So, as I reflect back over the past few years and what I’ve learned from my reading, recent travels to a UPA Board meeting in Atlanta, Interaction 11
in Boulder, Colorado, and UX Hong Kong 2011, here are some UX trends I have discovered.
Note—I’d like to open up the discussion of this article’s topic to you, the readers of UXmatters, to learn whether you are seeing the same trends in your respective markets and in the industries in which you work.
User Experience Is Becoming a Better-Known Term in Business
Over the past few years, the term user experience has become better known in business, so selling user experience is no longer as hard as it used to be. It’s becoming easier to tell the UX story, because through success stories like Apple, businesses are beginning to see the value of great design. However, there is still a gap between knowing how to make UX operational and how to source and invest in the right skill sets to make great design happen.
It’s Really Hard to Find Good Designers
Many businesses are looking for good designers, because of the effect Apple’s success has had on people’s expectations for product design. To create great products, they need designers who have significant project experience, think through design deeply, can facilitate and lead design in the business, and can communicate design clearly to people who are not part of the design effort.
Apple Is a Great Success Story, But We Need Our Own Stories to Tell
Telling success stories helps us to communicate the value of UX design. It’s easy to talk about Apple’s success—their end-to-end service and channel design and how it’s had a positive impact on their financial results. This is a great story—especially if you love Apple products. But it would be nice if we all had other great stories to tell—including our own success stories. Whose are those other stories?
