Foldable phones had one solid selling point: get a tablet-like experience on a slab smartphone. People basically use the larger display to watch movies, doodle and draw, and even multitask more easily.

Designers are going one step ahead with the iPhone Duo thanks to the freedom Apple is giving app developers. As the phone unfolds, apps can smoothly expand to cover the entire screen, with each side having a unique function.

Below are some amazing experiences that designers/developers are building.

Duoman — a Walkman-style music player

This app opens with an old-school cassette on one side and a music list on the other. The outer screen transitions to this very cool Walkman cover with an animated tape and quick controls.

This is such a unique way of using all the parts of the screen and also providing a fun experience for the users. This lets listeners get a feel for the physical tape recorders we had back in the day.

This app will launch to the Apple App Store on October 23rd. Check it out here.

TranslateCat — seamless communication with language translations

Translate apps on phones are tough to use with multiple communicators. You have to first speak into it, then have it translate the sentence, after which you show it to the other person. This is a cumbersome process.

This new app will allow you to speak on one end, while the person in front sees the sentence in real time on the outer screen.

Learn more about Translatecat.

Light Editor — the bottom half is more than just the keyboard space

Alex from Mindset Design created this quick prototype to show how the keyboard can be replaced by controls like lighting for 3D scenes. This could easily be replicated for photo editing software or video editors for the Duo.

The extra screen real estate could be used in a lot of innovative ways, especially where controls are concerned.

Folio— realistic book reading experience

A passionate app builder on X teased an upcoming app called Folio that stores your PDFs and books. Reading a book is very interesting. It shows the book’s cover on the front screen and opens into a book you can flip through.

This isn’t something revolutionary, but the animations and design make it feel a little like a physical book.

A guitar experience by Apple

Apple's developers created this unique guitar-playing experience, which lets you pitch-bend like a real guitar. It detects the actual angle of the fold and lets you interact with the guitar based on a trigger based on it.

Check out how this was made.

Foldtales — pop-up fantasy book

A cute pop-up book ideal for kids and adults alike, this is a simpler experiment which doesn’t take full advantage of the folding animation, but still has a wow factor, especially for children.

Learn how the creator made it.

Polaroid app — a gallery that unfolds

A cool Polaroid gallery experience that closes to click a photo and unfolds into an old-school photo board and editor.

You can check out the experiment here.

Learn origami with the iPhone Duo

This experiment allows you to learn how to do origami by folding the phone just like folding real origami paper. You just follow the instructions on screen, and you end up with a unique shape.

The same developer came up with an accordion experiment where each side of the screen has different notes. It also interacts with the angle of the hinge to produce different sounds.

Finalist — a day planner inspired by paper

A day planner that animates and expands to display more information and a calendar with your tasks. This app respects all screen orientations.

It also has a clean side-by-side planner view which gives users a look and feel of an actual planner notebook.

You can check it out here if you’re curious.

These concepts and updates have me very excited about what else developers will be able to pull off after the phone goes on sale to the public.

If you liked this article, then leave a *clap* to show your support, and follow me for more articles every week or so.

Designers Are Making Crazy iPhone Duo Experiences —The Rebirth of Foldables was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Figma has grown and evolved into an all-in-one creative tool, and so have plugins! You can now find plugins for every purpose and workflow — from AI design companions to motion design tools.

Here are my top 7 new Figma plugins that I can’t stop using.

MotionFX — a plugin to speed up Figma Motion

Figma Motion is incredible. It brings the power of motion design tools like After Effects and LottieFiles to the Figma canvas.

But it has a huge learning curve, and you spend a lot of time on small interactions. MotionFX is a free plugin that solves this.

It has a large library of small interactions and animations that you can instantly add to any element on screen. This adds all these animations to the Figma Motion timeline that you can tweak and edit.

The preset library has loading animations, click interactions, nudge motion, and even complex icon animations that can be applied with one click.

You can even combine interactions and save them as a preset with a custom name and an option in the library. The creator is also adding a motion marketplace soon.

Try out MotionFX here.

Mockey AI — the most flexible mockups plugin

If you want to show off your design work to your team or on social media, this is the one plugin you can rely on.

Mockey has 27,000+ mockup styles, super unique scenes and even video mockups to add some cool effects to your static work.

