9 UX Design Trends in 2020

It is every professionals quest to find out what's happening in their industry and where it is heading. In this article, I will try to summarize the UX design trends in 2020 and beyond.

In the past decade, UX has evolved from being used in the human computer interaction into centrepiece of any digital product design.

UX/User experience refers to the singular and accumulated experiences that occur for users as a consequence of them interacting with an object in a given context.

And by the passing of over a decade, UX has become one of the most important aspect behind every digital product.

During the past few years, unique and eye popping experience has become one of the key differentiators for a digital product. Keeping that in mind, it may be good idea to explore some of the top UX Design trends for 2020 that you may consider including in your design process.

1. Overlays will lose its appeal Website overlays (also known as popups) have spread like a bush fire to the every corners of the digital world. But the reality is that popups do more harm than good in most of the cases. People don’t to be interrupted, they don’t like to have their progress obstructed, hate to be jolted from focus. Thankfully, more UX designers are coming to accept the harsh reality: Overlays are bad and doesn’t offer any real value. In 2020, businesses will move away from the quick-hit metrics boost of overlays in favour of more holistic conversion practices.

So what are the alternatives? Use insertional/inline widgets within the flow of the interface instead. Or put the overlay content on a new page.

2. Artificial Intelligence(AI) will influence Accessibility Accessibility is growing its importance among product designers. However, making the digital products accessible is challenging. Accessibility is often an after thought that is either considered at a later stage of product design or outsourced to third party agencies. This often proves to be an expensive proposition and far from ideal. Not only that, accessibility is an ongoing matter that requires continuous audit and work when any update occurs.

There are now AI accessibility services that monitor sites for compliance. The AI scans sites at regular intervals, and when updates occur, the site is modified and made compliant.

Depending on the standards that product designers need to follow, Accessibility need to be tailored according to the requirements. Accessibility is expected to play more important role in this year as more organizations integrate these AI services into their design process.

3. Information Architecture(IA) will be reimagined Information Architecture/ IA represents the structural blueprint depicting the flow of information through the application. IA primarily has two major components: one that defines the site content and features and the second component forms the underlying organization, structure and nomenclature.

The second set of components define the relationships between an applications content, features and their inter-relationships. But very often it gets very complex and poses a challenge to the users to find what they are looking for. Unless IA ensures the simple application structure and enable users to easily find the information they are looking for, it will hinder the success and adoption. IA will have to be re-thought and should be research driven in order to uncover the needs by the users and to be simplified in order to provide users, the easy and fast access to the information they are looking for.

4. Multi-platform integration will gain popularity Last decade marked the rise and evolution of responsive design that address the compatibility across screen sizes. Current decade will mark the increasing popularity of voice based interfaces, gaming consoles, automobile dashboards, interactive TVs and new innovations. Until now, UX design has been largely restricted to natural user interactions. Now time has come to focus on auditory/ voice over and tactile interfaces. Voice over interfaces will lead home automation, wearable and security devices. Tactile interfaces will find its way into healthcare and fitness industries.

5. Microcopy will mature Microcopy is the term for the small bits of copy on a app's interface that help users do 'stuff'. Microcopy examples are error messages, contact form explainers, e-commerce hints. At a glance, these tiny clusters of words seem insignificant when compared to the overall app design. Well-written microcopy guides users, and poorly written microcopy confuses and frustrates them.

Microcopy is a cornerstone of today’s digital experience. Microcopy makes users experts by helping them navigate and comprehend functionality, and it furthers brand engagement through tone of voice.

Also there are several occasions when brands prioritize tone of voice over clarity. When attempts at humour or cleverness cause confusion, microcopy becomes difficult to grasp. Its an increasing trend for UX copyrighters to give up fanciful microcopy and find ways to balance brand personality with focused precision.

6. Maximalist design will disrupt digital space Digital design for mobile devices thrives on balancing between simplicity and progressive reveal.

But a maximalist movement is finding its way to those designers who refuse to concede that visual simplicity is always the best solution. Such designers believe that maximalist design communicates information with greater clarity and character than minimalism.

In 2020, more designers will adapt maximalism and will depart from minimalism to pursue experimentation and the chance to help their clients stand out in a world of digital homogeneity.

7. Increasing importance of Usability Testing

An UX Designer’s, entire focus of the ideating process is to add new, innovative features to aid the end-user. However, in 2020, you must stick to the ideology of ‘More is Less’. The focus of experience design will no longer be to deliver a feature-heavy product; rather it will be to make the product leaner and to amplify the functionality. Keeping a product relevant and functional at the same time will not be easy. That’s where Usability Testing can play a vital role.

The goal of usability testing is to identify any usability problems, collect quantitative data on participants' performance (e.g., complexity of workflow, time takes to complete task, error rates etc.), as well as determine user satisfaction with the application.

As digital products are becoming increasingly complex, Usability Testing is gaining its importance as a tool to get first hand user feedback that feeds into the design refinement towards simplifying the workflows and making digital products more usable.

8. Data and design integration will increase

Collaboration between designers and developers becoming increasingly deep rooted and it will continue to deepen as information and design are becoming more and more intertwined. Forrester’s 2020 Predictions propose that “advanced firms will double their data strategy budget,” and a recent McKinsey report calls for a stronger alliance between data and design: “Simply hiring both designers and data professionals to perform their discrete functions (even when on the same project) isn’t enough. Organizations need to enable the two to effectively work in lockstep—so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

According to InVision’s Design Maturity Model, the top 5% of organizations tackle design in a truly integrated way that elevates strategy, increases market share, and surges employee impact. In these superstars, designer-to-developer ratios are at a healthier balance, design systems are commonly adopted, and user research is baked into most workflows.

Rather than having data and design teams work as separate entities with communication and cooperation bridging the two (island mentality), a squad mentality calls for cross-functional teams to go beyond this and towards integrated collaboration, sharing knowledge, skills, and workflows.

9. Design systems will evolve

The first image that comes to mind when one thinks about design systems is that of a component library: a repository of UI patterns such as button, dropdown, and card that designers and developers can easily copy and paste to speed up their work. But that's only the tip of the iceberg: a design system has to take into consideration broader aspects of a brand or corporate operations, including governance, people, accessibility standards, technology stack etc.

It's easy to appreciate design systems. From a user experience perspective, designing interfaces with common UX patterns creates familiarity for users, since they know what to expect from experience moments they regularly encounter in the product. From a technical perspective, reusable UI components can mean more efficiency, scalability, and less re-work for developers.

A design system is a reflection of a company's values.

"Critically, a design system is about people: how they interact, how they understand one another, and how they work together to achieve a common goal. It’s made by people, used by people, and experienced by people. It’s challenged and shaped and broken by people. (...) Our role as a systems team turns from that of organizer and enforcer to that of anthropologist and researcher." — Daniel Eden.

When these broader aspects are not considered, companies end up with design libraries that are short lived — which is why designers need to start thinking about design systems as a living system that connects the whole organization.

Forecasting the future of design is tricky. Some trends gain popularity and rest don’t. A trend becomes a trend because enough people find it compelling, and every trend has a period of peak before they evolve or fade away. To use trends well requires an understanding and sense of what consumers wants and when they want it.

Please let me know which one of the above trends got you most excited and if you wanted to see anything else that I may have missed.