I always enjoy the weeks leading up to Vietnam’s public holidays. Iconic red flags 🇻🇳 are used as decorations everywhere from the streets to digital products. They create a shared sense of celebration. I like how local apps take part in these moments, adding small seasonal badges and updating their UI themes. It makes the experience feel festive, and more alive.
One notable case is Momo, a popular e-wallet in Vietnam. During the National Day period, they added small Vietnamese flag badges to nearly every service icon on the home screen.
What works & What doesn’t
The flags are small, subtle, and placed on the left. I think likely because the right side is already reserved for notification counts. This avoids conflicting with existing UI patterns.
This seems to be a practical solution, but the way Momo applies seasonal badges to nearly every icon introduces another layer of visual signals. Because the flags appear so frequently and look like notification indicators, the interface starts to feel crowded and harder to scan.
At first glance, I even wondered: “Why do I have so many notifications?”. It then took me some moment to locate the service I wanted to use.
Why it matters
The main goal of this screen is to help users quickly recognize and access frequently used services. However, the seasonal badges behave like notification counts, which interrupt scanning and shift attention away from the user’s primary task.
This creates a few UX issues:
Hard to scan: Too many badges adds visual noise, making it difficult for users to quickly find what they need.
Weak visual hierarchy: When almost every icon has the same badge, it becomes harder to tell which elements are important.
Confusing signals: Because the badges look like notifications, users may think they have updates that require attention.
What I’d change
A better approach would be to apply seasonal design at a higher level (such as a banner, theme, or background) instead of repeating it on every icon. These elements should be clearly different from notification patterns so they don’t compete with the core experience. They should feel celebratory, not functional.