You’ll find everything from iPhone mockups to laptops and app icon mockups. For those who want to design T-shirts or mugs in Figma, this plugin features a large selection of physical products.

What stood out was the built-in AI studio. This is a simple AI generator that creates custom mockup scenes, adds animations to static mockups, and even generates designs from scratch. You can even convert your product into product-shoot photos.

Check out Mockey AI for Figma.

“This” to Figma by divRIOTS — they fix all your problems

divRIOTS is my favourite Figma plugin developer. They have a plugin for every kind of import need. From importing entire website projects as editable Figma files to importing Photoshop files with all the layers and effects intact.

They also have plugins for niche designers—like the CAD-to-Figma converter or the EPS-to-design importer.

My favourite one from this developer is the image-to-design tool. You can literally convert UI screenshots into an editable design with proper font accuracy and even SVG icons you can use in your project.

They also have a slew of AI plugins in their library. You can upscale images, import PDFs as editable files, remove objects from pictures, replace subject backgrounds, and even generate custom maps for your UI designs.

I highly suggest using their plugins, and even grabbing their premium plugins, which can help you save a lot of time and money in the long run.

Check out the DivRiots Figma plugin collection.

AI design reviewer — the only useful AI tool for UX

There aren’t a lot of AI plugins that do something genuinely useful. AI design reviewer is a multi-purpose AI tool for valuable UX audits and helps improve your UI designs. This tool is built by the team who built Siri!

You can select up to 10 screens at once and, with one click, generate a UX critique (find usability fixes), Audit UI designs (catch UI issues), figure out edge cases (something most designers miss), find out accessibility gaps, and even come up with new ideas for your work.

You can even upload/add your own prompts and guidelines for the tool to work for your specific issues and project.

After the plugin generates an audit/review, it saves all your reviews in one organised space. This makes tracking problems and design issues better for you and your team. As far as privacy is concerned, the tool claims that it doesn’t train its AI on your designs.

This also has one of the most affordable prices for any AI tool in Figma. It gives you 20 free credits every month. This is great for most small and personal projects. After that, you can upgrade for a simple $5-a-month price tag or try the premium plan free for 7 days. Pretty generous!

Check out the AI design review plugin.

Shader effects beta — custom effects made by the community

Figma recently introduced Shaders, and then they opened the tool to community-designed shaders. I love the design community!

Some of my favourite community-built shaders are:

• Dither paint:
  A shader that applies a physical painting-like style to any vector element on screen. You can adjust the style and strength of the dither effect. Check it out here.

• Pattern refraction: this adds a glass refraction effect to any image or background. I suggest adding smoothing and tweaking the dispersion for an insane retro effect. These effects are so in-trend right now, and this makes it easier to apply in Figma. Here is the plugin.

• Simple ASCII: ASCII art is in a league of its own. This plugin instantly converts any element into ASCII art with loads of customisation options. This works so well with simple images with a single subject. Try the plugin.

Craftwork — beautiful illustrations inside Figma

Craftwork has been one of my favourite illustration libraries ever. Their team makes custom illustrations, 3D assets, icons, and graphics for any type of project. How some of these packs are free is beyond me.

With this plugin, you can quickly access all their free and pro design assets in one place. You can filter through many different types of graphics with a minimal interface.

They also have a little bookmark tab that allows you to save illustrations for later. All their high-quality assets can be accessed via hundreds of different collections and packs that are present inside the plugin.

Here is the Craftwork plugin.

Figma Weave plugins — a new kind of powerful plugin

There is a high chance that you have never used or even heard of Figma Weave — their new node-based AI design tool. They’ve recently made accessing their special AI tool much easier from inside Figma.

These tools can be accessed from the Tools tab on the left in Figma. Here are some very powerful and useful Weave tools:

• Add logo to product: this Weave tool allows you to select any design, preferably a logo, and describe what you would like to put that logo on. This could be a tote bag, a billboard, or any other mockup you can think of. Try it out here.

• On-brand icons: you can generate hundreds of custom icons based on your brand or business. You just add your logo or any element that shows off your brand/style and add a description. This tool tries its best to generate relevant icons for your project.

