5 UX Design Predicitions for 2022
We live in times when nothing is immune to the greater impact of new technologies as well as external social and cultural commotion. Our Experience with different technologies is constantly changing. Each year new technologies disrupt the way we work and interact with each other. So it's crucial for us at Bonanza Design - a user experience design agency based in Berlin, Germany - to reflect on the technologies that are going to affect us the most at the beginning of each year.
So, What are the most exciting new trends in the field of UX design that you'd need to keep your eyes on?
Our UX Design Guru and CEO, Behrad Mirafshar took a peek into his crystal ball and identified the most important topics to watch for, whether they are continuations of current trends or new breakthroughs.
Here are the trends we predict that will gain more space this year:
1. Hyper Gamification (web3, NFT)
So, let’s start with the basics, What is Gamification?
This is a technique known for the act of inserting game mechanics into non-game products. In UX it means, trying to make the product UX fun and entertaining, like a game, involving animations and illustrations that improve the user experience.
In 2022, Hyper Gamification gains more space as Web3 allows you to commercialize activities in an app for the benefit of the users. So if a user gets a badge, she could exchange it for money (token or fiat) either within the app or outside in other markets. Web3 breeds a new generation of applications maximizing gamification. What you used to know about gamification will be radically redifined. Watch this space.
2. Data-Driven Design (DDD)
Opinion-based design is DEAD!
So, If you can’t back up your design decision with real-time data, you’re not designing in 2022. That’s where enters Data-Driven Design: a design decision-making technique that heavily depends on data obtained about customer behavior and attitude.
Here, information regarding how customers interact with your design serves as feedback, allowing you to determine whether or not your design achieves its goal.
But, DDD has two major implications. Let’s look into each:
2.1 Continuous UX Research
Making decisions with data in real-time require a team to continuously conduct research to fetch contextual data.
Having continuous UX Research means proactively researching and regularly gaining insights into your users’ behaviors, needs, and desires. Beyond that, its main purpose is not only to adapt quickly to upcoming challenges but also to act foresightedly and to be one step ahead of tomorrow’s research demands.
If your team is stuck in a project-based mindset (i.e. we have a feature to build, let’s do research), you’ll be reacting to new market inputs rather than being proactive
2.2 Usability Testing at Scale
One of the most important design methods you can employ to evaluate your product is user testing. However, in many circumstances, it is inconvenient. You must recruit volunteers, administer tests, analyze the results, and present them to your team.
It takes up a lot of time and has a negative impact on the budget.
Teams are increasingly putting together tests that can be conducted within hours to validate their designs. So before any code is written, there are contextual data that validate our design decisions.
Here you can find more on Userberry, a quick remote testing tool, that helps you get results in scale in a short time period.
3. Importance of UX Writing
First things first, User Experience writing is more than content design. It’s a content strategy for products.
A message is the origin of every experience designed! UX Writing is the line that unites user and machine, and without it, the method can be counter-intuitive and complex.
Bad UX Writing makes the process confusing, messy, and, most importantly, aggravating.
In case you want to develop a strong brand and design sticky product experience in the age of artificial intelligence, you need to get your UX writing right.
Let’s break it down for you:
3.1 Brand Narrative Design
There’s more awareness now than ever on the importance of building a strong brand around your products.
Brand Narrative is a necessary part of Brand Strategy. A well-designed brand narrative and tonality is the crucial building block of brand development and creating an engaging community around your core offerings.
There are five key components to designing your Brand Narrative :
- Truths – four to five high-level aspects of your brand that are true and significant.
- Pledge - a promise that expresses a statement of intent.
- Story — a brief tale that depicts the brand's fulfillment of its Promise and the impact it has.
- Emotional Impact — the specific feelings that the brand aspires to evoke in its audience.
- External Expression – a marketable notion based on brand movements and defined by the Promise and desired Emotional Impact.
A strong narrative will also help your brand, even if it is operating from a position of strength.
It can assist you in creating brand experiences that impact people's perceptions of your company based on the emotional benefits of your promise and the feelings you seek to elicit in every engagement.
3.2 Contextual Communication in Apps
Interface-LESS interactions are around the corner. Already we interact with machines through Voice interface.
With the advance of AI technology, contextual communication and omnichannel communication are popular subjects in the business world.
These ideas have the potential to have a significant impact on a key but all-too-often neglected part of any business: the customer experience. This presents itself as not only a possibility now but an opportunity that your brand can maximize right now.
4. Metaverse: Design for 3D Space
Many of us have seen extended reality devices in video games, and by 2025, Allied Market Research, predicts that the extended reality (XR) market — which includes augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and other types of mixed reality — will grow to $571 billion more.
With that being said, User Experience must become a priority. As a designer, from now on, more and more, there will be a demand to interact in these 3D spaces with all sorts of interfaces.
Designing for 3D spaces requires UX designers to develop a new set of interface and interaction design skills.
Here you can find out more about how the Metaverse can impact a designer's life?
5. Remote Collaboration on Steroid
Most businesses were obliged to embrace remote work as a result of the COVID outbreak. Companies all over the world are now considering returning to work.
One thing we can say for sure, remote work is here to stay!
And with that comes the need of creating more and more remote-friendly apps that help people and businesses embrace these new lifestyle solutions for remote-friendly living.
ALL ON STEROID!
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