3 UX Trends to Keep an Eye on in 2018

Everyone talks about the advances made in technology, even in the past year alone. While there have been technical innovations that our younger selves could only have dreamed of, our days have not changed due to technology alone.

It’s the interactions that we have with that technology that can make an invention useful. Interactions that have been carefully scripted out by UX designers.

What are those designers planning next? What UX trends are you predicting will break big in 2018? Here are three that we think you should watch

1. Non-Interface Based UX

That’s right, UX without any actual user interactions is certain to become a hot topic in tech this year. With the increased influx of voice-activated search options, UX designers have to find a way to make that experience an integrated part of a users time.

Because voice is such a new technology, it’s been treated in many places almost as an afterthought. Something that can be plugged in at some seemingly logical point in the line.

In effect, though it’s an entirely new type of experience and one that may someday totally replace manual search and usage practices. For now, it’s augmenting “touch” interactions, giving UX designers a little more time to get things right.

2. Simplicity is one of the Newest, Oldest UX Trends

Of course, the entire idea a UX designer, like UX 4Sight, is trying to get across is to “simplify” the end user’s engagement. In essence, to make the process as straightforward and in many ways seamless as possible.

They are now faced with doing this across simplified content areas. This is particularly relevant in mobile apps.

Content remains the number one driver online but now that content is being stripped back and delivered in more digestible snippets. The result being information that is quick to access yet still relevant to the initial need.

UX designers will be spending a good deal of their time helping to refocus the attention from an experience-led one to something more information-based.

They’ll be doing this by working with design and marketing and communications teams to strip back the content and unclutter the pages it can be found on.

3. A New Focus on Color

The leaps and bounds in screen technology just within the past 18 months have been amazing. We are seeing things in greater detail and brighter colors than any human has before.

A UX trend in 2018 will be to harness this power. UX designers will be looking particularly at the opportunities around the inclusion of color around the online experience.

Color has always of course been an important design element. There has been a movement to increase its presence in functionalities under the banner of UX.

This doesn’t mean that a simple splash of color would replace a navigational element. Rather, could color be used to offset the importance of the element, to draw attention to a task, or (perhaps through the use of shades) indicate a step-by-step process?

The Challenge

The challenge, of course, is that UX designers have to work within a field, technology, that is constantly changing. It’s also one that operates wildly at the whim of the general public.

Granted that can be said about nearly every company, but because of it’s unique nature, technology can create a millionaire or a pauper overnight. Good UX can keep you in the middle of those swings.

When you are ready to discuss UX trends, discuss issues, or try and identify future needs, let’s talk.