• Sticker pack: as the name suggests, you can convert your designs into cute stickers that look like real-life physical stickers. Check it out here.

Weave tools are mostly visual design and graphic-design-centric.

Hope you enjoyed this new list. For more such articles, I suggest following me here and hitting the *clap* button!

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Figma Plugins You Will Fall in Love With (And Never Stop Using) was originally published in Muzli - Design Inspiration on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Foldable phones have improved a lot over the past 7 years. Apple’s new device – the iPhone Duo has achieved a lot of things that other foldable experiences just don’t get right. But everything good in design comes with some caveats.

The folding animations are pure bliss & not just cosmetic

Most folding phones have very straightforward, almost boring opening and closing animations. It feels sudden and jittery, sometimes even breaking the flow when in apps or completing tasks.

The iPhone's folding animations use a nice directional, progressive blur with a depth effect from the left. This almost gives the illusion of the interface sliding from the small to the larger display.

Apps also adjust much more seamlessly. The example above displays how the gallery app goes from a small preview to a full-width display without any stutter or lag. The folding animations also help in hiding any initial expanding issues (if any exist in the future).

I'll cover a few issues with the opening and closing transitions later in this article.

The sub-par multitasking experience makes me wanting more

This is the first iPhone with multitasking features. The inner display finally supports opening two apps at once and even drag-and-drop content from one app to the other.

What’s very cool is the “sticky app” experience. Two apps can stick together to form these groups, which you can switch between just like you do with normal apps.

One of the few things I felt could be improved was the lack of multitasking on the smaller screen. The Duo just opens one of the apps you were using when you fold the phone mid-use.

Of course, split-screen apps aren’t ideal for smaller displays, but some solution could have been researched and worked on. After all, Apple has been working on this for a while now.

There is also a lack of a floating dock when apps are opened. Companies like Oppo and Samsung allow you to have an extensive dock fixed to the OS when navigating apps. Something like that could have made the iPhone Duo more tablet-like, and in my personal design experience, it was a basic user need.

I know I’m being picky, and yes, a floating dock would take up too much vertical real estate on a shorter display; but there is always a better solution (like an action to unhide a hidden one).

Seated & Standing Experiences

This is such a clever implementation of a smaller app experience when you have your phone folded or half-folded.

You can use the folding mechanism to make the phone sit on a table in front of you. On the top half, you have a video or the main content, and some useful controls or a certain set of actions on the bottom half.

A great example of this is Netflix. The video can run on the top half, while video scrubbing controls lie at the bottom without being a distraction.

The real star was the “standing” mode, where you can get a mini or micro app experience. If you have the clock open, you’ll get a table-side clock style. If your alarm pops up, the inner screen will glow a nice orange, adding another layer to the immersion.

Developers and designers can create completely separate experiences for both! My inner designer is so excited to see what people create.

These are initial bugs that we’ll see with the Duo. Users will have to wait 9–12 months before most of the mainstream apps support these modes.

The hinge is actually interactive!

This got me excited like a little kid. Developers and designers will be able to detect how much the hinge is closed/opened.

A great example of this is how a guitar app can allow the user to adjust the hinge to create a unique sound, like with an actual guitar whammy bar.

Check this out:

This opens a whole new set of opportunities for developers to provide a deeper, more meaningful experience with the hinge. This is for sure the first time I’ve seen such an implementation of motion interactions.

Everything sticks to the edges

They’ve moved the toolbar and tab bar to the right by default, where they stick persistently without moving.

The status bar is also now on the right above the other controls. Instead of having three status bar icons, you have a collapsible icon that opens to display the others and changes to show status.

The whole idea is to make everything accessible with one hand and one finger. A wide screen makes one-hand usage tricky, so the side action buttons will be useful.

The iPhone Duo also lets two apps have two different controls, stuck to the opposite side of the screen. The app on the left sticks the controls to the left, and the right one to the right.

They hid the front camera

The inner camera on the iPhone Duo is actually hidden from plain sight. You can barely see the little camera notch in most lighting conditions, but it’s a behind-the-screen camera. This only shows up when the camera is active.

This gives the feeling of immersion even when inside basic apps like iMessage and keeps things distraction-free.

