What’s ahead? — Here’s the UX Design Trends we expect to dominate 2022
In the digital world we live in, with new products and services powered by AI, big data, machine learning, AR and VR revolutionising the market every day, we can’t understate the importance of user experience design. The way users interact with those products are services highly influences their perception of the brand. Well-designed, innovative, accessible and inclusive experiences clearly stand out and differentiate from competition. They attract and retain users.
When talking about what we expect to see in this field in a near future, we can’t disregard how the last one and a half years, with a worldwide pandemic influencing the way we behave, the places we go, how we communicate with each other, has been and will keep on shaping the development of new technological and digital services solutions.
As we’ve just entered this brand new year it seems like the perfect time to take a closer look at the UX Design trends we expect will dominate 2022.
1. Growing Interaction With Other Systems and Gadgets
When talking about experiences with multiple devices we can no longer stick to the classic triad: mobile, tablet and desktop. People are increasingly using other devices daily. Wearable and smartwatch technology is here to stay and users will expect nothing but less than a consistent experience and functionalities across all devices they use.
In “Designing Multi-Device Experiences”, Michal Levin suggests the 3 C’s framework that guide the design of experiences for different devices.
Users constantly swap from one device to the other. We might watch Netflix on our smartphone during our morning commute. Continue watching on a smart TV after dinner, and end watching an episode on a tablet just before falling asleep. Plus, we have the ability to pick up the episode where we left off, helping us reach our final goal regardless of which device we started watching the show in.
This is both an example of Consistent Design and Continuous Design. It’s consistent because the image of the brand and the information visualisation is reproduced across the different devices, with the necessary adaptations to each device characteristics. It’s continuous because users can pick up where they left off anytime during the journey.
The fitness tracker Fitbit is a perfect example of Complementary Design. It engages the user on both the wearable device and the mobile app for a complete, unified experience.
As NN Group points out, users most commonly expect coherence and synchronization from multi-device operations. With the rise of mobility and the proliferation of new devices and interaction channels, users want their experience to move along with them as they change devices and context.
By offering a seamless unified user experience regardless of the device users decide to use, brands will ensure longer periods of engagement and higher chancer of users finishing their tasks. With the rapid growing of new systems and gadgets, creating consistent cross-device experiences will continue to be relevant not only throughout next year but in the years to come.
2. Taking a Touch-First Approach
Although originally touch was only associated with mobile devices, for some time know we’ve been seeing other devices with touch enabled interfaces — cash registers, information kiosks, ATMs, car GPS, electronic whiteboards, POS machines, and more.
A touch-first interface is designed to prioritise touch as the main input method. In order to design a touch-friendly device it’s important to understand how people hold the wide variety of gadgets available — phones, tablets, laptops — as they’re operated very differently and each have their own specific UI needs.
Designing a touch-first interface for both websites and apps prevents users from having to learn new patterns and provides a better experience if they access the website or the app on different devices.
With touch devices growing every year, and new kind of touch devices entering the market, taking a touch-first approach is undoubtedly a future safe bet.
3. Augmented Reality
Over the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to the development of AR in the UX design field. With stores closed, businesses implemented AR solutions to showcase their products and help their customers making a decision.
Ikea Place app lets you virtually place true-to-scale 3D models anywhere from your living room, kitchen or bedroom. This way customers can have an idea of how it will look like and if the furniture size fits in the room. Similar to this is Amazon’s View in Your Room. It makes shopping for your home easier by letting you preview products in your home virtually to see how they look and fit before buying them.
Thanks to its facial recognition tech, Sephora mobile app lets you try out makeup products in real-time. Plus you can share looks and complete the purchase. It’s proof you don’t need to visit a physical store and that you can make informed decisions online.
AR goes beyond retail applications. In healthcare a scanner projecting where different valves and veins are is helping doctors and nurses to find them more easily on the first try. In the travel industry, AR travel apps like World Around Me help you plan trips, suggesting where to go and what to do in new places. In education, Google Expeditions allows teachers to take their students on field trips without leaving the classroom. You can virtually visit places like the Great Barrier Reef, the Artic or cities like Rome and NYC.
It’s estimated that by 2025 AR’s value in the market will climb up to $25 billion so we can see how the future of AR is bright in 2022 and the years to come.
