Flat design can be seen as the more sophisticated cousin of minimalism —all design elements are centered on the idea of simplicity. However, the simplicity of flat design is hard to achieve — everything should be designed with the same goal in mind to create a cohesive visual and functional design.
Let’s look at what you can do to make flat design works for your users.
Remove unnecessary styling
It’s better to practice “invisible design” — make design choices that your users won’t notice. Because each time users spend noticing the design takes away from the immersion of the experience. Your goal is to help users quickly and easily understand certain actions and messages. Thus, your design should strip down visual elements to expose their essential functionality.
Dropbox flat website design is focused solely on the content
Color is a major part of flat design’s efficacy
Color is a large part of flat design — it basically sets the whole feel of your site’s page or app’s view. Flat design color palettes are often much brighter and more colorful than those for other apps/sites.
Credits: Rovane Durso
Tips:
Flat UI Colors is a great place to start when choosing your flat color scheme.
Soft colors give you a tasty visual element without stealing the show from the page’s primary message. Credits: thehypeagency
Bright images on a dark background are able to make a dramatic impression. Credits: triplagent
Design for the focused aesthetics
The type should tell users what is most important on the page and how to use the design. It’s better to use simple typography because it’s easier to read and better for loading, not to mention a necessity for minimalist styles.
Simple typefaces communicate confidence and clarity. Credits: Cienne
Tips:
Motion makes the flat design more user-centric
Flat’s visual simplicity works well together with motion. When users interact with your app or site, they might ask the following questions:
Questions like this might reveal opportunities to use motion to enhance the experience. Motion optimize perceived UX and answers the questions:
Motion-based design elements can be seen in a variety of forms, including transitions, animations, and even texture to mimic 3D depth.
Motion is allowing us to communicate better the interaction, making it easier for the user to understand them. Credits: Anish Chandran
Illustrations are a great extension of flat design
With the flat design style becoming more and more layered, it naturally incorporates more illustration.
Pictures speak louder than words and make the experience go faster
Properly-created illustrations clarify messaging by boiling down concepts into easily-understood visuals.
Intercom uses informative illustration which guides the eye to important information without eclipsing it
Interaction should be intuitive for users without any extra explanation
The biggest problems you will face when designing a flat UI are the interactive elements. Users need to know which areas of the page are plain static content, while other areas are clickable. Recently, designers have begun to realize this problem. As a result, a more mature and balanced interpretation of flat design has emerged — Flat 2.0 design:
Flat 2.0 design takes the best aspects of minimalism and skeuomorphism and makes them work together
Flat 2.0 design uses subtle shadows and edge effects to imply this interactivity. Shadows and gradients give the necessary clues to tell users what can be clicked and what can’t be on an interface. As a result, user comprehension improves.
Shadows help to tell the user the hierarchy of elements: they help differentiate between two objects and in some cases, understand that one is above another object. Credits: Google
In the example below, you can see how the subtle use of fine shadows all around the edges of CTA buttons gives buttons a raised impression.
Both primary and secondary CTA buttons on Sripe’s homepage are raised against the background
Flat design has all the key attributes that make a site as functional as it is beautiful. It brings us a step closer to a new paradigm of digital design, where the functionality and aesthetic are in complete harmony.
P.S. If you want to know more about Flat Design I suggest reading the article “Flat Design. History, Benefits and Practice” full of amazing illustrations. Enjoy!
About the Author
Nick Babich is a software developer and author of a blog dedicated to usability
Also, get the lists of free vector software and free photo editing software.
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