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UX Design Trend

UX Design Trends 2018

All eyes have been chasing the new kid in the market that has evolved slowly and gradually in the designing field. The year 2017 saw a glimpse of UX. The hottest buzzwords last year included smarter personalization, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Virtual Reality (VR). Standing out of the race was this one word – Digital Disruption. The UX trends last year also saw an incredible rise in a minimalistic approach in terms of layouts. Wherever one looked, there were videos that partnered pixel-perfect illustrations. In addition to this, the animations we saw were extremely delightful, as well as functional, and gradients were very popular. Personalization, Gamification, and Conversational interfaces were also all the rage.

What 2018 is going to offer?

Till a year before, people were understanding the term UX, what it is really about and discussing its lifespan. But UX being a smart kid was slowly growing amidst the chat. This year we can’t be more thrilled but to know that UX has grown to UX 2.0. It now comes with a number of new trends that can provide a frictionless experience, smarter personalization, and technology such as augmented reality, virtual reality, and voice assistance. Without further ado, let’s delve into what you can expect from the newest, coolest kid on the block, UX 2.0:

Business & Design – Hand in Hand

One of the latest UX trends of 2018 involves an accelerated shift from UX design to Product Design. The designers are now expected to understand more about the business they are designing for. They need to inculcate even the minorities of business. The design field is maturing and the spending budget on designing is expanding. The design landscape is gradually becoming a lot more competitive, as well as complex. Thus, the roles and responsibilities of the designers will begin to grow.

Re-engineered Designing

Compared to last year, this year UX designers have started to wear different hats— not just the design hat; UX design practices of 2018 also includes re-engineering, and not just redesigning. A simple reason lies behind this— UX designers should be improving people’s lives with design, but these designs should also help meet business goals. Trending UX will prompt designers to be more strategic about features, screens, and experiences they create. And so, it’s about time designers accept the fact that they aren’t just artists, but are also business persons— it’s for the best, really.

Story Teller

With customer journeys becoming more and more fragmented, it’s now the responsibility of UX designers to ensure brands are telling a coherent story across all channels. It’s also vital for them to make sure these stories are convincing, interesting, and human. This is why, this year, UX designers have brought written content in the spotlight. 2017 marked the beginning of a new relationship the collaboration of UX designers and copywriters. This cross pollination will only continue to grow this year, as the term “UX writing” one of the latest UX trends of 2018—starts to be used to describe not just a technique, but job titles too.

Starting of a new relation

As mentioned earlier, UX 2.0 has brought in a whole lot of new technologies such as voice assistance and VR. For many designers these technologies are nomadic terms. However, designers are taking up this new challenge and are effectively communicating the same to the developers. This has mark an era of beginning of a new relation. Developers and designers will need to work extensively together in order to ensure that these new technologies are ready for adoption by the users. This is why, UXers will need to make sure that their skills are up for the challenge— designers who have knowledge of coding, will be the leaders of innovation in UX. Moreover, having knowledge of frontend development will streamline the collaboration process, and make it seamless.

Voice Activated Interfaces

Branding has taken a leap by going beyond pixels. It’s now a lot more than how the brand looks and what it says. Non-pixel based experiences are encouraging designers to rethink a brand’s personality, actions, as well as signifiers— of the new UX trends of 2018.

VUI will play a major role in keeping users engaged, in this chaotic world that is full of distractions. The recent developments in natural language processing and machine learning, have ensured that VUI and chat bots are able to comprehend complex conversations and predict your responses.

This may seem shocking, this UX trend is making UI redundant. Screens will start to go away, and interactions will primarily take place via voice, gestures, glances, or even thought.

AI Powered Really?

Today’s trend includes the heavy usage of Artificial Intelligence. A number of people have started to experiment with AI, which is why we’ll see an upsurge in applications that will open doors for users to tech advancements. Thus it has become necessary to know about the platform well, understand its limitations, and basically get your hands dirty.

Every service we know of will add the label “AI-powered” to it. This could include AI that creates bodega vending machines; AI that controls your meetings; AI that checks on your pets and kids for you; as well as AI that could replace you at work. You probably haven’t noticed this, but there’s one thing that’s happening here— we’re using a buzzword without really knowing what it actually means. So let me get this straight for you

  • AI is an aspirational term that reflects a vision with multiple way execution.
  • Calling anything and everything AI does a disservice to our industry. It’s common for designers to pretend they know exactly what AI is and how it works, and end up using the word incorrectly, when in fact, all they’re trying to say is “smart algorithm”.

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