cakapdigital.com – Our lives revolve around technology more than we want and expect it to be. From the online booking of rides to the reservation of your favorite recreational place, it is done digitally.
But what happens when the app or the website interface that you see isn’t exactly neat and in its elements? Surely, you would feel uncomfortable and checking for other preferences that are more minimalistic while getting what you need on the front.
And this is how User Experience comes into the scene. No longer a catchphrase, it has become a specialized field that changes the way your favorite digital products are presented. Also known as UX, knowing the principles of what makes and breaks it can be done by learning through the current trends.
Here are the 8 trends in UX design to prep you for this year’s UX scenes and opportunities:
1. Going Multi-platform
UX will enter new formats this year, bringing a solution to gaming consoles, voiced-based interfaces, interactive TVs, and more. It will also be geared more to auditory and tactile interfaces, making this shift in the target as UX departs from Natural User Interfaces.
2, Counterattack to misinformation
Due to the fast spread of news and the gap that people can exploit to spread misinformation and the likes, it’s, therefore, necessary to create a UX design that’s based on ethical User Interface. This means, user fact-check on the latest information by including an integrated design of both the viewing and review feature in the UX.
3. Lone-Wolfing is outdated
Collaborative inputs give birth to a final design that reflects on many perspectives from different backgrounds. The combined inputs of data scientists, content creators, illustrators, and algorithm engineers should not confuse the target design, but instead, it can help designers elevate the products in ways that they couldn’t possibly do alone.
4. From the community to community
A UX that improves the social nature of online queries will simultaneously improve the communities’ experience. Creating an enhanced UX certainly brings more depth into the digital products. This will also elevate the communities’ satisfaction, bringing more impact in the end for the online social culture.
5. Zen-like interface
Design is no longer about making things that look full, it’s about less, and that less is better. People are already too loaded with the technology and social life in the online community that squeezes out the life of them 24/7, so naturally, they wouldn’t want to see a cluttered looking interface on their tablet, smartphone, or laptop screen.
6. Get an Audit Design
It’s just as important to get user’s feedback, hence a design audit is created to discover the positive and negative impact of the UX. By knowing in which design interface the user is stuck at, and going deeper into user’s demands, changes and improvements made for the UX can optimize businesses online presence while increasing their ROI.
7. Simplify your Information Architecture
Let the technical stuff sit in the backburner for the designers to deal with, and give the users a crystal clear access and approach to their needs. Information architecture makes the structural blueprint that regulates how information flows by the website, and it’s the balance of these elements that in turn will simplify the whole process. This is done by observing the ‘who’ and ‘how’ in regards to the consumption of online information.
8. Inclusive and Customized Design
A design tailored for each customer group with their unique requirements in mind should be inclusive and customized. User Experience design should be able to address any shortcomings that hinder user’s satisfaction and to close the gap where conventional products might have missed.
Notes
After you’ve learned about the trends above, you can have an outlook of the UX scene and how the workflow usually look like, and the things that need to be included in each designing steps. Although trends are prone to change, there is always the basic principle and that can be practiced and get inspired by no matter the years.
The ability to adapt the trends to your digital products without losing the unique voice of your brand is important and implementing self-reflection together with your team can help soothe difficulties found in the overall process.
Stay curious, and keep on experimenting on all the variables involved.
Good luck!