Meet the Five Technologies About to Shake Up the UX Design Industry
How new technologies will challenge experience designers to rethink the ways in which we go about our daily lives.

2017 was a bittersweet year for the tech industry, with newly minted gadgets both surpassing and lagging behind consumer expectations. Nintendo awed the world with an all-in-one gaming console that can be played in six unique configurations, while Apple received major backlash for pricing the iPhone X at $1000 and admitting to slowing down its mobile devices via new updates. And who could forget Amazon Alexa’s bold display in Whole Foods? Or the fact that e-commerce singlehandedly forced the likes of Sears, Michael Kors, Gamestop, Macy’s, Guess and JC Penney to dramatically scale back the presence of their brick & mortar storefronts.
To avoid getting Blockbustered into oblivion, small businesses and mega-brands all the same will have to double down on their innovation efforts, making waves rather than riding them. As such, adopting new technology in practical and profitable ways is the new imperative for staying afloat. And though much of the tech is still in infancy, the promise of streamlining tasks, integrating separate devices and literally creating new worlds will entirely transform our current world as we know it.
So without further ado, here are the Five Technologies About to Shake Up the UX Industry:
1. Artificial Intelligence

As it stands, artificial intelligence still feels like a far-fetched dream rooted in a heavy dose of science fiction. Mentioning AI to many people immediately triggers an apocalyptic scenario in their mental cinema — but what if I told you you’ve been using AI all along?
As the names imply, ‘narrow’ or ‘weak’ AI is a cognitive computational system capable of completing specific tasks within a limited, pre-defined range. Siri makes for an excellent example of how society has been using weak AI without even knowing it.
“We’re slowly building a library of narrow AI talents that are becoming more impressive. Speech recognition and processing allows computers to convert sounds to text with greater accuracy. Google is using AI to caption millions of videos on YouTube. Likewise, computer vision is improving so that programs can.. recognize objects, classify them, and understand how they move [or act]. Narrow AI isn’t just getting better at processing its environment, it is also understanding the difference between what a human says and what a human wants.”
— Aaron Saenz, Singularity Hub.
Much like how the separate parts of the human brain work together to understand the world around us, connecting independent weak AI functions will in time create a smarter artificial intelligence. Today, Google Translate has a feature that uses machine vision to instantly decipher whole sentences simply by pointing your camera at whatever foreign image you want to read. By piecing together machine vision (making sense of what a camera sees) with machine learning (pattern recognition), Google effectively created a new feature thats bigger and works better than the sum of its parts.
By combining functions in such a way, AI will reduce friction in accomplishing tasks, streamlining efforts and optimizing workflow as a result.
What if you could input a location of your favorite downtown food joint, order a rideshare to come pick you up and place a reservation in a single click? These are the sort of implications artificial intelligence will have on our daily lives, simply by picking up the contextual pieces left behind from previous interactions.
Moving forward, experience designers will have to wrestle with where and how to insert AI (if at all) into the products they create.
Ask yourself: Where is there a gap that can be filled by the power of an internet-backed intelligence? How can you make an existing platform run smoother with AI? What would increased computational power do for your business?
Look to combine existing functions in new ways. Integrate AI where it makes sense. Just don’t forget that at the end of the day, it has to translate into something that, though given a stark boost in performance, remains human at our fingertips.
2. Augmented & Virtual Reality:

As the digital world continues to merge with our tangible reality, most of our physical devices are set to vanish entirely in the next decade or two. In their stead, a new type of interface will emerge — one with spatial capabilities that puts us front and center of the digital universe. No longer will we peer into touchscreen windows overlooking the coded universe, rather, we’ll be in it, freely interacting and manipulating it as we do the real world.
The future of mobile is Augmented Reality (AR). The future of desktop is Virtual Reality (VR).
In an ‘augmented’ world, you’ll always have the latest news floating around your peripherals. Streets get highlighted when you need to turn the corner as your GPS and the real world become one. You can even snap pictures in the exact direction you’re looking just by batting an eye.
In a ‘virtual’ world, the limitations of the real world don’t apply. Though VR is heavily rooted in the fantasies of the gaming industry, it maintains a broad spectrum of practical use cases, from traversing the world in the comfort of your living room to going back to the fall of the Berlin wall in history class.
Breaking new grounds with these technologies will inevitably result in an inseparability from screens in our daily lives, further impacting our perception of both technology and the world around us. What more, the tools will impact not just what we see through the screens, but how we shape our physicals environments to their benefit.
In VR, treadmills enable users to walk for infinite stretches of land. Tables can become keyboards or enable other touch-based interactions, and chairs let you pilot a spaceship.
Similarly, with AR, ad spaces can stay blank in real life, operating as canvases which enable wearers to see different advertisements based on their viewing history (cookies). Different in-store items can glow and send push-notifications depending on a person’s tastes and preferences. The whole world can become a hyper-personalized oyster in an augmented reality headset.
To start with, UX designers will have to make sense of the experience they’re concocting — since anything is possible with VR, its important to have a clear sense of what you’re building. As with AI, the goal is to stay practical since development can take a while.
In either case, experience designers will have to get comfortable thinking in three dimensions. What will a call-to-action look like if you give it depth and width? Conversely, when is it ok to put a flat screen in a 3D space? How do we direct a user’s attention without forcing tunnel vision in a non-flat world? What will surfing the web or 3D television look like?
With AR specifically, how do we draw attention to a certain element without subtracting from the real world? How do reduce the necessity for physical movement within a clunky device?
To truly get comfortable designing for these media, experience designers will have to borrow elements from interior and architectural design to best understand how to situate a user within the design elements surrounding them. But pulling it off will be well worth the effort, as few technologies have the implications on fashion, education, real estate, travel, employee training, medical, gaming and beyond.
3. Voice Command + Chatbots

If ever there were an embodiment of the word ‘seamless,’ it would be a voice or text activated chatbot.
Viewed as an intuitive and fun way to achieve an outcome, chatbots help brands reach a broader audience by meeting consumers where they spend the bulk of their time (ie: Facebook, text messages, in their homes, etc…) There are plenty of tools and services to build your own, and you don’t have to look very hard for brands cashing out on the ‘conversational commerce’ trend for inspiration.
Domino’s and BurgerKing employ chatbots as an alternative food delivery channel. Fandango lets you check out trailers, movie times, theater locations and so forth. The WholeFoods chatbot accompanies you during your grocery shopping escapades to give you an idea of how that ingredient fits into various recipes. The NBA keeps you updated with real-time stats on all your pre-specified matches. TechCrunch sends you their 5 top-grossing articles every day. The list goes on.
In the physical home, voice command lets us achieve the same tasks many of these chat bots offer while requiring even less technical know-how. The ease of use has helped democratize the technology, affording the elderly and people with disabilities a newfound command of previously unavailable capabilities.
Both text-based bots and voice controlled devices are favorable among users because they streamline task completion and feel like a more personal engagement between brand and consumer. Though that feeling that you’re speaking with a robot may take a few years to shed (when chatbots develop better natural language processes and capabilities), as a communication channel and conversation enabler, runway for testing features and garnering feedback, getting more eyeballs on content, and perhaps even monetizing a product or service, chatbots should not be overlooked
Media companies should especially spend some time dabbling in this emergent platform as a means of content distribution — a weekly roundup of your top grossing posts for instance can send further readers/viewers your way who may have missed it on your site/social pages and/or aren’t subscribed to your newsletter.
4. Internet of Things