If you enjoyed the article, make sure you hit the *clap* button to show support and leave a comment about what you think of the user experience on the iPhone Duo.

iPhone Duo’s UX Design Finally Makes Foldables Useful — But Misses The Mark was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Companies like Figma, Canva, Contra, and Designer Fund have recently released real usage patterns and trends that show how designers are actually using AI in their workflows.

These reports also reveal how roles, jobs and career paths are actively changing as the industry evolves.

I’ve summarised all these findings and revealed the true reality of how AI is impacting design careers so that you can move forward with confidence and the truth in mind.

*Take these numbers with a pinch of salt. Some metrics and findings can be biased and might not reveal real findings from every country or industry.*

Figma’s 2026 AI Report — A Shift in Expectations

Based on deep research of 8,403 participants and 600+ qualitative interviews all around the globe, Figma has revealed some interesting findings.

• 85% of designers say they are more efficient thanks to AI.
• 6x product builders say their teamwork has been significantly impacted because of AI, as compared to 2 years ago.
• 16% more developers participate in design workflows, whereas a whopping 32% more designers are participating in development tasks.
• Surprisingly, 40% of teams spend the most time in the open canvas, which makes sense since a majority of AI tools are implementing canvas-like UIs into their products. Claude Designer comes to mind, or the integration of an AI agent into the Figma Canvas.

These numbers hit close to home. Based on hundreds of designers I get to interact with, there is a clear dilution of product and design roles — with developers still focusing on code and debugging.

“[When companies invest in AI training,] it starts to demystify some of the concerns people have around AI replacing them.” — Product Manager & Research Participant

However, Figma’s report also showcases new trends in the designer’s job and role.

• 57% of designers say design is more important than it was before the introduction of AI. Is this a coping mechanism, or real confidence in the field? Let me know what you think in the comments section.
• There is almost a 2x increase in companies training their employees in AI.
• 29% increase in teams working on AI products or features. AI features are more difficult to design, so UX becomes more crucial.

Many non-design-focused reports also indicated people who were being “replaced” by AI are now being rehired to fill important roles. These two metrics could be correlated.

I remember a time designers were trying to prove their importance in a world where UX/UI design was still a new concept. We’re still doing it, but we’re now arguing why AI can’t replace us. A few days of using AI instead of hiring a designer often proves our argument.

I suggest reading the complete report that Figma has put out for free.

Designer Fund Report 2026 — A Report Funded by Top Companies

Based on a 900-designer sample size, this is a more detailed report based on a plethora of people from startups and enterprises in 60+ countries.

Some trends and indicators:

• 91% of participants use AI at least once a week, which is a bump up from 54% just last year.
• Out of these people, 75% use AI tools and software daily, which is a huge adoption statistic.
• The number of AI tools people use also increased by more than 2x.
• 76% of designers claimed they have used AI coding and vibe coding tools, which again confirms dilution of roles and increased expectations.
• 62% of participants said the biggest problem with AI tools is inconsistent results and is a challenge to their workflow.
• Almost half (49%) of these designers are still searching for a reliable tool and are not completely confident in their current workflow. This shows that AI might be the need of the hour, but isn’t a favourite.

These numbers show an overview of what AI might look like from a day-to-day perspective. However, what are some real contributions that AI has made to design projects?

Here is what this research found out:

• 50% of designers have actually shipped AI-generated code to production, but only 20% identify their role as a design engineer. There is a clear separation between responsibilities and roles.
• Roughly 80% of participants still choose to trust their own judgement over AI when it comes to quality, visual polish and, of course — creative direction.
• 20% of designers say that collaboration with their teams has actually decreased, which leads to more isolation, but helps them lead their own projects as a result.

Based on the chart below, we clearly see large-scale organisations investing more into building their own internal tools, rather than depending on enterprise-grade tools to take over.

Statistics like these indicate that there are pros and cons to this new trend. But when it comes to teams adopting AI, these indicators shift a little:

• 87% of designers say that their organisation supports and helps in adopting new AI tools and workflows; this is very positive.
• Roles are truly blurring: 73% of designers say that they are doing more PM/development tasks, while 40% of people said that PMs are doing design work. This evens out any extra work amongst teams.
• About 50% of team leaders indicated that they give importance to AI fluency while hiring now.
• 60% of design leaders expect to keep or even grow design teams, while a good amount claim design teams will stay the same size, but will have more/better output.

