Read What Website UX Design Trends Covid Sped Up (Coming in 2022).
COVID sent the world into a tail spin, sending governments scrambling for legislation and regulation on how to handle the pandemic ‘in the publics interest’. While ‘bricks and mortar’ businesses were forced to close across Australia, fear and panic gripped the community as we started to treat each other like lepers.
One sector boomed as a result and that was the use of technology, particularly the use of smart phones and tablets to ‘go online’, to the web!
It was easy for those who’d already embraced the advantages of shopping online, reducing the need to venture out into the virus ridden shopping centres, but it was also a period of time that saw the web receive a massive influx of new users, keen to avoid contact with humanity.
Website designers building especially Ecommerce websites, Tech and Telecommunications companies like Apple and Telstra, social media giants such as Facebook and the search goliath Google were all looking for ways to capitalise on the huge amount of first-time visitors and traffic.
Interesting too, most new visitors to the world of online shopping became repeat visitors, after discovering how easy and safe the process was.
User experience (UX) transitioned from being an important consideration to vital for a website design. Google rewarded those websites that had an easy to navigate platform, that were mobile responsive and fast loading with higher PageRank and position in search engine results pages (SERP).
User experience design (UX design, UXD, UED, or XD) is the process of creating evidence-based, interaction designs between humans and websites. Although aesthetic preferences and opinions are factored into a good website design, UX-design decisions are driven soli by research and data analysis aimed at providing the best experience possible for the user.
Back in June 2021, Google rolled out the ‘page experience signal‘ to score the user experience of individual pages.
3 metrics were combined into this new signal:
Page Speed Loading, Google is changing the way it measures this with a new standard called Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
Interactivity: Measures the responsiveness of interactive elements on your page (such as links or buttons) after users click them, using a new standard called First Input Delay (FID)
Visual Stability: Detects the movement of elements after they’ve loaded on the page and any instability this causes, using a new standard called Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
There has always been a struggle with hardware not keeping up with advances in software technology.
Remember the first mobile phones that allowed access to the web? The time it took for pages to load was painful. It didn’t take long though, driven by consumer demand and desire to have faster and faster internet access delivered into the palm of our hand.
Apple, Google and Samsung led the charge with 4G and now 5G smart, small screen devices that made navigating the web for information or to buy products online easy.
These are what I believe will be UX design trends coming in 2022.
Large Screen Design
While this is something I seem to be alone on, at the moment, I see it as inevitable and for better user experience, vital. Just like the race to make the smallest mobile phone on the planet ended with phones required to be larger so you could see and read webpages, with screen casting from phones and tablets to UHD TV’s, images appearing on websites will need to be larger than just 1920px wide. In fact, even new monitors are now 2K as standard.DVD’s that are 4K and even 8K are available these days, catering to wall mounted televisions that are 80 inches and larger.
Relaxing on the lounge, able to easily read and see content, including images easier than on a mobile phone will start to become the norm, as internet speeds from broadband internet service providers (ISPs) become faster and cheaper, delivering super fast connectivity with greater download amounts included in more affordable monthly plans.I also see this being the first step as it’ll be required for the other UX design trends listed below.
3D Animations
As download speeds have increased in recent years, UX designers are no longer constrained by simple design layouts and minimalist web pages. There was no point investing in creating 3D images if they crippled page load times.
With 5G, this is no longer the case, so I expect to start seeing products on Ecommerce websites have a true 360 degree view.Evidence of this can already be seen with Microsoft launching their new 3D Windows 11 backgrounds in June, and Facebook pushing their new 3D Meta logo.
Virtual Reality (VR)
VR will no doubt become the driving force in UX design over the next few years. Billions are being spent on research into how to render the experience on to screens for different devices and the VR headsets.
The demand is high though, with more companies looking at their staff working remotely from home. Virtual meetings would be able to connect people from all over the country.Metaverse (Facebook now Meta)
Facebook’s name change to ‘Meta’ signalled the intention to move into the VR space with their ‘Metaverse’. Expect to see false starts as the technology grapples with rendering graphics initially in a cartoon like fashion, but like all advances once you have identified a high consumer demand, a way to monetise the product or service, all that’s left is the need for massive investment into both software and hardware to make it a ‘virtual reality’ and lets face it Facebook has both of those.
Military applications, manufacturing and commercial applications are all areas that can benefit from VR solutions.
While there are clear benefits to increasing user experience with artificial intelligence (AI), it should be noted the number of players that will control the space will be very small.
Another aspect I think needs careful consideration is the detachment from human and social interaction that humans do need. Being social via ‘Avatars’ is just a technological advancement of what social media has given us over the last 10 years, with many interacting with ‘screen-friends’ as opposed to catching up in person.
The real, or historical definition of ‘friend’ needs to be remembered or we risk losing it forever.
After A UX Website Design That Ranks?
Whether you’re looking at upgrading or starting from scratch, provide services or have products you’d like to sell online, Thinking IT can design a stunning website for your business and make sure it ranks at the top of all search engine result pages (SERP).
After discussing your goals and analysing what you require, Nigel will be able to let you know exactly what the costs will be to meet your unique needs.
At Thinking IT, we can handle everything to make your online presence a success. From photography & graphic design services to copywriting your pages & website’s blog, set up automated email campaigns & look after your social media or PPC marketing.