4. Agentive Technology
Above we see two types of vacuum cleaners. They both have the same task — vacuum — and the same goal — leaving the floors clean. They both do the thing for their users. The main difference is the type of human interaction each requires. When using the one on the left you have to press the start button, hold it and go around the house. With the one on the right you still have to start it (or schedule cleaning times so it starts on its own) but it will room around vacuuming while you’re laying on the couch or go out for grocery shopping.
This is an example of what Chris Noessel coined as Agentive Technology. This technology is a form of AI that takes into account a user’s interest and acts as an agent to attend that interest. It helps the user to achieve a goal with minimal effort, allowing their attention to turn elsewhere while the agent actively does the work.
Other examples of agentive technology include Spotify’s “Daily Mixes” — the platform presents you with pre-mixed playlists based on your favourite songs and related music you might also enjoy — and Google Alerts where you can set up a particular search you’re interested in and an agent will help you to stay on top of it by emailing you when any new thing that matches your search appears on the search engine. In both these examples you don’t have to look for what you want, as what you want is simply presented to you.
“ (..) once you are able to distinguish the power and promise of agentive technology, it’s hard not to see how it is going to change the world (…)”
Chris Noessel in Designing Agentive Technology: AI That Works for People
Agentive technology is about delivering as much value to the user as possible while requiring the least amount of work from them. It has been changing and will continue to change the future of the products we design and build.
5. Complex Web Applications
Web applications are computer programs that are stored on a remote server but use a web browser to perform a specific function for their users. They allow users to manage materials and documents and make room for a better communication between business and their users. Google Docs, Canva, Slack or Gmail are well-known examples of web applications.
The NNGroup defines complex applications as “any application supporting the broad, unstructured goals or nonlinear workflows of highly trained users in specialized domains.” They can support, for example, research scientists, military professionals, financial analysts. They are normally built to support highly trained users with specialised knowledge, helping them to browse, manage and analyse large sets of data. They also comprise collaboration among users with different roles, tools and platforms.
Web apps are gaining popularity in enterprise applications. When comparing to desktop applications, web applications can offer a higher competitive advantage as they are cost-effective and allow businesses to streamline information and processes.
6. The Rise of Ethical and Responsible Design
People spend about three hours online on their mobiles every day using websites and apps that are designed to deliver the best user experience possible. Well, at least that should be case if we lived in an ideal world. The dark side to this are the companies that use their apps and websites for their own monetary benefit, tricking users into spending more money or making the task of unsubscribing or closing their account a real scavenger hunt.
Dark patterns are a massive example of unethical design, and unfortunately we’re seeing them more than we should. They refer to experiences that are intentionally designed to trick users into taking unintended actions. Actions that (obviously) benefit the company rather than the user.
One of the more evident form of dark patterns are cookie banners. In the example above you can clearly see how the “Accept Cookies” button is highlighted (in some websites is also larger), attracting your cursor to click there as soon as you enter the website. On the other hand, the “Cookie Settings” button is far less prominent. It’s an option that implies more time-consuming clicks and loads of confusing preferences to manage (as you see on the right) which has the clear intent to scare you away from the option that can actually protect your privacy.
Even UX designers with the best intent can be drawn to the dark side to make the app or website more profitable. However, they need to think about the broader implications of this manipulative design used to make users spend more money, share their personal data, give their consent and subscribe unwanted services.
A designer should be able to satisfy both the users’ and the business’ needs. By making an app that’s engaging and useful, users will want to sign up and use it regularly to accomplish their tasks. Does anyone will really continue to purchase on a website after realising they sneakily added an item to their shopping cart?
Putting the user before business goals or KPIs will show users the brand is trustworthy and eventually keep them coming back. Now more than ever designers should learn how to incorporate ethics in their design work. Ethical design:
- resists dark patterns;
- respects users personal data;
- is accessible and human-centered.
Security and Privacy Transparency
The other day, when discussing the use of voice search features in the office, one of our teammates shared how he stopped using Google voice search when he noticed all his searches were being saved.
Privacy has become a big concern for many of us. Every now and then it pops on the news that a certain brand has stored, sold or unethically used their customers’ data.
Back in 2019, customers where not pleased to learn that their smart home device was eavesdropping and keeping recordings. Amazon keeps a copy of everything Alexa records after hearing its name, but not only (as Geoffrey A. Fowler shares in “Alexa has been eavesdropping on you this whole time”).
Both Amazon and other tech companies providing smart home products, like Apple or Google, tried to provide a justification — they need our voice to train their artificial intelligence.