While expectations from designers went up for 73% of designers, formal organisational policies only changed by 28%. This means that company structures have still not caught up in reality.

This report is a reflection of what we see happening all around us, instead of tool-specific research, which showed us a smaller use case. Whether you’re getting into a startup or a large-scale organisation, some of these numbers will matter when considering learning or adopting new tools.

Go through the complete study yourself to find out even more about these trends.

2026 State of Design & Make by Autodesk

Autodesk is behind some of the most used creative tools worldwide (SketchBook, AutoCAD, Maya, 3ds MAX and more). This report by their company shows us a broader perspective of creative fields in general — and not just UX/UI and product design.

This is what I found based on data Autodesk collected from 2,500 global leaders:

• 80% of companies increased investments towards AI in the past 1 year, developing AI features and building new products (which requires more AI-forward designers).
• Companies like Gearbox Software increased focus on creativity and creative roles and spend less on logistics now. So spending is clearly moving to creative & business roles.
• Companies and leaders say there is a 47% gap between available roles and skilled designers in the market. This also comes with the fact that only 59% of people say that there is sufficient training for AI-based skills.
• 2/3 of participants have adopted tools from outside their industry. This means a web designer might start using a motion design tool, since it can be used with AI (without learning things from scratch).
• Graphic visualisation tools were the most explored or used by people outside the industry, clearly indicating an uprise of creative tools across the board.

This study clearly indicates movement towards more creative exploration by companies, whether it be in their current workflows or real changes in investment in creative areas.

I believe this study also highlighted real gaps in the current market, where designers are not fully equipped with what is truly required right now. There is a huge demand, but less supply that meets it.

You can read the complete study here.

*Clap* to show your support and help me write more articles!

AI is NOT Killing Design — It’s The Opposite was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Everything they launched at Figma Config 2026

Figma just announced some mind-blowingly big updates and changes at their famous yearly event — Config 2026. Here is everything you need to know and can add to your workflow.

Figma Motion

At Config, the crowd went wild when they first showcased Figma Motion. It’s high time they brought more animation capabilities to the workflow.

With the click of a button in the action panel, a timeline window pops up at the bottom. This allows designers to play around with keyframes and add motion to any layer with a few simple steps.

You can quickly start a new animation without creating complex animations first — using motion presets.

Another quick way to create complex animations without a long process is to ask Figma Agent to animate layers for you with a simple prompt that explains your vision.

Exporting these animations for production is also pretty straightforward. There is a code tab that shows you the CSS code for your animated layers, which you can export or copy, right into your coded project.

Also, comments are here in the motion tool! Your team can leave comments on your animation timeline to give you more precise feedback. This might be a great feature for some, but a weapon for micro-managers.

They have also added an “Animated” tab to export options. These include MP4, WebM, GIF and SVG options.

You can build a “Motion System”, which essentially is a set of pre-set animations that can be copied over to different elements across your project. Think pre-made effects, but for animations.

Learn more about Figma Motion here.

Generative Plugins

Imagine creating your own plugin in Figma. Now, imagine doing this without any code, with a single prompt.

They realise the importance of custom plugins, so Figma is adding a new feature to Figma AI and Agent, which allows you to ask their AI to build a custom plugin and start using it in your team or launch it for the community.

For example: “Create a plugin that converts data into beautiful graphs” and it’ll generate a graphs plugin — which you can iterate and build on.

Unlike plugins you install from the community, these plugins will lie inside the new fixed panel on the left, organised inside the “Tools” menu.

For now, this is available only to paid plan users, since you can do this with Figma Agents or Figma Make.

Code Layers Inside The Canvas

Yup! You can now seamlessly interact with Figma Make and Agent to add functional code layers inside the canvas. This means no more static content or sections; you can ask their AI to create anything or add any effects without writing the code yourself.

What’s actually cool are the controls that come with each code element. You can edit the added effect or functions with sliders and options that can help you tweak the properties instantly. That’s neat!

Custom Shader Effects & Fills

Figma seems to lean hard on shaders this time around. Custom shaders are now a permanent trend in the design industry, with cool background effects and image overlays; we see them everywhere now.

