UI/UX Design Trends to Watch in 2026

UI/UX design is entering a transition period. Many of the shifts that started gaining momentum in 2025 are now shaping how products are designed, evaluated, and experienced in practice.

Some of these trends are clearly visible— bolder visual styles, richer motion, and more expressive interfaces. Others are happening deeper in the product, where AI and personalization are changing how users interact with software altogether.

If you’re planning a redesign or thinking about launching a new app in 2026, the challenge is knowing which trends influence adoption and long-term product competitiveness — and which ones are better left as experiments.

Our designers have compiled the UI/UX design trends that matter most going into 2026. This list focuses on patterns that are already showing up in real products today, from orchestrated and generative interfaces to renewed interest in tactile design, microinteractions, and experiences beyond the phone screen.

Whether you’re refining an existing product or starting something new, these are the UX/UI trends worth paying attention to if you want your app to feel current, confident, and ready for what’s next.

Orchestrated User Interfaces

For decades, digital products were built around the same interaction model: users click, the interface responds. Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) are predictable, reliable, and still form the backbone of most apps today.

Then came conversational interfaces. With chat-based UX, users ask questions and systems reply. Tools like Google Gemini, Alexa, and ChatGPT made interaction feel more natural — but also exposed a limitation. Conversational UX often turns complex tasks into slow, turn-by-turn exchanges. 

In 2025, a new model started to emerge — and it’s set to define 2026. The Orchestrated User Interface (OUI), sometimes called Generative UI, shifts the focus from how users interact to what they want to achieve. Instead of navigating apps or even chatting step by step, users express intent — and the system assembles the interface dynamically to handle the task.

You can already see early versions of this pattern. In Google Gemini, a request like “find flights to Tokyo and hotels near Shibuya” doesn’t return a list of links. It generates a purpose-built UI — combining tables, maps, and visuals — designed specifically for that request. You didn’t open a travel app; the interface came to you.

What this means for 2026: For UX teams, this marks a shift from designing static flows to designing systems that adapt. The goal is to reduce friction, surface the right design elements at the right moment, and let users focus on decisions. 

Liquid Glass

One of the most talked-about visual user experience trends is Liquid Glass, a design language that has captured attention with its fluid translucency and depth effects. This trend first grabbed headlines at Apple’s WWDC 2025 with the announcement of a unified Liquid Glass UI debuting across iOS, macOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and tvOS.  

Liquid Glass blends layered transparency, dynamic blur, and lensing effects that react to movement, lighting, and context, creating a sense of depth and material presence rarely seen since the heyday of early glass-inspired design languages.  

Designers and platforms beyond Apple are already experimenting with similar layered visual treatments — translucent overlays, soft shadows, and context-aware contrast — to create interfaces that feel more organic and tactile without abandoning clarity.  

But Liquid Glass also highlights a broader trend: materiality isn’t dead. After years of flat, minimal UI, there’s renewed interest in visuals that communicate hierarchy and emphasis through depth and light. 

Critics are quick to remind us that these effects aren’t universally practical. Excessive transparency can hurt readability and accessibility if not handled carefully, particularly in high-contrast or bright environments.  

What this means for 2026: Liquid Glass-inspired effects signal a shift toward interfaces that feel alive and responsive, but successful implementation will depend on thoughtful application. 

Vibe design

Unlike traditional UI/UX workflows — where teams sketch screens, build wireframes, and manually refine layouts — vibe design lets you describe the intended feel and outcome in natural language, and AI generates multiple interface options automatically. 

At its core, vibe design flips the usual process on its head. You don’t start with detailed specs or visual blueprints. Instead, you articulate the experience you want users to have — for example, “a welcoming onboarding flow that feels friendly and clear” — and let AI tools translate that into visuals and prototype screens quickly. As a result, what might take days of manual design and hand-offs can now emerge in minutes or hours.  