To make their customers feel more secure, Amazon included a visible mute mutton that turns orange to visibly show people their device is not recording (annihilating part of its main purpose though). Although you cannot stop them from making these recordings, Amazon lets you manually delete past recordings. Google Assistant gives you the option to pause the recordings.
Putting profit over users’ privacy is certainly not a trend. If businesses are collecting private information they need to make sure they let users know they are doing so, and how they intend to use it, while requiring their consent to do it.
Design For Accessibility and Inclusion
Lately, accessibility has been a major topic in web and product design and its importance will continue to grow. Internet has become a crucial resource in so many aspects of our lives, from education to government, healthcare, commerce, and so on. When, according to the World Health Organisation, 15% of the world’s population lives with some form of disability, we see how relevant it is that everyone has equal access and opportunities, regardless of their abilities.
Accessible design will not only make it possible for people with disabilities to use a website, app or product it will also improve the overall experience and satisfaction of all users. Moreover, accessibility has its business benefits. It will enhance the brand, drive innovation and extend market reach.
“When we design for disability first, you often stumble upon solutions that are better than those when we design for the norm.”
Elise Roy (disability rights lawyer and design thinker) in the TEDTalk “When we design for accessibility, we all benefit” (2015)
A fine example of accessible technology is Microsoft’s Xbox Adaptive Controller.
It enables people with multiple types of disabilities, such as missing limbs, to play games with their friends. Two circular touchpads replace smaller controller buttons. It also includes large programmable buttons and the ability to connect to external switches, buttons, mounts or joysticks.
Inclusive design goes beyond accessibility by designing not only for the need of those with some kind of disability, whether permanent, temporary or situational, but for a broader audience, considering the full range of human diversity. The goal is to create digital and product experiences that serve as many people as possible, considering their ability, language, culture, gender, age, skin tone, religion.
Pinterest offers a tone range feature that help users filter looks that best suited their needs in beauty-related searches.
This official form from the Ministry of Culture of Argentina for registration to the National Visual Arts Hall is an example of gender inclusiveness.
Modern users demand all-inclusive products and services so brands should rethink the experiences they offer or are building. With inclusive design the brand has more chances of boosting their market position. Since it’s great for SEO it will increase organic traffic. By designing an accessible and inclusive experience for a larger, more diverse user base sales are also likely to increase.
7. More Personal Services
If you’re one of the 209 million Netflix subscribers then you have experienced first hand how its homepage is populated with the most relevant content for you. Netflix knew the average subscriber spends 60 to 90 seconds scanning movies and series on the platform before giving up, exiting the app and switching to television or another service. After spending some time and resources perfecting its recommendation engine, the results have paid off. About 70% of everything users watch is a personalised recommendation. With this Netflix has saved $1 billion per year from service cancellations.
Personalisation tailors products and services to the specific needs of a user. By using information like profile details, user locations, browsing history and purchasing decisions, companies can provide personalised content, products and services to match users’ preferences.
McDonald’s has a personalised user experience at some of their points of purchase with personalised digital menu boards at their drive-throughs. Displays can change depending on the time of day, the weather forecast or trending menu items, thus influencing dinner’s ordering decisions. So if you’re running through in a rainy day the menu will highlight hot tea, while on a sunny afternoon an ice cream will be the suggestion.
The promises of personalisation are and will continue to be significant in the years to come. Machine learning and AI are helping to take personalisation to a whole different level. They will help companies understand the story behind user’s interactions and behaviour, while also continuously adapting to contextual factors.
Starbucks app, one of the most downloaded restaurant apps, is designed to provide a personalised ordering experience. It stores data about each customer preferences and purchasing behaviours. Then it uses that data to reward customers with unique offers and discounts directly targeted to them. Starbucks uses a data-driven AI algorithm to send more than 400.000 variants of personalised messages to customers to promote unique offers to each person.
Research has already showed that 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer personalised experiences. Customer expectations have changed. They are no longer impressed with personalised emails and ads, so the challenge has now shifted to providing users a personalised experience for every interaction they have with a company’s service. This will not only enhance the user’s experience with the brand, but translate into business profits with boosted conversion rates and sales acceleration.
8. Citizen Experience
We are digital consumers, engaging and transacting online every day. When interacting with a brand we expect seamless experiences, a brand that can anticipate our goals and needs. Our expectations when engaging with the Government are no different.
