Web designers are developers always look towards the horizon to see what next is coming up.
The concepts and styles of web designing are changing from time to time, and it is almost unpredictable too on what’s up next. We have to see quite a lot regarding UI/UX of web and mobile applications this year. Overall, 2019 will be a pretty busy year for the designers.
With all these in mind, we here gathered some expert advice from the leading designers on what trends will prevailing in 2019 and what may be coming up next. We are trying to draw out an outline about how UX may evolve in future by looking at the past and understanding the present.
Death and resurrection of UX
Designers were always involved in taking strategic decisions when it comes to successful digital representation. Back in 2016, the concept of being a UX designer was a pervasive affair as wit the feel it is soon going to disappear. However, starting into the of 2019, this transformation is now taking shape. There are varieties of platforms which demand a newer set of skills and knowledge to go beyond all the regular class a web and app UI designer may deliver.
At one time, we have seen many articles discussing the fall of UX, which made designers anxious about their future. But, if you are one who is into UI/UX design industry for long, then you may know that that this had been always there. Like the change from a webmaster to an information architect, from interactive designer to user experience designer, there had always been changes in IT to adapt to the latest developments. Whatever the case in UX is, the mission of meaningful design and development for better user experience will always prevail.
It is no different in 2019 also, and we can also see that budgets are increasing and the field is getting more mature. With an impact of all these, the design landscape now gets more competitive and complex. An individual designer may not be able to become the jack of all trades. The broader title of a UX designer is getting dissolved, and we can see that they are diversifying into various specializations like.
- Virtual reality
- Conversational design
- Voice interfaces
- Design craft
- Prototyping
- Product designing
- Motion design
- UX writing etc.
Overall, we may identify it is a shift towards product design from UX design in 2019. To be compliant with this change, the designers need to grow familiar with the business lingo. A designer should take to the business peers and get a clear understanding about the CRM process, business matrices, revenue model, marketing strategies, the source of business, lead generation, targeting and retargeting, landing pages, and SEO, etc.
Moreover, a designer also should be able to realize when you need to put the business hat too all by your own. It may be an excellent proposal to have a blue sky background design for website design rfp, but it may not be ideal from the business perspective. All the designs we devise should be able to make business sense and mighty enough to take it forward. In this perspective, we may believe that 2019 is a year where designers will learn how to be more strategic about the designs they make.
Designing for the era of urgency
Modern day users of the internet and technology have bigger expectations of how their products and services are delivered to them regarding service delivery and speed. How long will it take? Maybe the first question you hear here how much it costs?
We can see the UX concepts like a live stream on apps are growing at a fast pace. Platforms like Snapchat puts our lives on the map and let the users follow your friends and interact with them real-time. From Whatsapp to Instagram, everything allows businesses also to deliver real-time and stay in instant touch with the customers.
When it comes to online services, the expectations are changing quickly:
- Healthcare providers are offering video appointments round the clock with hardly five minutes delay.
- There are online dating apps which quickly connect people and help break all social barriers regarding user demographics.
- Even the governments handle inquiries and grievances to address public grievances with transparency and immediacy.
Your web design users also expect the same degree of immediacy from the service you deliver. Studies have shown that feature requests and product catalogs which never go life may sure hurt your brand value. Businesses should change drastically in terms of preparing their web user interfaces to value the users’ need for clearer, faster, and easy interactions.
In the year 2019, we may have to step back and look again at the complete ecosystem of how brands and users communicate to redefine how businesses can be perceived relevant in the world of immediacy. The answer to be found is how effectively you can incorporate this need to your product as a designer.
Lack of diversity
UX Designers are creative enough to prepare design empathetically. This is the reason why user-centric designs exist as a unique discipline. User demographics are different in terms of various ages, genders, believes, cultural orientation, political outlook and so on. User content design is the mindset of bringing the actual users also into the design process. This can be achieved by incorporating user research methodologies into the web design process. A diverse design team will also help prevent this gap.
This is just an overview of the changing design philosophy to give UI/UX designer a better insight about the changes in the industry and the upcoming needs to be compliant with. In light of the 2019 development, we may expect some drastic changes in the coming year too for which the designers and developers need to be well prepared of.