UX Trends 2018: In the dynamic digital world, keeping up with the latest trends in user experience (UX) is crucial for the success of any business. This article is aimed at business owners, entrepreneurs, web designers, product managers, and digital marketing professionals. Below, we will explore the most important UX trends for 2018 and how you can apply them to optimize your web design and improve the usability of your digital platform.

Voice user interfaces eliminate written actions, greatly improving user experience by simplifying tasks in everyday situations. In the coming months of 2018, voice user interfaces will be used more frequently, with established examples such as Apple’s “Siri,” Google’s “OK Google,” Microsoft’s “Cortana,” and Amazon’s “Alexa.” At the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2017 in Orlando, Gartner predicted that by 2018, 30% of our interactions with technology will take place through conversations with voice interfaces and systems.

Synesthesia, a capacity that only a small group of people possesses, allows perceiving one thing or action through the combination of different senses (visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and gustatory), or a mix of these senses with different sensations. UX designers have adapted multisensory interface experiences and have implemented feedback and suggestions from synesthetic collaborators to improve their products and the overall user experience. Large multinational companies have shown a significant increase in the use of synesthetic feedback, as well as great interest in the research of “synesthetic perception.”

A micro-interaction is a part of the functionality that carries out a small action simply, quickly, and effectively. Micro-interactions are usually used to execute a single task, interact with specific data, adjust a parameter or data measure, connect devices, activate or deactivate a function, or prevent a user error, etc. A common example is the numerous “reaction” buttons that Facebook offers users with each new upload or update. The use of micro-interactions is sure to increase this year.

The use of chatbots will continue to grow, as their use has so far produced impressive results and higher customer satisfaction rates. Gartner predicts that by 2020, 85% of customer service interactions will be managed without humans.

Abandoning grayscale and monochromatic color combinations in favor of vibrant and intense colors with surprising tones captures the user’s attention and has become a more frequent trend for this year. Typography also wins the recent “battle of images,” and is often placed over colorful visual elements artistically to evoke “character” on a website or webpage. The blending of two tones in a color gradient is also now used as a background or overlay, adhering to certain recent minimalist trends with color.

The use of icons will continue to grow rapidly, as they provide interfaces with dynamic and simple visual cues with few problems to resolve. Vector graphics stand out for offering the user dynamic options and interactions to choose from.

This year, a large number of companies will join the trend of eliminating the “hamburger menu” web design due to its negative impact on UX. Although this type of design is widely accepted by the public, companies and designers want to avoid a decrease in the effectiveness of their interfaces. Many companies, such as YouTube and Spotify, have already made the change and, by doing so, have seen a significant increase in the number of clicks on their sites. In the case of Spotify, navigation clicks have increased by 30% since eliminating the hamburger menu.

In 2018, the role of the UX designer has grown and will continue to grow, given the specialization of new technologies such as virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality. More and more people are participating in UX design with a greater role in aspects such as design collaboration and the authorization of various ideas to create faster prototypes with good UX design.

It is obvious that these predictions for the coming months could change based on user behavior and technological advances, but it is never too early to take note and plan new designs according to the trends you believe could improve your marketing in the future; remember, with the rapidly evolving and changing world of UX design, it is always best not to be left behind.

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Remember: The key to success in UX is empathy. Understand your users and create experiences that solve their problems efficiently and pleasantly.

I hope this article has been useful to you! If you want to learn more about how to improve UX and the usability of your digital platform, do not hesitate to contact us.