Over the past year, with the pandemic situation closing down public services, Governments had to rethink and realign to the type of experience people expected — contactless and preferably through digital channels.
In Portugal, where once to renew your Citizen Card you had to go to a Citizen Shop, pull the queue number and wait (for far too long most of the times), during the lockdown you would simply receive a text message for a simplified renovation of the card. After you accepted, a PIN letter would arrive in your postbox with the payment details and the card was then send through the mail.
Like this we had other examples of how the public sector had to quickly adopt a digital-first mindset. 2022 can really be a transformative year, where public service organisations fully embrace digital technologies and reframe their strategies to improve citizen’s experience. Plus, a good citizen experience can lower operational costs, making the most of every tax payer money.
By being aware of what is now possible with technology, people expect that the gap between the quality of digital services offered by the private and the public sector not to widen, but to come closer. A digitally-driven citizen expects a service to be personalised and efficient. A delightful citizen experience can lead to a more positive perception of government performance, to a greater sense of support and trust, and an overall satisfaction increase.
9. Digital Health
Digital innovation is happening at an unprecedented scale and we’ve been witnessing it’s growing application to increase people’s health with digital health solutions.
For a few years now the UK’s National Health Service started prescribing health apps that help manage patients conditions. These are intended to help people monitor their health at home, reducing their need to visit a doctor. An example is GDm-health which helps manage the treatment of gestational diabetes. The app allows women to send each blood glucose reading they take at home to their diabetes clinician.
We’ve also been witnessing a rapid growing in the field of medical IoT, which uses wearable devices, monitors and integrated applications for healthcare needs. Along with AI and ML, medical IoT can enhance traditional medical devices. The smart inhaler, for example, integrates connectivity with a mobile app, via Bluetooth. They are built with sensor technology that records data about the time, date of use, and the patient’s location at each use. They can help remind patients to use the inhaler at the right time, and send an alert if the they forgot to take the device with them.
It’s predicted that by 2025, the IoT industry will be worth $6.2 trillion, with 30% coming from healthcare, which will rely heavily on IoT.
In healthcare, VR helps with surgical training and planning, enabling both surgeons and patients to get more comfortable with procedures. Many reports also prove the efficacy of VR for helping with chronic pain management and mental health.
MarketsandMarkets conducted a study on the expected growth of AR and VR in healthcare, projecting a 30.7% annual growth rate between 2017 and 2025.
The pandemic pushed the healthcare sector to invest more in innovative technology. Some digital health trends had a considerable boost during these past two years and are very likely to change the future of medicine.
One of the biggest digital health trends of 2021 was undoubtedly telehealth resources. Telehealth allows you to connect with your doctor online, getting the healthcare you need without leaving the comfort and safety of your home. As the pandemic reduced in-person visits, people turned to this solution that would keep them from going to the hospital. By April 2020, over 43% of Medicare primary care visits were conducted via telehealth services.
Although things are opening up gradually, telehealth looks like it’s here to stay. Fortune Business Insights predicts that the telehealth market will grow beyond $185 billion by 2026.
The World Health Organisation advocates the use of digital technologies and health innovation to accelerate global attainment of health and the well-being:
“The use and scale up of digital health solutions can revolutionize how people worldwide achieve higher standards of health, and access services to promote and protect their health and well-being.”
Last year, WHO launched a chatbot on Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, developed using ML technology, to combat COVID-19 misinformation, helping people protect themselves, prevent its spread and understand the facts related to the disease.
Next year, the growing technological advances in AI, big data, robotics and machine learning will continue to bring major changes in digital healthcare.
10. Behavioural Design
Now that things seem be opening up worldwide, you’re probably rethinking about taking that trip to Italy you were forced to postpone for a while. Maybe you already started learning some Italian so you can order some delicious pasta at the “ristorante”. If you’re using Duolingo to help you with that some of these things might resonate.
The app’s main colour scheme is green, a colour that makes people view information more positively. It has a Streak system that encourages you to keep practicing the language daily. Your streak is clearly displayed on the user interface and to anyone who sees your profile and that’s not unintended. It’s something called loss aversion — the pain of losing is psychologically twice as powerful as the pleasure of gaining. The main goal of this mechanism is, of course, to keep you playing. Then there’s another behavioural trick, which we see in several games as well. The leaderboard is publicly accessible so you can see how friends and other users are doing. This is called a social norm nudge — people like to behave as others do so to fit in. The behavioural techniques Duolingo applies are designed to keep users engaged long enough to learn a language.
