The future of UX design is not on a screen

Hello, there! 😊

Today, I would share insights from some personal conversations I’ve had in the past week with a couple of recruiters and hiring managers. I am honestly not looking for a change from my current job right now, but when a field is so much in demand, there’s a rise for jobs and subsequently the candidates get more requests than you can imagine.

While there are many candidates on LinkedIn or other job-hunting platforms who are not getting any jobs at all, then there is UX Design and similarly other popular streams and career options that are so much in demand right now, that the candidates hold more than two offer letters on an average before making the job switch.

I am someone who had similar situation before joining my current organisation (Zen3). I had an offer from Zen3, as well as Deloitte, and I chose Zen3 because of the kind of interviews and insightful discussions I had with the team, the management and the leaders. For me, more than anything else, it is important to know what, and how much I can learn while on the job, and Zen3 gave me that opportunity, and showed me a picture before I joined, and that helped me make my mind for this company over everything else.

So, even though you have more than two offer letters from big companies, this is not the future. UX Design has risen up with such a speed, that it may also go down with an even greater velocity! It is said after all, the faster you rise, the harder you fall.

But would that be the case with UX Design?

I don’t know right now, can’t say that. Of course, people will not stop using their desktops and smartphones altogether. Would they? The same thing was said for telephones with wires. Yes, the ones that our coming generation might never get to see!

The world has changed with such a speed in just 10 years, that I cannot even imagine what might happen in next ten years. It might be strange to think that we are in the middle of a great change right now. The generation before us is facing hard time using touch-screen mobile phones, and the generation after us is making robots. We are in the middle, dealing with everything like a mid-life crisis!

But what will happen to UX ten years from now?

Let’s look at some of the changes that may happen in merely a decade from now (this is just a personal forecast, and may or may not stand true!)-

• Smart phones will become smarter, even replace other devices/gadgets — Samsung recently revealed in an advertisement where they showed a mobile phone unfolding into a tablet. That is something that even Apple and other big companies might adopt for future, and merge two devices into one. With so many number of devices present in one household on an average, there’s a requirement of Marie Kondo level of decluttering!
• Voice will dominate over screen interfaces — Siri, Cortana and Okay Google are just some of the familiar friends that you might be interacting with everyday, but very soon (and possibly) they will become an integral part of your lives. Okay Google, book a flight for me! (Sure). Siri — call my boyfriend! (Which one?)

• Designing for Voice Interfaces — Just as voice devices and interfaces will dominate in the future, voice designers are also required in the field, which means UX Designers need to top-up their game to actually remain valuable for their current organizations and to appear as an asset for their dream-company!
• Less and Less Devices — On an average, every city-dwelling resident owns at least one smart-phone and one laptop (considering they have a stable job). These two screen-based gadgets have become a necessity for everyone, and then comes the luxury of having more screen based devices like an iPad (or a tablet) or a TV. But when it comes to future, the number of devices will reduce, and the number of functions that a single device will be able to perform, will increase. Thus, decluttering your desk space, and saving the world from the hardware waste! Minimalism is on the rise anyway, may it be design or real-life.

• Automation — Heavy automation is responsible (and is being continued to be blamed) for loss of so many jobs in various industries that were highly dependent upon humans, just a decade ago. In the future as well, automation will continue to rise, and continue to make lives easier for the people, and harder for those looking for jobs that can be automated! With automation, simple processes like paying for your monthly investment instalments, paying rents, paying bills etc. will become processes that will no longer need human assistance.
• Security — With so much involvement of technology into everyday lives of people, there’s a high demand of security measures that need to be thought of. Especially when it comes to automation and centralization of processes. It is equally important for UX Designers to think out of the box when it comes to designing processes that are secure for the users and companies. It maybe a B2B or a B2C, it has to be secure and safe at the end of the day!
• Personalisation — Companies are selling things that are easily customisable and personalised. A generic shampoo brand no longer appeals public, they want a shampoo that’s customised to their needs and requirements, and not only this, it should also have their name written on the bottle! So much personalisation at every step, demands for the UX Designer to think where he can personalise an app for the user, and to what extent that can be done! Especially when it comes to voice UX, you need to have a model that keeps updating itself, learning from the environment, and deploying that learning in real-time. That is how you can make sure that Alexa of a hip-hop rockstar sounds entirely different from Alexa of a mathematician!

• Simplicity — While it has been said innumerable times, simplicity is simply underrated when it comes to designing something that’s flawless and smooth. Users don’t like to get lost in the maze of your information architecture, they need clarity and they need ease of function. For that you need to make processes and flows that are simple to navigate through, simple to understand, and simple to exit from. For example, if a user is booking a table at the restaurant, he should know how to come back from a place in the flow. He’s not seeing the screen or the home-button to exit with one click, he might be deep inside the voice flow, but there needs to be a code-red that can be implemented in case of emergency.
• Lingos, Slangs and Jargons — While English is a single language, but there are many versions and variations that exist around it. UK or US English alone isn’t enough when it comes to creating a flow for Voice UX. You need to include versions of one sentence, include the ways in which that sentence can be said, and sometimes even include the informal lingos and slangs around it, to make your device understand the sentence better. If I want to book a flight from Amsterdam to New Delhi, there are more than 10 ways I can tell that to Alexa —

1. Alexa, book a flight for me from Amsterdam to New Delhi.
2. I want a flight from Amsterdam to New Delhi.
3. Book me a flight to New Delhi from Amsterdam.
4. Can you book a flight to New Delhi from Amsterdam?
5. I want a direct flight from Schiphol Airport to Indira Gandhi International Airport.
6. I want a flight from Amsterdam to New Delhi via Russia.
7. Yo Alexa, I wanna book a flight to New Delhi from Amsterdam!
8. Can ya check me a flight from Amsterdam to New Delhi?
9. Flight from Amsterdam to New Delhi tomorrow?
10. Hey Alexa. From Amsterdam. To New Delhi. Flights to travel through.

Now, from these 10 (and many other possibilities), what you need to make your software capable of is — to pick up keywords.

Pickup the action (book a flight), or a location (Amsterdam/New Delhi), or even a keyword (like flight). Using which you may understand what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and how?

• Speed — With so many advancements, speed is something that can’t be ignored, because people of the future will have everything, but time! Even jobs and work are becoming remote, so managing things all at once has become tough. In that case, there’s a lot of stuff that needs to be streamlined in everyone’s lives, and daily tasks that are boring and mundane, need the most management of all. With gadgets that can wash, dry, iron and fold clothes for you, gadgets that help you prepare a to-do list, keep you updated about your appointments, schedule appointments on your behalf (remember how Google can book an appointment with your hairdresser —

This is just a glimpse, such tasks can easily be automated by voice assistants, and speed is what is required in the modern life, because the modern human will have everything, but time!

And we can inculcate these practices even in our day to day UX Process right now, and make things future-proof! That is all for now folks, let’s keep adding our thoughts and value to UX Design and make this community more awesome 😎