This was originally published on Website Magazine.

TREND # 1: UX Design Moves Off The Screen

“Digital is moving from something we use inside of screens and devices to something that lives in the everyday objects around us, and the places we move through. User experiences will play out across a bigger, messier ecosystem. Designing for this new reality will require thinking more broadly, considering how people touch a service across many points. We saw the rise of mobile shatter desktop conventions—this will be an even bigger transformation. In 2016, UX designers will have the chance to establish the interactions that make up this new world of digital products and connected places.”

~Larry Johnson, Executive Strategy Director at Odopod

 

TREND # 2: Anticipatory Design to Become More Common

“Anticipatory Design is the ability to predictively design and serve up the best experience possible. We’re at a point now where ​we as designers can create and give users what they want before they even know they want it. This plays a huge role when users are having experiences that span context and medium. I believe we’ll see more of these anticipatory and ambient experiences in the coming future.”

~ Joe Johnston, VP, Experience Innovation at Universal Mind

 

TREND # 3: Responsive Design Expands to Include Reactions to User Behaviour

“In the coming year and beyond, I’m anticipating a shift in what we think of when we say responsive design. That paradigm still largely refers to a site adapting to width and size with media queries, but I hope to see (and attempt) some leaps in how user behavior will literally trigger or inform responsiveness. The Grid boasts the ability to adapt presentation to content with AI, and that sounds intriguing and awesome. But I’m thinking of intuition technology that “learns” a user based on their behavior on the site, the same way some apps do, and then immediately customizes itself using that information. Think A/B testing on speed. How a user is interacting with the content thus far, what they’ve clicked on and how quickly, where they’re hesitating, their scroll speed, and even what they hover over but choose *not* to click on will modify the site itself. It will constantly be responding to what it’s learned, essentially, and present different content or even change the structure altogether in an effort to engage that user longer.”

~Sarah Huny Young, Creative Director at SDCA

 

TREND # 4: The Development of Niche Specialties and Formal UX Design Education Programs

“UX is a vastly growing field, both in research and application. In 2016, we will start to see that growth fragment into subspecialties including but not limited to web, mobile, product development, virtual and physical environments. As the traditional “web” fades away, UX professionals will find themselves in niche situations and will gravitate towards unique and divergent design practices that are laser focused on a specific user context. User Experience Design will continue to take its place as the heart of modern business and commerce, and because of this, we will see a shift in the academic community from HCI and Interaction Design to more focused UX curriculums. As of now, most UX professionals did not go to school for their trade and I believe this year we’ll start to see an emergence of PhD programs in User Experience Design.”

~Ron Edelen, Partner + Chief Creative Director, Myjive

 

TREND # 5: An Increase in Voice Recognition and Gesture-Based Design

“2016 is going to be another exciting year for the progression of User Experience. UX will progress not only visually but voice recognition technology will also start to emerge as a more accessible input. Visually with minimal design staying put, designers will continue to explore depth and layer for differentiation. As touch becomes more standard, we will continue to see not only a rise in the use of gestures, but also consistency in gestures across apps, devices and platforms.”

~Dave Benton, Founder/Creative Director at Metajive

TREND # 6: UX Designers and Entire Organizations Align

“I hope to see a greater focus on getting entire organizations to be more user-focused, and getting everyone aligned on doing the right thing for the user. User Experience is not the sole responsibility of designers, but rather of everyone responsible for building and shipping quality products. Until we gain this alignment across all of our organizations, we cannot effectively evolve the practice of User Experience Design.”

~Catriona Cornett, Director of Product Design at SalesforceIQ

 

Trend # 7: Designing for the Real World

As customers interact with applications at a time, location, and device of their choosing, it will become increasingly important to incorporate real-world context. Designing in the abstract will only result in the learning happening later, when the application is available to customers, at which point it can be costly and disruptive to make adjustments.

Design tools can play an important role here in a few ways: helping bring in real-world data into the visual and interaction design phases; providing device-specific design-time previews; or enabling simulation of on-device inputs such as user location, so that the designer can get ever-closer to reality without ever leaving their design tool of choice.

~Andrew Shorten, Director of Product Management at Adobe

 

Where do you think UX Design is heading? Let us know in the comments below.