This is only a small example of how behavioural design leverages human psychology to influence people’s choices and habits and make digital products more engaging. Products, services and experiences from areas like health and wellbeing, sustainability, finance, education, commerce can benefit from behaviour change.
We might then think — if Duolingo is using behavioural tricks to keep me engaged on learning a language, which is quite a useful purpose, can’t the same tricks be used to lure me into something evil?
Amy Bucher says:
“But just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. It’s easy to creep into dark patterns and manipulative design choices, if your goal in applying psychology is to keep someone within your product as long as possible without it being beneficial to them. Behavior change design is about helping people achieve their goals, not yours.”
A better understanding of human psychology leads to better insights into why people do what they do, better ideas on where to look for solutions, better prototypes, and better products that people will want to use. That’s why the design of behavioural solutions with lasting and positive impact on people’s lives is clearly in the future of UX, not only in 2022 but onwards.
11. More Asynchronous Services
When you send an email you don’t normally expect an immediate answer. The person you sent the email to will likely respond several hours later or even the next day. That’s called asynchronous communication — you’re sending a message without expecting an immediate response. It opposes to synchronous communication that happens in real-time like a phone call, an on-site meeting or a video conferencing meeting.
For hybrid workplaces or teams working on different time zones, scheduling a date and time for everyone to meet online might be tricky. Asynchronous communication tools like Loom and Soapbox are great solutions to increase the productivity and collaboration of teams. They let you record a video and then send it to any teammate or client so they can see it when it best suits them.
Other virtual collaboration tools like Tandem let teams collaborate whether they are in the same room or distributed. Twist is an async messaging tool for teams who are ready for a new way of working together, ditching real-time work. It offers the chance to collaborate on your own timelines, in hours where you are more focused and do your best work.
Asynchronous communication tools have gained momentum ever since the pandemic forced most people to start to working remotely. And even now that things are returning to a “new normal”, some people will keep working from home or adopt a hybrid model. Asynchronous communication is becoming a preferred means of communication in the workplace so they will continue to grow their market and new ones are likely to appear.
12. Services Refinement
Services are changing and the global pandemic has greatly contributed to that change. Even “essential” services found the need to adapt the way they normally operated. In healthcare, telehealth gained ground with people talking with the doctor by phone or a video call instead of visiting them at the hospital. Several apps and chatbots were created to support patients. In-store experiences also changed with new hygiene protocols and ways to wait in line. Restaurants and delivery services designed new contact-free delivery options.
The pandemic was proof that most of the times companies don’t have years to make fundamental changes in the way they operate and their service is delivered. In most cases, innovation and service redesign made the difference between company ruin and company survival.
Service design has been having a bigger role in the business and organisational development and this trend will endure. By evaluating and designing experiences, taking into account the front stage and backstage of services, companies will deliver a more efficient service to their users, and potentially increase sales and customer loyalty.
When redesigning a service, although technology might be a solution to solve an existing problem, some problems simply just don’t have a technological solution. That takes us directly to the next topic.
13. Technology Isn’t (and Won’t Be) Always the Answer
In a meeting, a stakeholder says: Things aren’t working. We need to rethink our business process.
Someone in the room answers: Let’s build an app!
Turning to technology to solve a business issue has become a fairly common approach. In a world of continuous technological improvements, where we’re bound to use technology daily, businesses often turn to software and tech as a solution to most business problems. Although technology solutions can increase efficiency and consistency, they are not a magical solution to solve all the tough problems of every organisation. Technology isn’t always the answer.
When redesigning business processes companies try to add new technology to fix existing issues instead of creating a comprehensive strategy that doesn’t involve more tech, but a huge overhaul of the current way of doing things.
You might think the answer to solve a certain problem, in order to save time and money, is automating a process. But if the process is already broken, what’s the point of automating it? Maybe you’re looking at the problem the wrong way round. A far better approach could probably be streamlining the process to make it actually work.
When redesigning business processes, sometimes technology might be a potential component to the answer, but other times the solution might lie in strategy or on enabling change by educating people.
14. Greater Focus on Copy, Making It More Human
People read online content every day. They are tired of seeing similar slogans, selling content and ordinary phrases. It becomes even more relevant that brands establish a unique tone of voice and communicate with their users in a human and relatable way.