Figma shader fill is a new option anytime you pop open the fill property, which allows you to add pre-made shaders to any element. These effects include mesh gradients with custom properties, clouds, fractal noise, moire, glowing waves, nebula, pattern grids and many more.

You can now import any image into this feature to create a custom shader fill or even explain an effect inside Figma AI to make something unique.

Figma Weave Tools Inside The Canvas

Inside your canvas, you will now find Figma Weave options spread across different tools. You can select any image and add cool Weave effects, which make your material stand out.

You will also have any material that you’ve worked on inside Weave, now in your Figma Canvas. This wasn’t a much-awaited feature, but it’s good to have for people who really do use Weave in their workflow.

You can read more about the Weave integration here.

I hope you liked this quick overview of everything launched/announced at Figma Config 2026. Make sure to leave a *clap* to show support!

Figma Just Created History — Is It Finally Our Dream Tool? was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Almost 15 years after it launched, Snapchat still keeps millions of users coming back to its app multiple times a day, keeping it relevant in an era where short-form video apps like TikTok and Instagram reign supreme.

This isn’t luck; it is a carefully crafted user experience designed to keep users coming back and engaging with the platform.

Addictive UX/UI design

While having all your friends sharing photos and videos with you can make you come back to an app, it doesn’t build a habit, especially when you have other apps on your phone that do the same thing.

Streaks & Rewards

Streaks on Snapchat have been their golden goose for years. This feature allows you to build a “streak” with your friends or that girl you like, which feels a lot like a game developer’s wet dream.

Yes, this is a game design principle, known to game designers as a “return trigger”.

Instead of just showing you your notifications when you come back to Snapchat, they show you your streaks! This feels like a reward whenever you come back to keep the streak going. Every new successful streak is a shot of dopamine.

Streaks also builds on the age-old “FOMO” concept. The fear of missing out on keeping your streak going seems harsh. I’ve known people with streaks going as far back as 2,000+ days!

Addictive Short Form Content

To ensure they don’t lag behind their competition, Snapchat introduced Discover and Spotlight to keep you on the app longer.

While personal snaps are necessary, their business doesn’t run on that feature. Instead, Snapchat depends on retention and usage time to make the big bucks.

One left swipe takes you to the page where all the short-form content comes to life. You can see what your favourite celebrity has posted and check out the latest news, too.

Since Snapchat now has brands and creators posting regularly, users will always get some eye-candy worthy content every time they come to the app. Not only is the UX designed for addictive experiences, but also the content. Creators are constantly guided to make more engaging content that brings users back.

Dissappearing Messages Build Urgency

Snapchat knows users often ignore phone notifications, so they needed to give users a major reason to come back multiple times a day.

Dissappearing messages are such a god-level UX move. If users don’t come back, they will literally miss out on what their friends are doing.

They ensure users know this with an actual timer built into the UI, and a strict 24-hour timeframe to view or save anything before it leaves the platform forever.

This also adds a sense of security and privacy for the sender, so sharing more personal images becomes easier for users.

You’ll now see competitors like Instagram, WhatsApp, and other competitors trying to replicate the success Snapchat had with disappearing messages.

AR Saved Snapchat

In a world where attention spans are shortening, there’s a major reason Snapchat still keeps younger users engaged — AR Filters.

There was a time when the puppy filter was everywhere, with people discovering and using new filters even when taking normal selfies with friends.

This encourages users to instinctively head over to Snapchat instead of the built-in camera app whenever they want to “snap” a picture.

Recently, Snapchat has been working hard to bring new AR filters that look super realistic, and it also has a dedicated tool that anyone can use to make filters for the app. This tool takes a lot of guesswork out of the picture, allowing bright creatives to work on the next big AR filter trend.

They’ve since launched AI features that can make cool Snapchat filters from simple user prompts, reducing the barrier of entry for anyone to make filters without learning a complex tool.

From a business standpoint, Snapchat has given users a major USP (unique selling point) to come back to the app, or have the fear of missing out (FOMO) when it comes to using a cool new application that their friends are using.

Breaking An Old Habit & Building a New One

A habit-forming app is what every company wants. Snapchat did this with one simple trick. Replace an old routine with a new one. Let’s break this down.

