The Future of the User Experience (UX) Trends for 2020 and Beyond

UX – two letters that have it all. Because everything is UX, or in the digital world, everything should be geared to these two magic letters: to the user experience, the user experience. Because we are not just human beings, we are also users – we have been using things from time immemorial to get ahead. Philosophically speaking, there is a lot of user experience between the hand ax and an iPhone11.

In any case, word has gotten around that those who offer some pleasant user experience bind users. How with excellent user experience design can ensure a positive user experience, we have elsewhere written detail for you. Today it should be about which five UX trends digital professionals 2020 should have on the screen.

UX-Trend # 1: Speed

Our world is fast moving – and is getting faster and faster. Everyone is talking about two other signs besides UX in 2020: 5G. The expansion of the cellular network with this technology will make mobile surfing even faster, and mobile devices will further increase their share in traffic.

If a page responds slowly and does not build up in a fraction of a second, users will perceive this as a bad user experience – and turn away. So page speed is the signal word par excellence. You can find out how to ensure speed here, among other things.

It can also be a trick to arrange elements in such a way that users have the feeling that something has already built up, although there is still something to load in the background – keywords: Progressive Web Apps and Skeleton Loading. What no one wants to see in 2020, unless you want to deliberately cause a bad UX and scare away users, are waiting instructions à la »your page is loading”.

UX Trend # 2: Minimalism

Of course, user experience designers also deal with design in the sense of “looking good”, “being beautifully designed”. But here, too, it’s not about personal taste, it’s about what works well for users.

There has been a trend for years that will remain important in 2020. Whether websites or digital devices, apps, flyers or corporate identity: less is more. For web designers this means: throw your background colors in the bin! If a relaunch is desired, the design should definitely be fresh and clean. Black and White, or Black or White are virtually set here. Color accents in pastel ensure Nordic nobility, bold colors stand for departure. But be careful: Never use too many different colors at once!

The same applies to the typographies. Here, too, in the year one after the big Bauhaus anniversary year , in which everyone talked about minimalist design, simple font families are still in trend, which are deliberately spiced up here and there with fancy fonts .

UX-Trend # 3: A/B Testing

But how do you actually find out what works for users? Quite simply, via user research. This is not a one-off project, but an ongoing process. One of the most important trends in 2020 to optimize user-friendliness is therefore: carry out tests.

A conversion booster par excellence is the so-called A/B testing. Some website visitors are shown a different version of a landing page. There, for example, the size and color of a “Subscribe to newsletter here” button is different, or moving elements are used in a more modern way.

With a test software developed in-house or with the help of a third party, version A is tested against version B and a statistical statement can be made as to which variant is more popular and more user-friendly. Unlike in a survey, the users themselves do not notice that they are currently part of a survey. With A / B testing and usability tests , data-based measurements can be used to determine which subtleties of UX web design are currently successful for which target group.

 

Global players like Booking.com have been testing for a long time with their own test department. Small and medium-sized companies should follow this example in 2020 in order to optimize their UX based on data using third-party tools.

UX-Trend #4: Color Gradients

One topic that is currently being talked about a lot in the UX designer scene is the trend towards color gradients, called “gradients”. More and more surfaces are not using a single color, but a gradient – which obviously appeals to users much more.

After experimenting with relatively strong shifts – and feeling every app that had something to offer with rainbows – the trend here is towards a more minimalist design.

Trendy gradients currently run between two very related colors – for example, from turquoise to blue or red to purple – or color-in-color gradients, in which the eye does not perceive any color change at first glance, are the winner Light-dark gradient variation but the overall design gains depth and thus dynamism.

UX-Trend #5: Movable Elements

Speaking of dynamics: Everything flows. Heraclitus’ dictum, written by Plato in his famous sentence ‘Everything flows and nothing remains; there is only eternal web development and change’, probably hit the nerve of time at almost any time, but this is particularly true in the digital age – and even in a double sense. Because what digital developments and thus also UX trends really make at the moment is the change from static to moving.

We are talking about moving and interactive elements such as motion graphics or motion effects. They are probably the UX trend par excellence because they provide a great user experience, especially on mobile sites – and that closes the circle to trend number one again: Without speed, speed and speed again, they won’t work either.