IoT, as its been acronym-ed, might just be the brick & mortar savior we never knew we needed, and is certainly entering the household at an increasing rate. Indeed, the Internet of Things is here to stay (and grow), promoting interconnectivity between devices to benefit how we go about our daily lives.
IoT devices come in all shapes and forms, but what characterizes their ‘IoT-ness’ is the ability to communicate with other devices to familiarize themselves with contextual insights. Picture a smart oven that offers recipes based on the items in your smart fridge for instance, or a morning alarm that triggers your lights, turns on the news and starts your coffee machine.
Similar to how grouping AI functionalities affords stronger AI, Internet of Things feeds on the ability to pair utilities so as to make better sense of what’s going on.
From a UX standpoint it’s important to understand that every IoT implementation has different UX requirements. In her latest ebook, User Experience Design for the Internet of Things: Why It’s More than UI and Industrial Design, author Claire Rowland writes that every IoT device has its own set of considerations.
“An in-car system needs to be designed to minimize distraction while driving.
A remotely controlled oven needs to minimize the risk of fire.
Devices must adhere to regulatory requirements such as radio interference or waste recycling standards.
An assisted living product needs to balance the need of vulnerable people for safety and support, while preserving their privacy and autonomy.
Automated rules and modes in some smart home systems perform actions when certain conditions are met, like turning devices on or off when people arrive home, wake up, or leave.”
It’s important to recognize that despite their universality, each Internet of Things enabled device is still a standalone unit that serves a specific function. Apart from their predecessors, IoT technologies are more customizable, upgradeable and generally dynamic.
On that note, if you’re an IoT creator, consider this: for users, parting with gadgets they’re already familiar with might prove difficult for sentimental, financial and comfort-based reasons. As such, if you have the opportunity to create devices that upgrade ‘dumb’ products into smart ones rather than forcing users to replace them altogether, you’ll do more sales, breed loyalty and create an overall superior experiential atmosphere.
Take Roost’s smart batteries for instance, which grant push-notification capabilities to your existing smoke alarm, or the Smart Halo Bike system which, when fixed to your bike, doubles as an anti-theft alarm, GPS, road light, fitness trainer and personal assistant for calls and texts.
Upgrading rather than reiterating is a hot industry trend that will continue in the years to come. Not only should IoT devices augment rather than replace old devices, but they themselves should remain upgradeable via software updates, patches and perhaps even open-sourcing. As we move into a smarter, more connected world, prolonging shelf-life will prove to be an additional differentiator in this saturated market.
Lastly, though their innate strength lies in their interconnectedness, as designers we should also consider their offline utility. As Rowland writes,
“When designing for IoT, don’t assume always-on internet connectivity. The ideal would be to design for no internet connectivity at first, and then see how much functionality can be done locally before you need to access the internet.”
This is important for a number of reasons — chiefly for cases where users purposely choose not to connect their devices, and for security measures. Its always important to advocate for the user of a product, and part of that entails not having to sign up with Facebook or linking a bank account to use your product (if it doesn’t make sense to). Information architecture and the exchange of classified information is therefore a natural part of designing IoT products.
5. Blockchain

You’ve likely heard of cryptocurrency — perhaps you’ve even invested in a few coins yourself — but what do you know of blockchain?
Admittedly the technology is somewhat esoteric in nature, shrouded in technicalities that only the coders among us seem to understand. Yet Blockchain will soon replace many of the foundational structures within many of the services and applications we use today, from transactional interactions and financial management to how we connect and communicate, and designers will undoubtedly need to wrap their heads around the technology in order to craft experiences for these emerging platforms.
“…what most people don’t understand yet is that blockchain technology is about so much more than digital coins. At its essence, a blockchain is a new type of digital ledger which records information in a publicly-verified, traceable way across a decentralized network of devices. What this means is information for, say, an app, isn’t just stored on a privately-owned server somewhere — it’s stored across multiple devices that communicate with each other to verify user activity, rather than referencing one central authority, like a Wells Fargo or Google”
-Ali Cottong, IDEO CoLab
Not only are Blockchain technologies revolutionizing the financial sector, they’re also integrating with global shipping measures, parts tracking, healthcare, digital identity keeping and other systems. From a global perspective, Blockchain will inform the way millions (if not billions) of people will lead their daily lives in the not-too-distant future, and helping bridge the gap between that scary tech talk and the average consumer will be just one of the ways Blockchain will require a designer’s touch.
“Trust will become perhaps the most important design element in any system.
Imagine a world where all interactions are more egalitarian, transparent, and traceable — what would that look like? How might we design for this new world view?”
At the societal level, Blockchain is pushing a new narrative in B2C relationships. In parallel to the open access code structure the world is adopting, companies too will be expected to adhere to higher standards of data security and provide more information about the goods and services they’re selling.
In short, Blockchain isn’t just a technology, it’s a mindset. As designers, our role will be to create experiences that promote ease of use in spite of the heavy technical work running behind the scenes. In order to help the world make Blockchain applications more ‘human,’ we’ll have to have become a contributing force from the very beginning of the conversation.
Conclusion:
This article is meant as a teaser into the technologies likely to be making headlines throughout 2018 and beyond. As such, the content only scratches the surface of what the tech can do and how we should be thinking of them. Think of this entry as a conversation starter with your bosses rather than a guideline as to what you should be doing. Inherently some of the technology will be better suited for the industry you’re designing for than others, and perhaps there’s actually no room for something like Blockchain or IoT in your space to begin with. Nonetheless, as experience designers its imperative that we stay up to date with the tech to see how the pieces can fit in ways that a biz dev or strategist or consultant can’t.

