21 ingenious UX design examples for inspiration in 2023

Good user experience (UX) can be the difference between customers loving or hating your products. As businesses dial into customers' needs more than ever, designing with UX at the forefront is essential.

In 2023, those who don’t create ingenious UX experiences might get left behind. To inspire you, we’ve curated a list of some of the best customer-centric experiences. 

Let’s see how you can turn data, onboarding, task setting, productivity, meditation, and more into enchanting experiences. 

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We’ve all heard of Spotify Wrapped for good reason. Spotify turns data into something fun, reflective, and shareable. 

By harnessing the power of personalization, Spotify takes its users on a trip down memory lane at the end of each year. Spotify Wrapped draws people back to the platform to revisit their favorite songs and share the list on social media. 

It delights customers so much that the campaign goes viral every year. 

Tapping into the power of visual design and seamless transitions, the meditation app Calm provides a relaxing UX for stressed users. 

Calm puts users at ease by using soothing colors, minimal setup questions, and peaceful scenic visuals. 

A pain point for many app users can be load times, particularly with video or audio content. Instead of leaving users to wait and risking them closing the app, Calm turns buffering time into an invitation. While content loads, the app plays an animation that encourages users to take a deep, calming breath. 

The writing platform Medium does things differently when it comes to showing appreciation. While most content platforms offer the option for users to ‘like’ or ‘heart’ posts, Medium’s offering is unique. 

Medium’s clap feature –– represented by a clapping hands icon –– draws upon the physical audience experience and a round of applause. It allows users to clap up to 50 times, letting readers shower greater levels of appreciation while encouraging writers to keep posting. 

The new year is a time of reflection and goal-setting. For many, that includes the goal of learning a new language. 

Duolingo taps into this by creating functionality that celebrates and encourages its users. 

Duolingo’s Year-in-Review allows learners to see their comparison stats, track their progress, and view their overall ranking. This feature is a great motivational tool to encourage users to continue learning. 

The Uber app is known for its simplicity, user-friendly features, and ease of use. Uber’s iconography also stands out. 

Uber’s use of icons throughout the app helps users quickly view and understand information, particularly if they prefer visual learning. 

Icons representing a car, food, bikes, parcels, groceries, and travel let users quickly navigate the app and get what they need without the cognitive load. 

Airbnb’s app and website delight users while keeping typical app friction low. 

One such feature is its minimalist design, which displays important content in a card-like fashion. Keeping backgrounds clean and separate from the key information helps users focus on the crucial details without distraction. It ensures a simple process where users always know where to go next in their app journey. 

The overall experience turns booking accommodation into a satisfying process rather than a stressful event.

Spelling and punctuation errors are easy to make, so it’s no wonder that Grammarly has become a popular tool globally. 

One key feature that stands above the rest is Grammarly’s integration possibilities. The platform integrates with Word and hundreds of apps, including Google Docs, Slack, Gmail, and Jira.  

Bringing the experience to other platforms makes Grammarly seamless, significantly reducing work for the user.

Insight Timer makes meditation accessible to people around the world. 

With 7,500 videos in the app, navigation, and user-friendliness could be difficult. Fortunately, advanced searchability ensures users can quickly find the content they’re looking for. 

Over time, the app learns from user behavior and continually delivers relevant content. There’s also the option for users to customize their feed to ensure they only see the content they want. 

Payment platform Stripe helps users quickly onboard without the hassle. 

The platform has distilled what could be a complex process into a few frictionless screens. Account customization suggestions let users quickly move through the onboarding process without making too many selections. 

Stripe designed the process for multiple languages and countries, ensuring that international payments and differing regulations are never an issue. 

Video streaming giant, Netflix, is no stranger to good UX. Many well-designed features help users stay on the platform and continue enjoying the content. 

Netflix’s autoplay feature stands out. Users can keep watching a TV series without continually clicking buttons or reloading the videos. 