The camera on our phones has become one of the most used apps on our phones, getting a permanent shortcut on our lock screens and an app icon in the dock. Humans now click more photos and take more videos than ever before.

So, instead of building a new habit, Snapchat targeted an old one. They realised that if they had to be a strong photo-sharing app, they had to build a strong camera app first.

They used an easy-to-recognise full-screen camera that opens up as soon as you launch the app, helping you quickly take a snap without any friction.

You can quickly apply filters (something people love) with a quick bottom swipe on the screen, and long-press the circle to shoot a video too. Sharing this photo/video is one quick press away.

This entire flow is super smooth and feels very natural to our photography habits. This repeated action, day after day, built a new habit. So, instead of first opening the camera app and then sharing on Snapchat, users just skipped opening the camera app completely.

On top of the easy experience, they kept adding useful camera features like “dual camera”, grids for the more creative users, background music and more. These were features that fit perfectly with the entire Snapchat app as well, making them very purposeful features.

The camera app was out, Snapchat’s camera was in. A simple habit replacement, fit their app into a daily task. So if you want your app to be used every day, focus on building or replacing old habits.

Memories Tied Into The Camera

The camera replacement would not be effective if the photos landed back in the phone’s default gallery app.

Snapchat added a feature that would solidify its presence in our lives even more. They launched a gallery page built into the app, which would save photos you took with their camera, organise them in neat little “memories”, and even let you create your own memories for more customisation.

They took what worked with the camera and brought the same solution into their gallery feature.

Snapchat+, Building Loyal Users & Making Money

As of 2025–2026 reports, Snapchat has crossed 25 million paid users, which is driven by Snapchat+, a unique subscription offering for its most active users.

The company uses a lot of design cues to get more users to subscribe, which include exclusive Snapchat app icons (which can be manually changed on phones these days anyway), a Snapchat+ badge that pops up next to your profile, and custom chat wallpapers and emojis to engage you.

While for most adults this seems a little stupid, younger audiences (18–25) are open to the idea of exclusive perks based on a monthly payment. Platforms like Twitch have created a unique exclusivity mindset, allowing super-fans to have a separate title, cool graphics, and an “insider” look into what’s new.

They employ a very crucial gamification feature here — locking some features behind a paywall. “Unlocking” these features gets you loads of exclusive benefits.

Apart from visual changes, Snapchat+ users also get three major exclusive features:

1. #1 best friend — users get to pin one best friend, making the app seem more personal.
2. Enhanced story features — subscribers unlock the ability to see how many times another person has viewed their story, even offering a boost feature to push your stories forward to more people.
3. Early access — Snapchat+ users get early access to beta features before the feature launches to the general public. This builds even more on their gamified approach.

Snapchat+ also helps build customer lifetime value — a consumer behaviour where paying customers who receive extra value are more likely to come back and become repeat consumers.

Designed For a Vulnerable World

I remember when I turned 13, and my parents first allowed me to jump onto Facebook. Everyone in my school was trying to sign up and start sharing cool photos, videos, and flaunting their relationship statuses.

Back in the mid 2000s, you could go to someone’s Facebook profile and learn everything about them — what school they attended, where they lived, what games they played, who they were related to, and even where they ate their last meal.

In 2026, people want privacy and the ability to control who can connect with them. You now see every social platform having a “private” mode or the ability to hide certain content for only their closest friends.

Snapchat was always built with privacy in mind, allowing only the friends you want to connect with to be on your “friends list”. Giving you the constant feeling of certainty and security every time you share a photo. No random creep is going to DM you in the middle of the night, no weird comments to worry about, and chats that have built-in privacy features to make you feel at ease.

When people were trying to take a “break” from social media or doom-scrolling, they always had Snapchat to stay connected with everyone, without the issues that come along with being online.

All this made Snapchat the giant it is today, and there are no serious signs of slowing down. They know their audience very well, they know who is using their tools, and they have enough smart data to constantly build something better and more engaging, making people come back is now a walk in the park for them.

I hope you enjoyed this thought-provoking article. Give me a *clap* if you did!

How Snapchat’s UX Design Hooks 460 Million Users Daily! was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.