For teams thinking about redesigns or new app concepts, vibe design offers several practical benefits:

• Faster exploration: You can generate multiple UI directions from simple descriptions, so stakeholders see options instead of debating a single mockup.  
• Tighter feedback loops: Prototypes with interactive elements come early, letting you test assumptions with real users sooner.  
• Broader collaboration: Non-designers — product managers, engineers, even clients — can participate in early iterations by shaping prompts and reviewing outputs.  

But vibe design comes with important constraints. Without clear guardrails, vibe-generated interfaces can look polished while hiding real problems: weak information architecture, unclear states, accessibility gaps, or flows that feel good visually but confuse users in practice. That’s why designers and product leads must review AI outputs critically, validate them with users, and refine them into production-ready experiences. 

What this means for 2026: Vibe design will become a standard way to explore UI directions faster, but the teams that get real value from it will be those that pair AI-generated output with strong UX strategy, clear constraints, and rigorous validation.

Skeuomorphism

For a while, UI design followed a simple rule: flatten everything. Gradients, textures, and “real-world” metaphors were stripped away in favor of clean shapes and minimal interfaces. But in 2025, skeuomorphism started making a noticeable return — not as a copy of early iOS, but as a modern, more restrained approach.  

Skeuomorphism is the practice of borrowing cues from physical objects — textures, shadows, depth, familiar materials — to make digital interfaces feel more intuitive or “touchable.” It was everywhere in the early touchscreen era (think wooden bookshelves, paper notes), then largely fell out of favor as users got comfortable navigating purely digital patterns. 

So why is it back now?

Two forces are driving it. First, technology: high-resolution screens and stronger GPUs make realistic textures and smooth motion easier to render without performance pain. Second, user psychology: there’s a renewed appetite for interfaces that feel warmer, more sensory, and emotionally resonant, especially after years of flat sameness.  

Importantly, the 2025 version isn’t “all-in” skeuomorphism. It’s more of a blend — using tactile cues selectively while keeping the clarity of modern flat design. 

What this means for 2026: The return of skeuomorphic elements signals a shift away from one-size-fits-all flat design, pushing teams to think more deliberately about when realism improves comprehension and when it becomes noise.

Neobrutalism

Neobrutalism is a visual-design trend defined by high contrast, blocky layouts, bold colors, thick borders, and intentionally “unpolished” elements. It emerged as a reaction against years of sleek, minimalist sameness — a way for products and brands to look more distinctive, loud, and a bit rebellious.  

Done well, neobrutalism is a controlled style with recognizable building blocks: bold primary colors, thick lines and geometric shapes, stark single-color drop shadows (not soft layered ones), and oversized typography that becomes part of the layout. 

You’ll often see it used on marketing sites and creative tools where standing out matters. Some examples are Figma’s brand refresh and Gumroad, both using a raw, high-contrast aesthetic while keeping the experience straightforward and functional.  

The risk is obvious: without discipline, neobrutalism can become overwhelming, confusing, or inaccessible.

What this means for 2026: Neobrutalism will keep showing up as a differentiation play — but the best implementations will use raw aesthetics to guide attention while still meeting accessibility and interaction clarity standards.

Onboarding for AI

As AI becomes a core part of more products, the old onboarding playbook no longer suffices. Traditional flows that simply explain features or show superficial product tours don’t communicate why an AI-driven experience matters — and users often decide within seconds whether the product feels relevant and worth engaging. This makes mobile onboarding one of the most critical UX challenges in 2026. 

In AI products, every question or step in the flow must justify its presence and clearly connect to the user’s goals: irrelevant or generic steps introduce friction and increase the likelihood users abandon the experience before they see anything useful.  

One core UX design trend emerging in AI onboarding is context-aware questioning. Instead of treating setup questions as a checklist, thoughtful onboarding sequences guide users through a logical, personalized flow where each response informs the next — reinforcing the feeling that the experience is being shaped around them. Small language choices matter here too; for example, labeling an option “Skip personalization” subtly reinforces that what follows is tailored to the user rather than a generic step.  

Another key principle is early perceived value. Rather than waiting until after sign-up to show benefits, many successful AI products aim to surface customization or meaningful outputs during onboarding itself, so users feel they’ve gained something immediately tied to their context.  