Keeping a conversational tone will make a brand communication with their users feel more natural and human-like. Fortunately, the internet has shrunken the gap between writing and speaking so there’s no need to write long, complicated sentences like we were writing a college essay or a 19th century novel.
Although UX design is based on interactions between a machine and a human, UX writing can bridge the gap between the two by adding that human touch. By using short sentences, familiar and simple vocabulary users will understand how the brand can help them, where they are, and what they have to do. They will feel more comfortable interacting with interfaces and accomplish more.
Apple strikes as a genius example of copywriting. They keep it short, simple and playful.
And Let’s Not Forget Microcopy
The label on a call to action button, an error message, form fields, pop-up messages. These are some of the tiny tiny small words we see everyday in websites and apps. Although they might seem irrelevant, they can have a huge impact on a user’s experience and affect engagement and conversion.
In a Google I/O talk, Maggie Stanphill, senior UX writer at Google, gave an example from Hotel Search on Google to show how changing two words had an huge impact on the business. By changing “Book a room” to “Check availability” they saw a 17% increase on engagement.
Good microcopy must be clear and concise so that is easily understandable and prevents users to take unwanted actions. It should guide users in registration or check out processes, minimising possible doubts they might have. The right words (sometimes even with a touch of humour) can ease the frustration of seeing an error message or a 404 page. And it should, of course, be conversational. No one wants to feel like they are talking to a machine.
Sure UX writing and microcopy have been around for a while now but is not something we can do once and be over and done with it. Existing digital products often need to be revised and for new products and features, new microcopy needs to be researched, created and tested.
15. Motion Graphics
During most of last year and the beginning of 2021, live-action shooting wasn’t a safe option. Content creators had to get creative, conveying the intended message in other audiovisual ways — whether using stock footage, animation or experimenting with motion graphics.
Motion graphics is the perfect marriage of sound, motion, graphic design and effective copy. It’s a great way to explain ideas in an easy, visually interesting and dynamic way. It’s increasingly being used by brands due to its capacity to engage people and tell stories. Insivia found that users can retain up to 95% of messaging transmitted in video as opposed to just 10% in text.
Motion graphics has now gone mainstream as more brands are creating animated and motion graphic content. With competition ramping up, motion graphic techniques have been evolving and creators will most likely look for more innovative techniques throughout next year.
16. Short-form instructional videos
Thanks to the rise of platforms like Tik Tok and Reels, short-form videos have taken over the internet. People’s attention span is getting shorter and shorter. Over half of viewers will only watch a video until the end if it’s under a minute long. In fact 56% of all videos published in the last year are less than 2 minutes long.
Apple strikes as an example of how brands can leverage the power of short-form content. For those who missed the Apple Event they released the “Apple event in 51 seconds” video so people can quickly catch up on all their new products.
In today’s world it becomes even more important to tailor content for our dwindling attention spans, to get users immediate attention and convey important information quickly and effectively.
17. Less visual clutter
Every day we are overloaded with ads craving our attention and pages with an unnecessary amount of information. When web page or app design is too cluttered or overwhelming, it can disorient users and make it harder for them to accomplish their goal. The way to reduce this visual overload is looking for new ways to make elements simple.
Users crave for a more comfortable viewing experience, that reduces eye strain. The answer might then be minimalism. While minimalism is not a new design trend, gone are the days when minimal meant black and white. Next year, we expect designers to keep rethinking its use and move toward more experimental layouts, backgrounds with bold, bright and saturated colours, and clean typography with unique fonts to highlight headlines or important information.
Shopify’s website stands out as a great example. Each page has a bold background colour with clean text and minimal design elements, creating an easy-on-the-eyes page.
Light illustrations, with almost no lines
Illustrations are not a new trend in UX design. We’ve seen how they become a widely used visual element in websites, apps, ads. They make a brand original, which is not definitely achieved with stock photos we see repeated here and there.
Next year, and following the “less is more” trend, we’re likely to see lighter illustrations, with almost no lines. Bellow we see how it looks quite nice in Medcorder’s website.
Quite a list, right? One common trend we can look forward to is definitely smarter and innovative ideas intended to make our lives better, be it at home, at work, in our health care, in the way we communicate with each other, in our relationship with the Government and public institutions. UX can undoubtedly contribute to make those new products and services less complex, more user-friendly and inclusive.
Although we live in a time of huge technological advances, we are yet unable to predict the future or enter a time machine to take a sneak peek of what’s to come. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how this new year unfolds.
