Hey interface whisperers—
Let’s be honest: most digital interfaces today feel eerily the same. White background. Sans-serif type. Rounded buttons. Swipe here. Tap there. A gentle nudge, a light animation. Safe, sterile, familiar.
And that’s not an accident.
The future of UX — at least for now — is boring.
But before you groan and close this tab, hear me out: that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it might be the best thing that’s happened to digital design in a decade.
How UX matured.
In the early 2010s, UX/UI was a playground. Skeuomorphism, glossy gradients, parallax scrolling, novelty galore.
We were experimenting. Pushing boundaries. Every new app was a surprise. Sometimes delightful. Often a usability disaster.
Then came the shift.
Google’s Material Design in 2014. Apple’s flat design with iOS 7.
Suddenly, minimalism wasn’t just aesthetic — it was strategic. Consistency trumped creativity.
Because as digital products became more complex, users didn’t want to learn your interface. They wanted to use it.
According to a 2022 Nielsen Norman Group study, the average user gives a website just 10 seconds to prove its usefulness before bouncing. Design that gets in the way of comprehension is no longer just bad — it’s lethal.
So we converged. And convergence looks boring.
Why do most e-commerce sites look like Shopify?
Because Shopify perfected the pattern.
Baymard Institute’s 2023 research showed that 69.82% of online shopping carts are abandoned. The biggest culprit? Friction.
So brands dropped the flourish. Stripe-style checkout. One-column forms. Autofill. Apple Pay. Boring? Maybe. Effective? Absolutely.
It’s not about delight anymore — it’s about dropout prevention.
And boring UX does one thing extremely well: it removes doubt.
What Airbnb, Revolut and Notion understand about UX.
Airbnb didn’t scale by being quirky — it scaled by making every user journey feel like a familiar trail.
Revolut’s onboarding flow is eerily similar to any neobank. Notion? Its interface feels like Google Docs met Trello at a productivity retreat.
They’re not winning because they’re disruptive in appearance. They’re winning because they’re frictionless in function.
Even Duolingo, which is often praised for gamification, did something subtle: they made the game mechanics invisible. The progress bar, the streaks — all blend into a UX that feels intuitive and natural.
A new kind of creativity: micro-interactions and invisible layers.
But boring doesn’t mean lazy. It means refined.
In fact, some of the most creative UX work today happens under the surface:
- Micro-interactions that give tactile feedback (Instagram’s like animation, Gmail’s “undo send”).
- Anticipatory design — like Google Calendar auto-suggesting event times based on history.
- UX writing that turns technical steps into human language (see: Slack’s onboarding tone).
The design isn’t screaming. It’s whispering.
Why this matters for marketers and strategists.
Here’s the real kicker: the most elegant UX now aligns with the most effective marketing.
Because consistency builds trust. Simplicity builds conversion. Predictability builds retention.
A 2023 study by McKinsey found that companies with high UX maturity outperform the market by up to 228% on average over a 10-year period. They ship faster, retain more users, and reduce support costs.
And that’s not just a design win — that’s a business win.
Think of Linear — the project management tool beloved by devs. It doesn’t look flashy. But every interaction is milliseconds faster than the competition. Keyboard shortcuts are instant. The whole system feels like it’s thinking faster than you are.
That’s wow.
Or Superhuman — the email app. Not because it looks different. But because it feels like flying.
The new wow is hidden in flow. In anticipation. In latency reduced to imperceptible.
Boring is not the enemy.
It’s the quiet confidence of a product that knows exactly what it’s doing.
So before you redesign that UI to “stand out,” ask yourself: Is the novelty helping — or just interrupting?
Until next time, stay essential.
Alex
At Kredo Marketing, we build digital experiences where clarity outperforms flash. Ready to refine your UX for conversion and retention? Let’s talk. 🙂