While users can opt-out, Netflix’s assumption that the user will continue watching is an intelligent way to create a frictionless experience. 

During the pandemic, Zoom became the video-calling app. The platform's simplicity means that even people who aren’t tech-savvy can use it. 

With only four options on the home page, Zoom makes it easy for users to create, schedule, share, and join meetings. 

It’s also possible for users to immediately start a video call and share with other users, taking the complexity out of scheduling meetings. 

Trello is a workflow and productivity tool that simplifies project tracking. By using content cards that mimic Post-it notes, Trello provides a highly visual way to track open projects and immediately view their status. 

The drag-and-drop movement of the cards makes the experience interactive and satisfying for users. 

Trello also offers the ability to link project cards to online documents and emails. This is an excellent way to keep everything in one place and simplify complex projects. 

Previously Transferwise, Wise provides a simple, effective way to transfer money across countries and currencies. 

The simple UX means that the platform shows an immediate, live currency conversion when a user enters a figure. This seamless experience means there’s no need for the user to reload the page or do any calculations. 

Wise also operates a transparent platform, showing a clear breakdown that clearly states its fee. 

The process reduces the user’s cognitive load, while no hidden fees build customer trust. 

Design platform Canva turns ordinary people into designers. By offering thousands of pre-sized and predesigned templates, creating graphics becomes simple for everyone.  

Canva also offers a library of design content and free reign to create custom-sized templates. 

Removing the typical challenges associated with design, Canva provides an enjoyable way to create anything from business cards to presentations and everything in between. 

Youtube is known for its highly optimized, user-centric design. 

One key tool is its video preview functionality. When a user hovers their mouse or scrolls over a video, a preview plays to help a viewer decide whether or not to click and keep watching. 

The feature makes content interactive and enticing, providing more information than just the thumbnail and caption. It also keeps users on the platform for longer. 

Todoist makes managing task lists easy thanks to simplicity. 

The platform’s “Task Quick Add” feature helps users quickly create to-do lists. Users can write (or dictate) all details into one simple line without filling in a form. The app then places the essential info into the task. 

This saves users time, allowing them to focus on completing their daily tasks, not creating lists. 

The dating and networking app Bumble has a seamless sign-up process. Bumble prioritizes Facebook sign-up for the benefit of users. Most of the person’s information is auto-filled, making the onboarding process quick. 

It also keeps the platform safe. Facebook integration minimizes the number of trolls and fake accounts, creating a sense of trust for users. 

Creating a password that meets all the requirements can be challenging and annoying for users. Mailchimp’s feature simplifies this process: A checklist showing the password requirements fills in with green ticks automatically as the user creates a suitable password.

This saves the user from reloading the page and avoids the frustration of password failure. 

Shopify designed its payment system with users in mind. To simplify the payment process, it integrates with well-known external payment systems like Stripe and PayPal. 

It also has its own payment feature. The offering removes the need for a third-party activation, making signing up for Shopify payments simple and effective. 

Ultimately, it allows users to track orders and see payment information within one platform without added hassle. 

Figma is a collaborative design platform that solves many common problems in design. These challenges include version control, large file sizes, and the need for multiple people to work on files at the same time. 

UX researchers, UI designers, product managers, and copywriters may all need to work on a design project alongside each other. 

Figma’s real-time collaboration allows multiple users to work on the same content simultaneously without delays. The platform establishes a live, single source of knowledge and solves these common design issues. 

Our list wouldn’t be complete without one of the world’s most well-known platforms. Google exemplifies why keeping things simple can be very successful.

Since its inception in 1998, the Google homepage layout has barely changed. The minimal interface allows users to quickly and effectively complete a search task without distractions. 

This proves that UX design doesn’t have to be complicated; less is often more. 

UX is a crucial part of developing products that delight and engage users. To be competitive and have users enjoy your products, designing with UX in mind isn’t just helpful –– it’s essential. 

In 2023, businesses that don’t double down on gratifying their users might miss out. After all, there’s no product without people.