In 2016, chatbots were all the craze, as were micro-interactions, increased use of established design patterns, and of course optimizing for mobile. But now it’s a new year, which means it’s time to look forward to anticipate 2017’s emerging trends in UI/UX.
From Chatbot to Conversational UI/UX
In some ways, this trend is a continuation of the rise of chatbots and AI in web development. The difference is that instead of a separate chatbot, the conversation will happen directly on websites.
Perhaps one place to start is with web forms, which in many cases are static input fields. What if your website could gather information through a casual conversation that adapted to the user’s needs? One prototype is the Conversational Form. There are still some drawbacks – ease of use and time required (number of fields) to fill out a form have always been factors in conversion rate optimization. On the other hand, if conversational forms could answer questions directly in a site’s interface while also engaging users with personality and useful content, that’s a huge opportunity.
One experimental site that takes this idea further than most belongs to Adrian Zumbrunnen, a UX designer in Zurich, Switzerland. When I first saw this, I found myself questioning the value of a standard “About page” – why have static content when you could personalize your story based on user input? And for SEO gurus, if this trend takes off I wouldn’t be surprised if Google implemented a change to their algorithm to support conversational interfaces in search. Still not convinced how conversational UX can be leveraged? Here’s an example of how The North Face has utilized it on their site.
Are chatbots still a big deal? Absolutely. Over 2.5 billion people have at least one messaging app installed on their phone. That matters because chatbots represent a shift in app creation – rather than building a new app that may face hurdles in adoption, developers and companies are leveraging those messaging apps to reach consumers. This will only increase as more platforms leveraging AI pop up and more sophisticated bots are built.
And users are definitely interested. Here are some interesting stats on chatbots:
- 51 percent of people say a business needs to be available 24/7
- 45.8 percent would rather contact a business through messaging than email
- 49.4 percent would rather contact a business through messaging than phone
While we haven’t quite reached the tipping point, I expect we will see this trend continue to grow.
Age-dependent Personalization
Personalization of web content has for a long time been an elusive goal. Sure you can utilize different marketing technologies to serve up “smart content” based on user behavior on the site, but this tactic doesn’t take into account the age of the user.
What does an age-personalized site look like? Let’s say a 70-year-old woman with impaired vision visits your website – she could see an optimized version of the site with larger text and content that matched her persona. Based on past browsing history, navigation menus will change and adapt based on the perceived user’s competency. Color schemes could change as well, showing younger users more vibrant, saturated hues and older demographics more subdued, muted hues.
Responsive design has typically meant that a website’s content adapts to different screens. In 2017, it will mean that the entire site adapts to the user.
Failure Mapping
A great deal of effort goes into creating user-flows and mapping out the ideal user path based on established personas. What happens when there’s an outlier? Failure mapping isn’t necessarily a new thing, UX practitioners have been identifying these breakdowns for years. The difference is that with the maturation of UX practices, there can be as much emphasis on how things can go wrong as there is on how things can go right.
Here’s one way of looking at it: the user journey on a website is a maze. Some smart UX practitioners have created a number of user flows (along with cues and signs) to help users navigate it. Despite their best efforts, there are still plenty of dead ends (this is a maze after all!) and users are still getting lost. Failure mapping helps identify those dead ends and plan for ways to get a user back on track.
Design Patterns
We have seen the web become increasingly homogenous over the past couple of years, with the adoption of similar patterns and UI. While this has been the source of much displeasure from creatives who feel like the web all looks the same, it has also made the web more usable. Klare Frank wrote a great article called “Everything Looks the Same: Convergence of Web Design” explaining how it happened.
There are many reasons why these design patterns persist. In some cases, a development team chooses to use a framework like Bootstrap or Foundation to save development time and inadvertently perpetuate certain design patterns. There is also a large market of WordPress themes and DIY site builders that have a similar effect.
Despite those examples, design patterns are not inherently bad, quite the opposite, they can positively impact usability. While it is important to continue to innovate, there are times where creativity can get in the way. The desire to create something new, that hasn’t been done before, can also mean a pattern that users are not familiar with and may be less likely to understand. There has to be a balance between creativity and usability, perhaps leaning more towards usability, but a balance nonetheless.
At the very least, we can all agree the web is much prettier and easier to use than it was in the mid-1990s. I’m confident that progress is only going to continue.
What is the next big UI trend? Going forward, the innovations will come from micro-interactions, AI, content personalization, voice and conversational UX – the interface will become less visible. Instead of being confronted with confusing menus, new touch gestures, and icons, the user will increasingly gain control of their own experience.
Now that you know what the trends for 2017 might be, it’s time to evaluate what opportunities they present your business. Could you leverage conversational UX and failure mapping, or further optimize your mobile web presence? Do you feel like your business is just playing catch up instead of leading your industry? Get started on creating an enviable online user experience today – before your competition beats you to it.
