Top Mobile App UI Design: 2021 Edition

Trust me I am not exaggerating when I say that we can't breathe without mobile applications. Mobile applications have become a BARE NECESSITY just like Baloo in 'The Jungle Book' would say; 'Look for the bare necessities, The simple bare necessities.' Smartphones are a NEED and so are mobile applications. Every day we gotta Instagram this and Instagram that, every day we people tweet saying, 'Retweets are not endorsements’ and yet endorsing it anyway, every day we see cute and funny dog videos and melt straight into the floor.

The point is; apart from being a source of entertainment, mobile application development have made things possible and easier, of course. Either talk about making transactions, buying goods, or rendering services, Now we have the whole world in the palm of our hands. Strikingly amazing, right? 

Having said that, as smartphones demand smart applications, similarly smart applications demand smart interfaces to engage people and make them stare at their screen longer which is beneficial for you as a business: less bounce rate, greater chances of conversions, conversions lead to revenues, so on and so forth. 

According to Statista, there are around 3.5 billion smartphone users in the world today (or maybe more who’s to say). 3.5 billion is like half of the world’s population. How crazy is that! Just imagine the pressure on application developers. They are supposed to get everything right for optimal performance and to get people to interact with the application. But every design is different from the other; some leave a long-lasting impact and some applications become just a thing of the past, sitting at the bottom possible spot on Appstore or Google Play.

But the real question is why do the apps that succeed actually succeed? What sets them apart? Just like Chandler Bing would say, ‘why why why why why why why why would they do this.' 

According to eMarketer, nearly 90% of mobile internet time is spent on apps. So in this blog, I will talk about some of the applications with the best user interface design for UI/UX branding, I would share opinions of industry experts whom I have interviewed and steal some facts from Statista but don't worry I intend to credit them. 

Just a few days ago, I asked a question in Hacker Noon’s Slack Slogging platform - an amazing and creative community of over 200 writers and experts - about what they think push apps to the spotlight? The question was obviously in terms of Mobile UI design.

One of their community members, Bitcoin-Peter said that he, ‘really like the mobile app Maiar which is designed by the team that also launched the Elrond blockchain. There are lots of conversations in the crypto space that the UX of native crypto apps is bad. I think Maiar is a step in the right direction. To me, it's intuitive and user-friendly, and you don't have to be a crypto user to set it up and start using it.’ 

I never really heard about the application before, I did some digging and found out that bitcoin Peter had it right. Maiar does have an intuitive UI design. But since I was new to the application, I don't have much going on as you can see in the screenshots. But everything is pretty clear from the interface.

He also added, ‘Maiar is available on both iOS and Android, and it's free to download. I'm not affiliated with Elrond and this is my personal view having used the Maiar app on my iPhone since its launch earlier this year.’ 

I believe you, Bitcoin Peter. You sure do know your crypto, you know what that makes you? A Crypto-nian! 

Up next is Anthony Watson. According to him, ‘The DogeDex wallet is the best and the worst in ONE package. The wallet is a very simple clean interface to send and receive dogecoin. The order interface where one places orders to provide liquidity to the market is the worst. There is just too much packed into the tiny UI. Sometimes things are complicated I guess and no matter how simple the UI the actual "thing" remains complicated.’ 

Anthony Watson is sending mixed signals here. But to be fair and square he was right, ‘DogeDex is the best and the worst one in one package.’ I found the app to be really old-school but it wasn’t that bad. See for yourself. 

Let’s shine some light on Deepak Shukla’s opinion about the best mobile app UI in 2021. Just so you know, Deepak is an award-winning SEO expert, also not from HN slogging platform, he was an anonymous tip.

He said, ‘MinimaList is a GREAT productivity app and an alternative to Apple’s notoriously buggy reminders app. It’s based around a “minimalist” design that uses gestures like swiping down to add an item to your list and swiping right to cross it off. It means your small phone screen isn’t cluttered with complicated buttons and symbols. Using minimalist is like roller-skating with rollerblades, instead of roller skates. It’s harder at first, but once you’ve mastered it (the gestures) you would never go back. It’s also customizable - you can change the color, font, and theme so that it is personalized to you.’

Hm... That’s some real deep shite. The application speaks for itself, ‘Simple to do list’ and simple is always better.

Chu chu, the opinion train keeps rolling. 

Now this one is pretty interesting, Billy Papadopulos, Data Partnerships Manager at Air now Data talks about H.B.O Max. yeah, you heard that right!

He says, ‘The designers of the app learned from the best qualities of the competition, making it easy to find what you want to watch and to start watching it, without having to click through several screens to get there. Customers using a mobile device to watch programming usually have little time to fuss with an app - they're looking to maximize what they can watch in the recreational time they have.'

I am sad he didn’t say Netflix. Because who doesn’t like Netflix and chilling. *wink wink*

Alright, so these were some outsider opinions, which I pretty much enjoyed myself since everyone has different viewpoints and sometimes different interpretations and perspectives are good and knowledgeable. Now time for Editor’s Choice, yep I am calling myself an Editor because why not. 

Favoritism aside! Netflix has a flawless UI. The design, overall look, feel and experience is so much better than Amazon prime. Pretty neat and smooth. 

Slack has 12 million daily active users, including large enterprise businesses. Ilan Frank, head of enterprise product at Slack, says, ‘One of the things we are seeing is that less technical users have different expectations of Slack. The mission continues to be the same; to make people's working lives simpler, more pleasurable, and more productive. What’s changing are the people.'

I am an avid medium user and I simply love the experience of writing on Medium. It’s perfect. The UI is clean and minimal and doesn't overwhelm users with too much information.

Sephora, Amazon, and HM, three of the retail brands that top my list in the category of user-friendliness and design. Product pages are effectively simple with clear images and prices. The checkout and payment screens are quite seamless as well. Morover, their optimization for website is phenomenal. See the screenshot.

I know, I know. Google is our favorite file-sharing platform. But Dropbox understood the importance of file sharing which is what the mobile app UI is all about. They believe in the team-first functionality for users, therefore Dropbox is not just a place to safely store files, but also facilitates well-organized conversations around shared files enhances user engagement and experience altogether. 

Last but not the least, Spotify offers a clean, elegant, and modern UI design. It's not only fun but easy to use with a comprehensive music library. It is undoubtedly one of the best examples of top UI designs in 2021.