Neumorphism Isn't Dead: How to Use Soft UI in 2026

I remember exactly where I was when I first saw Neumorphism. It was 2020. I was sitting at my kitchen table (because where else would I be?), doom-scrolling Dribbble, and suddenly every single interface looked like it was made of extruded white plastic.

It looked incredible. I immediately tried to redesign my entire portfolio with it.

It was a disaster.

The buttons looked like vague bumps. The inputs looked like dents. My grandmother tried to use the site and asked me, "Is the screen broken?"

So, like the rest of the industry, I abandoned it. We all went back to flat design and pretended the "Soft UI" phase never happened.

But... look at this.

Open up a modern dashboard in 2026. Look at some of the high-end banking apps or those fancy smart-home controllers.

Notice something?

The sharp borders are gone. The drop shadows aren't just grey smudges anymore; they're directional. Soft UI is trickling back in. But this time, we aren't being stupid about it.

The Physics (For People Who Failed Physics)

Neumorphism is just lighting. That's it.

• Material Design is paper floating on a table.
• Flat Design is ink printed on paper.
• Neumorphism is the table itself changing shape.

To make it work, you can't just slap a box-shadow on a div and call it a day. That looks like 2010.

You need two shadows.

You need a light source coming from the top-left. So your object casts:

1. A white shadow on the top-left (the highlight).
2. A dark shadow on the bottom-right (the shade).

It tricks your lizard brain into thinking, "Ooh, tactile."

The "I Hate Math" Solution

Here is the problem: calculating these colors sucks.

If your background is #e0e5ec, your highlight can't be white. It has to be a lighter version of the background. And the shadow has to be a darker version.

If you mess up the ratios, it just looks dirty. Like you spilt coffee on the UI.

I spent three hours trying to tweak hex codes manually for a client project before I cracked and just wrote a script to do it for me. That script became the Axonix Neumorphism Generator.

You just pick a color. It does the math.

It hands you the code:

border-radius: 50px;
background: #e0e5ec;
box-shadow:
  20px 20px 60px #bebebe,
  -20px -20px 60px #ffffff;

Please, I Beg You: Don't Use It For Buttons

If you take one thing away from this rant, let it be this:

Neumorphism has terrible contrast.

Do not use it for your "Buy Now" button. Do not use it for your text inputs.

Use it for the container. Use it for the card that the button sits on. Use it for toggle switches (it actually looks dope on toggles).

But if you make a text input that is just a shallow dent in a grey service, your users with vision impairments will hate you. And they should.

The Accessibility Nightmare (A True Story)

I once worked on a medical dashboard where the "Emergency Stop" button was neumorphic. It was a red circle slightly extruded from a red background.

It looked slick.

But in a panic, under bright hospital lights? Nobody could find it.

We had to revert it to a flat, ugly, high-contrast red square. The doctors stopped complaining.

Function > Aesthetics. Always.

Is it worth it?

Honestly? Sometimes.

If you're building a dashboard for a sailboat or a synthesizer interface? Yes. Go all in. It looks premium.

If you're building a spreadsheet app? No. Stick to borders.

Soft UI is a spice. Don't drown the meal in it.