see more of in 2021. (I use the word “improvement” because I can only hope they are not temporary fads.)

Proposed Improvement #1: More cursor types

There are so many cursor types out there, it’s a shame we do not use more of them. Yes…

Background

My current company was searching for a Performance Management system early last year and landed on Leapsome — a new, yet highly-rated tool.

The solution initially seemed to live up to its reputation as onboarding was a breeze and their support team was pleasant to interact with.

Unfortunately, my first impressions quickly faded as I started to actually use the tool. Sure, there were small things like inconsistent UI and improper implementation of small components, but those are details designers could find in almost every new tool. …

As I am sure all designers have picked up on, confetti has become a popular method of (positive) feedback inside mobile and desktop apps. I will discuss the viable scenarios where you can implement confetti and will even provide some corny examples 🌽

Scenarios when you can use confetti 🎉

Confetti is congratulatory in nature, but in what circumstances are you congratulating the user?

Celebrate a completed process via a confirmation (congrats) page

Completing a lot of work should be celebrated. It should also be confirmed that the work you did was saved.

We often see growls/toast notifications upon completion of small amounts or work or work that does not require a e.g. confirmation code. …

Intro

I was recently tasked to redesign the results of the following filters:

1. Filtered results for users (creatives)

Intro + Project Objective

I became Connective’s first designer at the start of 2020, and one of my first projects was to redesign their chat interface. The initial goal of this project was just to provide a face lift, but after several discussions with the CEO we added the following functionality improvements:

1. For 1v1 chats, users should be able to tab between the contact’s profile the chat itself.
2. For group chats, users should be able to quickly access group member’s profiles.
3. For group chats, users should be able to easily identify who said what.
4. For all chats, users should be able to easily tell…

My twin and I did everything together growing up. We were so inseparable that our middle school decided it would be “healthy” for us to take separate classes. At the time I didn’t understand why separating us was so necessary. After all, I considered my brother a part of me — and thought that should be embraced more than scrutinized.

For those three years I did become more independent, but I also regressed in my ability to showcase empathy and compassion for others, now that I was focusing more on “me” and less on “we”.

So how does that relate…

As per Material Design, top app bars “display information and actions relating to the current screen”. With these components usually on every page of an app, it is paramount they are designed effectively 💪.

TLDR

You can choose to just trust me on this and duplicate my file on Figma (referenced in the diagram below):

About

Tourists are always looking for the “local experience” of a neighborhood they are visiting. They want to eat where the locals eat and drink where the locals drink.

While this may be a decent indicator of local life on a Friday or Saturday night, this doesn’t represent the majority of the week.

Convenience stores, aka, variety stores, bodegas, mini-marts, etc. represent real life. They represent a Tuesday night when you realize you are all out of detergent. They represent a Friday morning when you need more trash bags for trash day.

Convenience stores are the heartbeat of a neighborhood, and…