UX design has been trending a lot in the last few decades. If you are thinking of pursuing a career in this field, you’re probably wondering: will it still be important in the future?
While we cannot anticipate what will happen far in the future, we can certainly take a look at the current state of things and decide on next year. Right now, the world is dealing with consequences from a global pandemic, using social media and the Internet more than ever, and witnessing amazing technology advancements.
The focus on the user or customer is now bigger than ever. Marketers and businesses all around the globe try their best to meet the demands of the audience and provide unmatched customer support. That being said, it is safe to say that UX will be important in 2022, probably even more important than today.
Let’s see what brought us to this conclusion.
UX design today
To make assumptions about the future of user experience design, we need to start at the beginning. It all began when Don Norman coined the term user experience back in the 90s. Since then, the Nielsen Norman Group has estimated an increase from 1,000 to 1 million UX professionals.
That is just until 2017. In fact, the same report estimates the growth of 100 million people by 2050. Based on this alone, it is very clear that UX will continue to be important in the years that follow.
Let’s take a short peek at the progress of UX since the beginning:
· 1990s and early 2000s marked the web revolution. In this period, people were finally able to interact with the website of a brand before they purchased a product. As a result, businesses started working hard on establishing and maintaining a good online presence.
· 2010 to today mark the ‘Golden Era’ of user experience. At this point, the concept becomes more researched and intrigues a lot of people. The world swiftly starts testing different ways to improve the user experience. Companies start adding experts for UX design in their team, leading to over a million employed designers across the globe.
In these last couple of years, we’ve witnessed even more exponential growth. Here are some magnificent user experience facts that point out why marketers are so focused on this type of design.
According to TechJury from where this data was collected, people require that the brands they trust offer them quality experience. That’s what UX design is all about, and it is one of the main things that builds awareness, good reputation, and customer loyalty.
The importance of usability testing in UX design
You can hardly talk of UX design without mentioning something called usability testing. To improve the usability of a site, a product, or a brand’s online presence in general, one needs to be familiar with the current success of their strategy.
This is why designers perform usability testing on a regular basis. Tools like Maze is what makes it possible for them to learn how to improve the user’s experience, what the user wants and needs, etc.
Since users are becoming more demanding with each passing day, and the competition is constantly fighting to get first in line to attract them, testing the usability of a site is more important than ever. If one thing is certain for 2022, it is this – usability testing is essential for good UX design.
Is UX design still important right now?
There is no sign whatsoever that the need for user experience optimization is diminishing. All data points out that user experience is more important than ever. The pandemic has brought on challenges for all, including users who had to adapt and change the way they buy things, as well as brands that needed to change their marketing and selling strategies.
Right now, it is more important than ever to boost the experience of the users. Since the Golden Era and the pandemic, this is somewhat of a given. There is no big and successful brand that doesn’t recognize the importance of user experience today or invest in creating enjoyable, high-quality designs that allow for simple and effective interactions.
What about the UX designer career?
All of this means that UX designers are highly demanded today. The field is constantly changing, so they need to upgrade their knowledge based on technological advancements. The only thing that’s changed is that expectations for such experts have evolved alongside technology. This makes the field more complicated, but also more rewarding to those who succeed in it.
Right now, being a good UX designer requires tons of knowledge and experience. You can’t just master a few concepts that worked before – you need to possess an understanding of a variety of technologies, as well as the ability to implement the business goals of the brand you work for.
In other words, UX designers must be able to impress, convince users to engage, and retain them.
Some think that this diminishes the importance of the title UX designer, or that this gets too messy. Based on the demand for such talent, we don’t see this career disappearing in the future. In fact, UX design has grown so much since it first appeared, we can even imagine that it will turn into subcategories and specialties and that UX designers will study different things instead of trying to capture the entire scope. After all, user experience is a broad concept nowadays, and it will definitely change in the future, too.
What about automation and UX design?
There’s also the matter of automation taking over the UX designer’s role. This is not likely to happen. Yes, tools like Alexa or Siri might be able to come up with some designs in the future as technology advances. But, there will be gaps in their design. Why?
It’s because, when handling something as delicate as the user experience, humans are the best people to make the decisions. They know how humans think and how they’d respond. Based on this, we’d say that the future of UX design is still looking really good.
Changes that await us in 2022 – and beyond this
User experience changes all the time. It doesn’t fade but evolves with every passing year. Based on what we know right now, here’s what we can expect next year and in the years to come.
Motion design
Just a few years before, it was enough for brands to have a nice ad and a product that hits the pain point of customers. Now, the competition online is enormous, and users expect much more. They need useful products, but also products that are engaging, look good and are easy to interact with.
This is where motion design comes into the picture. It’s a great option for engaging users and making their experience more realistic. Many designers have already started using lively transitions and animations to fill the blank spaces and appeal to the emotions of users.
Gestures
If you stop to consider the number of people using smartphones over the years, it’s no wonder why gestures are trending in UX design today. Check out these stats – they point out an even bigger number of smartphone users in the years that follow.
Why are gestures important, you might ask?
When people use mobile devices, they want to achieve their goals on a site or social media channel fast and effectively. Phones are much smaller in size and without proper optimization for users, brands are making their actions harder to perform. Gestures such as pinching, tapping, swiping, and screen tilting is crucial for UX design.
More specialties and disciplines
As UX design is expanding and evolving, designers will focus on specializing in selected fields and disciplines that fall under this big umbrella. This won’t happen right away, but it has already started. As the demand for UX designers increases, as well as the material they need to master and tools they have to use, experts are starting to focus on one thing over the other, offering more specialized, focused services to their clients.
Even today, companies are searching for all sorts of UX experts. They hire a UX specialist, a UX researcher, an interaction designer, a voice-guided UI specialist, content designers, product designers, etc.
While it’s definitely useful – and even somewhat necessary – to learn the general things about UX design, present, and future experts are starting to sway toward more specialized learning.
That being said, UX design will remain popular in the future, but if you plan to work in it, you need to figure out what you want to study.
Increased use of AI in design
Designers are relying on artificial intelligence now more than ever. Instead of tossing the idea aside in fear that it might replace their role, designers seem to be grasping it – and rather effectively. Artificial intelligence can help the UX design significantly, and working alongside it is definitely in our cards.
Final words
User experience design is a necessary, in-demand discipline that facilitates business operations and communication between brands and companies. Today is a fantastic time to join this field. We already witness the many trends in UX design evolving with every passing year. In the years that follow, we can expect even greater things.
Before you try UX design on your own, you can always look at some web design company, which has a lot of great design samples.
Tools to check out;