Emerging Trends in UX and UI in 2024
Any discussion about reaching your audience online must closely examine UX and UI, in other words, user experience and user interface. These two sibling concepts are essential to engaging digital users and converting them to your brand.
UX and UI are constantly evolving. Digital experts must stay up-to-date to meet evolving expectations and incorporate new technologies. Brands that align their digital presence with these emerging expectations and technologies will have a massive advantage in the marketplace. After all, as one study found, every dollar invested in UX/UI can result in a $100 return on investment.
Fortunately, because UX and UI have become such ubiquitous necessities, plenty of research suggests where to focus your efforts. These five trends in UX/UI can help drive your digital strategy for the coming year.
1. AI Streamlines UX/UI Work
Last year, artificial intelligence entered the business mainstream, but this year is poised to be when its applications truly enter daily and strategic UX and UI work.
At its most basic level, AI enables back and frontend tasks to become more automated. From the backend perspective, so-called "prompt engineering" enables even the smallest businesses to use a single text prompt to:
Design graphics
Build websites
Design experiences
We have already seen the impact of generative design, which can build custom graphics and entire web sections based on digital user interactions and data inputs.
More broadly, AI can help organizations crack the code of digital communication through dynamic content creation, editing, and conversational content like chatbots. Given its automation capabilities, small and medium-sized businesses can leverage the technology to communicate with their core audiences and stakeholders in ways previously reserved for large enterprise budgets.
As we move forward, leveraging this technology will continue to help businesses and organizations create more relevant experiences without massive time investment.
2. Deep Experience Personalization
Personalization has always been a part of successful UX/UI. Today, three-quarters of customers feel frustrated when the websites they visit do not offer personalized content. In contrast, marketers prioritizing personalization as part of their website strategy tend to see a lift of nearly 20% in sales.
However, the trend for the coming year revolves around just how deep that personalization can go to enhance UX. We already mentioned generative design above, which offers savvy users the potential to create entire personal websites based only on user behaviors and voluntary data inputs. As it turns out, that is only the beginning.
Take image recognition capabilities as an example. Again, thanks to emerging AI capabilities, eCommerce customers can, for example, upload images instead of using a text prompt to search for styles and types of products they are looking for. As a result, search results become more relevant. Also, the customer journey begins with personal preferences rather than a sales pitch.
Personalization also becomes more relevant as audiences take their time to consider your products. Customer journeys are lengthening considerably as people take additional steps to research product options online. That results in new opportunities for brand touchpoints, each with the potential for building more customization. By the point of sale, the pitch can be immensely personalized to approach each customer correctly.
3. Augmented Reality Enters UI Mainstream
Moving into the UI realm, augmented reality (AR) has been a buzzword for some time. However, its potential applications are becoming increasingly relevant for any brand looking to enhance its UI.
At its core, AR is the process of overlaying virtual elements in real-world environments. Popularized by consumer-facing applications, the technology makes significant inroads in the UX/UI world. Consider, for example, the ability of AR to show what products you are considering online would look like in your living room. Also, you can try on apparel virtually before deciding to buy them. AR-enabled instructions can be as powerful for more complex products requiring users to go through multiple assembly or setup steps.
The possibilities are just beginning. Most importantly, the increasing capabilities of mobile devices and websites will make integrating AR into any online experience easier. You can combine the virtual and real-world aspects of user experience and your user interface.
4. Localization as a Key Strategic Driver
Localization and UX have long been impossible to separate, especially for brands looking to reach audiences across cultures. After all, building a positive UX appropriate for each market segment's culture and language is only possible if you account for those nuances in every part of your website design.
With the localization services market continuing to grow, that marriage is about to become even more potent—to the point where localization is poised to move from a step in the process to the driver of the UX/UI design process.
In other words, any effort to improve your UX and UI for audiences in multiple languages and cultures has to begin with localization. Different audiences will react very differently to your online presence, from content design to the visuals you show.
Even other trends mentioned in this article will be impacted by audience preferences. For example, European audiences are much less likely to give up personal data in exchange for a more personalized experience than their U.S. counterparts. Only an online strategy approach that starts with localization as a core consideration can lead to a reliable, positive online user experience and interface design.
5. WebGL Enables 3D Environments
Finally, digital environments are not just becoming more personalized and customized to individual users. They’re also becoming increasingly visually immersive. The key driver of this trend is WebGL, a JavaScript API specifically designed to make rendering 3D graphics simple within web browsers.
As a result, rendering illustrations, animations, and even interactive graphics within any website is becoming more accessible than ever. These three-dimensional objects are inherently more engaging and allow users to immerse themselves in more in-depth web experiences.
Inspiration for building these 3D environments is now available across the internet. For example, the aWWWards now have a category specifically for sites created through WebGL. From business to consumer-facing applications, the potential use cases of a 3D user experience will only expand from here.
Embracing UX/UI as a Lynchpin of Your Digital Efforts
UX/UI and localization have a core feature in common. At their best, they are the central driving forces behind any successful modern digital experience. Given these emerging trends, focusing on getting the user experience and interface right first can go a long way toward engaging, convincing, and converting potential customers.