What this means for 2026: AI product experiences will succeed not just by showing what they can do, but by guiding users into personalized value within the first moments of interaction.

Design for smart devices

Smart-device UX is no longer a niche concern. IoT Analytics estimates 18.5B connected IoT devices in 2024, growing to 21.1B by the end of 2025.  And wearables are already mainstream: IDC reports 136.5M wearable devices shipped in Q2 2025, up 9.6% year over year.  

That growth changes what “good UX” needs to support. Smart-device apps aren’t just mobile apps — they’re the control layer for physical products, often used remotely and with low visibility into whether an action actually worked. Because users can’t always see the device state (or the impact of a command), the app must prioritize status clarity and immediate feedback to build trust.  

The design patterns that matter most are practical and repeatable:

• Make it obvious what the device is doing right now. Users should see at a glance whether a device is on, off, paused, charging, or finished — without digging through menus.
• Communicate status in more than one way. Relying on color alone isn’t enough. Clear labels, simple icons, and color together help users understand the state quickly and reduce mistakes.
• Show progress for actions that take time. If a device is cleaning, heating, or running a cycle, users need reassurance that it’s working and how long it will take — otherwise they’ll assume something went wrong.
• Make frequent actions easy to repeat. Smart devices are often used in routines. Quick actions, saved presets, and shortcuts reduce friction for everyday tasks.
• Keep controls consistent across touch, voice, and the device itself. Users should be able to manage voice commands or on-device buttons from the app and expect the same behavior everywhere.

What this means for 2026: As IoT and wearables scale, competitive products will treat smart-device UX as a differentiator —designing for reliable feedback, and fast habitual control. 

Microinteractions

Microinteractions are the small visual or motion cues that confirm an action, guide attention, or reduce uncertainty. They don’t change what a product does, but they strongly influence how confident and smooth it feels to use. With users expecting instant feedback and minimal friction in 2026, microinteractions have become a critical layer of modern UI. 

For example, some of the most effective microinteractions for websites are simple and practical:

• Buttons that visibly react to hover and click. A slight color change, shadow shift, or press animation reassures users that the action is interactive and that their click worked.
• Subtle loading or progress indicators. Even a short delay benefits from feedback. Showing that something is happening prevents users from clicking again or assuming the site is broken.
• Scroll or reading progress indicators. On long pages, these help users understand where they are and how much content remains, reducing frustration and drop-offs. 
• Form field feedback. Inline validation, focus highlights, or small success/error cues help users fix mistakes immediately instead of after submitting the entire form.
• Light transitions between states. When elements expand, collapse, or update smoothly, users can follow what changed without needing extra explanation.

The key is restraint. Overuse can create distraction or slow performance, especially on mobile devices.

What this means for 2026: As interfaces become more dynamic and AI-driven, microinteractions will play an even bigger role in building trust — reassuring users that the system is responding, progressing, and under control.

Conclusion

The UI/UX design trends shaping 2026 point in one clear direction: interfaces are no longer just screens users operate — they’re systems that anticipate intent, adapt in real time, and increasingly act on the user’s behalf. 

What makes these trends challenging is that they don’t live in isolation. A visually expressive style like Liquid Glass can undermine accessibility if applied carelessly. AI-powered flows can feel magical — or deeply confusing — depending on how well they are designed. Even faster iteration through vibe design is only an advantage when strong UX principles guide what gets shipped.

That’s why adopting UI/UX trends in 2026 is about understanding when and why they work for a specific product, audience, and technical reality.

At Apiko, UX and UI design is part of how products are made usable, scalable, and competitive — not an afterthought layered on top of development. Whether it’s designing AI-assisted workflows, onboarding flows that show value early, or interfaces for complex systems and smart devices, the focus stays the same: clarity first, experimentation second. 

In 2026, the products that stand out won’t be the ones that follow every UX design trend — but the ones that apply the right ones with intent.

If you’re unsure where your product stands today, reach out for a UX audit to uncover friction points and opportunities for improvement.