Digital design during the 2020 pandemic: new challenges and new opportunities
In Dire Straits
We all are going to remember 2020. It has been only 4 months but we have already dealt or are still dealing with many frustrating events, COVID-19 pandemic is the harshest one. Just in a couple of months, all the world went into lockdown and humanity had to pull itself together in order to adapt to a new isolated lifestyle.
It affected all industries, professions, countries’ economies, they all are facing new challenges. Lockdown regime and compelled self-isolation have changed people’s habits and behavior totally. Media platforms, entertainment websites and apps, online shopping, delivery services, social networks, messengers, and video conference applications — these are the resources demand on which has grown drastically, as you can see on the chart below.
Design industry challenges
Like many others, digital design as a part of the IT industry is facing new challenges and experiencing hard times due to COVID-19 spread. Despite the ability to work remotely from home, many digital designers lost their jobs because of big transitions in the tech sector.
Negative repercussions and predictions:
- A lot of projects got canceled or were put on hold as a result of trimmed budgets
- Some of the projects were frozen due to collapsed industries (related to traveling, booking, entertainment, HoReCa, etc)
- IT Companies had to respond to corona-crisis with staff reductions
- According to LinkedIn, companies from various industries decline in hiring, the number of people applying for unemployment increases
- According to Forrester, in 2020 global and US tech markets will experience growth decrease to around 2%
Nevertheless, there are upsides and it is vital that we should concentrate on them. As we can see from the mental framework below, many industries are experiencing growth in these new realities, and it will probably create a demand for new digital products.
The bright side and opportunities:
- Even now we can see new opportunities in COVID-related projects (virus spread tracking websites and apps, new digital healthcare solutions, etc)
- New opportunities in data visualization, a lot of request for pandemic-related visual design (posters, explainers, illustrated instructions, etc)
- We’re expecting new market opportunities and projects requests from growing industries (e-commerce, gaming, streaming video/music, online education, delivery, telehealth, collaboration software, etc)
- As digital designers we can easily work from home on lockdown, even those who lost their jobs have more opportunities online than offline, and many companies changed their remote work policy and now hire people globally
- Last but not least, we can see how the design community unites, there are many free online conferences, webinars, helpful articles and resources, and countless cheerful posts and kind words online
The role of design as a service
Communication via design
I bet you’ve seen a lot of posters, flyers, explainer videos and other materials designed to explain what is going on and how we can alleviate pandemic spread.
In times of a perfect storm, nothing is more important than clear unbiased information, and governments and corporations are turning to design specialists in order to deliver accurate messages and instructions. Design is a perfect approach to communicate with a large audience and convey information in the clearest way, especially on such a complex yet important subject.
Besides, there are too many info channels and the general narrative is inconsistent, it only exacerbates panic, stress, and anxiety. Thus, people lean on the fastest and easiest ways to digest this huge informational flow and separate the wheat from the chaff. And because visual information can be processed 60,000 times faster than text and it’s easier to remember, people tend to perceive images and infographics more than text or audio (Source: Visual Content vs Text Content).
That is why design is a very powerful tool, especially in the current pandemic conditions. With the help of designers, we can broadcast understandable and noticeable messages, and provide our communities with the paramount information.
Conversion via design
Due to the new online lifestyle, many companies have strengthened their market positions and gained new customers and a lot of traffic. It concerns companies that can not only work online and safely deliver their products or services despite the lockdown, but which also have viable in terms of UX and UI design web and/or mobile applications.
However, there are a lot of businesses that weren’t ready for such a switch. More than ever small and medium companies can see how important an online presence is. And not just a presence as a fact but a high-quality presence, which stands for the ability to provide customers with a workable way to buy and communicate digitally.
There are many businesses that underestimated the digital world and the necessity to have usable UX/UI design solutions for their resources.
We can divide these companies into 2 groups:
- Easygoing style — companies that have either very weak or no online presence at all. They don’t have websites with the ability to purchase goods and services online, best case scenario — they have some social pages with rare posts and some contact information.
- Somewhen style — companies that have websites or/and mobile apps that are so bad in terms of user experience and interface design that they are losing a significant part of the customers. Probably, some of them were doing well before the lockdown and thought that they will rework their website or app someday and somehow.
Of course, we can’t (and we don’t try to) blame business owners for neglecting digital presence and performing in an old-school way, it had been working for their purposes for a very long time before the pandemic.
Nevertheless, the quarantine regime only accelerated the growing tendencies of the last couple of years — everything goes online. Every year e-commerce share of total global retail sales grows, and pandemic probably will only speed up this process.
Thus, all types of businesses should accept it, bite the bullet, and invest in their future by creating a viable online presence. It’s not a luxury, it’s a necessity for 2020 business realities — best web and mobile UI/ UX design practices combined with a great strategy can help boost every business to the next level.
Connection via design
Even though some of the businesses cannot perform the way they used to due to pandemic restrictions, they still can (and should) use digital space in order to stay connected with their clientele.
It’s time when graphic and motion designers come in handy. Illustrations, images, collages, beautiful videos, animated explainers, and many more will help create and share diverse content that will work for a company’s brand and reputation while it’s not fully functioning.
First of all, if a company is digitally in touch with customers during the whole lockdown period — it will help make a transition back to a work routine easier when the pandemic is over.
Secondly, owners can team up not only with designers but with marketing and PR specialists, and incorporate temporary practices in order to gain at least some profit during the lockdown. For instance, they can create and sell online beautiful certificates and gift cards that will be used in stores/salons/cinemas later.
Some people usually underestimate the impact of great visual content. Not only can it help attract attention to a brand, and keep in touch with clientele, but it can also help increase sales or provide visual support for creative solutions.
Every cloud has a silver lining
I believe that when this hardship is over we’ll come out from our homes as renewed people. This pandemic showed us what actually matters, I bet everyone has come to realize how many important things we forgot and neglected.
In these uncertain times (I’m sure you’ve heard these exact words a lot) a few statements become more and more clear:
- our lives have changed, and our values and priorities have evolved
- the world went digital even more, and this tendency will continue developing even when the pandemic is over
- it’s vital that brands and companies should have a solid online presence
- new conditions require new solutions, the market is open and ready for new digital products
I do believe that all digital specialists can make valuable contributions during this transitional period, and I hope when our world is cured as much as it’s possible, we will be healthy, inspired, and able to reshape our industry according to the new realities.
And for now try to concentrate on the positive side, stay at home as much as possible, and for God’s sake, wash your hands :)
