Currently, good UX design focuses on obvious navigation, uncluttered content and knowledge of your audience. But as technology advances, so does UX and UI. Below, 10 technology experts from Forbes Technology Council offer their insights on how these current best practices will change in the next few years, and what companies can do to prepare for the shift.
1. Natural Language Processing (i.e., Chat Bots) Will Redefine Navigation
Currently we think about interface design from the perspective of discovery and action, using color, copy, placement and information architecture as our tools. We live in a static world where information and function is neatly organized, but NLP and things like Chat Bots change that. NLP redefines the discovery part of UX, allowing more focus on content and function over navigation. – Dmitry Koltunov, ALICE
2. Voice Experiences Will Become More Pervasive
Having an Amazon Echo and a voice-enabled TV has taken me from being skeptical of voice interfaces to forming a new mindset about their natural intuitiveness and simplicity. Voice is now maturing in a way where it will become an unparalleled part of the user experience, and we will need to consider how we ‘design’ voice experiences more and more in the coming years. Start making and playing today. – David Rajan, GlobalLogic – Method
3. Dramatic Shift Coming Based On The IoT
Over the last several years, UX and UI developers have had to pivot from a web-first to a mobile-first mindset. As a result, companies that have been conducting business for many years have had to redesign and reconfigure to meet the changing consumer landscape. Similarly, a dramatic shift in consumer behavior is happening towards the IoT, which will require UX and UI developers to pivot once again. – Scott Stiner, UM Technologies, LLC
4. Data Views And Manipulation Will Change
In the next five years, personal customization of controls through gestures will affect UX and UI best practices. Each person will have a preferred way of looking at and manipulating data, and devices and sites will allow for that level of customization. I imagine in the future that a website will look different to people based on their preferred UX/UI elements for manipulating the same data. – Chris Kirby, Voices.com
5. UX Is About To Fracture
We are in the early days of Amazon’s Echo, Google’s Soli, Facebook’s bots and Microsoft’s HoloLens. Each medium provides a wildly different UX for which best practices must be developed. This fracture in UX will be an order of magnitude larger than the mobile revolution. Companies that don’t build competencies now will face even harsher disruption than those that neglected mobile. – Nicholas Thompson, Grit