What will be the future of user experience design and what should UX designers prepare for? What changes will the job of user experience design have? Won’t the market for UX designers be saturated in the near future? How long and how far are businesses willing to pay for user experience? Why should you become a user experience designer or UX Designer?
It is thought that user experience design is very good marketing. But one thing should be noted: this marketer is mainly for digital products, especially websites and applications. For this reason, it is possible to look at the matter in the same way that UX designers have a limited and specific market. On the other hand, technologies and concepts related to the design of digital products undergo changes and transformations every day. To those developments, the changing demands and needs of users should be added.
In this article, I want to talk about the future of user experience design and the developments that UX designers should prepare for. I will also answer the questions that started the article. Therefore, whether you are interested in this field and profession and want to learn it and enter the labor market, or you are currently working as a UX designer, you will find useful and interesting content in the rest of this article.
Table of Contents
The Future of User Experience Design (The Future of UX Design)
User experience design does not have a long history. It was in 1993 that Don Norman first used a concept called User Experience. It was in those years that the number of online stores and businesses that had their own website and online sales increased every day. For this reason, more users (humans) would interact directly with the sites. The developments showed that the number of users of the net space and sites is going to increase.
All this had one meaning: sites should be human-centered. The person who had to make sure of the human-centeredness of the sites was the user experience designer. Everyone realized the importance of user experience, and this caused a huge demand for UX designer jobs in the market. This growth has continued and is projected to continue until the number of UX designers reaches 100 million in 2050.
So, I can finish this article right now! Because everything shows that user experience design is growing at the speed of light and those who enter this profession should not worry about finding a job. But as I mentioned, the speed of changes in the world of technology and the web is so high that user experience design involves challenges and changes.
The skills that a UX designer will need in five years are definitely different from the skills of a designer today. Therefore, it should be noted that it is necessary for the UX designer to be aware of the changes and move along with them and the needs of the market. He must keep himself updated and learn new skills that he needs to fulfill his duties. Otherwise, it will not be the design that the market and businesses need.
Challenges and opportunities of UX design in the future
If the user experience designer looks forward to the future and increases his skills, will he no longer be in danger of his job and will he be able to overcome all the problems? Let me put this question another way: is it not conceivable that, despite predictions, technology will advance so fast that artificial intelligence will perform some or all of the user experience designer’s tasks? Isn’t artificial intelligence a challenge or a threat to the future of UX?
Challenges and opportunities go hand in hand. In fact, every challenge (threat) can be turned into an opportunity.
1. The contribution of artificial intelligence in user experience design is increasing
Yes, when artificial intelligence is going to do many of the things that humans have done for them, why shouldn’t they be able to design user experience? Definitely, Al will perform much faster and better than the designer (human) for analyzing huge amount of data and prototyping. But we should not forget that user experience design is done for humans and should make human-machine interaction satisfactory.
The designer must find and solve user (human) problems. It means that the user experience designer must know the human and then design for him. So Al can’t do all the steps of UX design by himself. But it can definitely help the designer and take part of the analysis. In this case, the designer has more time to focus on problem solving and design.
UX designers must prepare themselves to collaborate with AI.
2. UX design is becoming more specialized
It is not an exaggeration to say that everything is moving towards becoming more specialized. UX design is the same. In today’s job market, there are some companies that only want UX Researcher. That is, user experience research is so important that it is an independent and specialized field and, as a result, an independent and specialized job title.
Another specialty that many businesses are looking for in today’s job market and has a very good future is Product Designer. The product designer must know UX design, but his work goes beyond designing the user experience of a product. He must design a completely human-centered and satisfying product for the user. Therefore, the designer should seek to become an expert in one of the subfields or areas related to user experience.
3. Users want a functional and attractive product
In the not-so-distant future, the competition of UX designers is no longer just about usability and satisfactory and useful user interaction with the product, users’ expectations will increase and they want a product that is also attractive. Ease of interaction, attractiveness and applicability are all important for the user. This is where the designer should take advantage of everything that helps him to design a more attractive and engaging product. The designer should not neglect animations and motion designs. Dynamic elements add to the visual appeal of the product.
The UX designer should also pay attention to another point: more users use mobile to interact with the site or app. Therefore, the product must be designed for mobile user interaction and be visually attractive for the mobile user. The importance of mobile friendly design as well as mobile first website design is increasing every day and the designer must design the user experience and product according to this importance and according to the needs and demands of mobile users. (In the article “Mobile First Design: Mobile First, then Desktop!” it is discussed about the contribution of user experience design in web design.)
4. User interaction with the product becomes audio instead of touch
Imagine being able to work with your iPhone or search in search engines or buy from Amazon without touching or even clicking and only with voice commands (voice user interface). Yes, Siri & Alexa are just the beginning. User experience designers should prepare themselves to design audio interactions. In addition to the voice of the user’s interaction with different devices and the dimming of touch interactions, the designer must prepare to design in another world: the 3D world and augmented reality (AR)!
Every day more and more businesses decide to use augmented reality and virtual reality (VR) in their product design. Because the world of augmented and virtual reality is attractive to users and even has a very positive effect on their online shopping experience. This attraction is also about the metaverse and the 3D world. For this reason, in product design, creating 3D worlds and 3D interactions, in which voice commands are very central, will become very important in the not-so-distant future.
So, UX designers should familiarize themselves with 3D design as well as AR & VR technologies as soon as possible.