1. Inclusive design
Design choices that are about inclusive design are no longer just about accessibility. Designing online platforms so that they are accessible to audiences with special needs, disabilities or defects has always been a great need. These days, we are beginning to see that inclusive design goes further and with it should also be about integrating and recognizing people with their diversity. Therefore, we must also learn to consider that factors such as race, sociocultural background, gender, age, language, disabilities, and other factors are very important in achieving inclusiveness.
A clear example of this are emoji’s, which are now indispensable in our daily communication to convey in a simple but also playful way how we feel and what we associate ourselves with.
While inclusive design does not cover a new trend, we do see brands and companies placing an increased focus on creating a more inclusive user experience. This makes it all the more important to consider more human factors in the design process and not exclude anyone when it comes to design choices, especially minorities.
Sebastian Smeenk
Business developer
2. AR & VR expanding into B2B
When we think of AR and VR, we are likely to think of IKEA’s furniture app or the gaming industry. In 2022, we see an expansion of AR VR for B2B purposes.
Last October, Facebook announced its name change to the anticipated Meta, taking a strong position with an eye toward the future where our social world will become more and more virtual. In it, they also especially praised their VR headset the Oculus Quest, which should bring us even closer to a new reality.
Additionally, the trend of remote working has created huge opportunities for AR- or VR-based training and remote virtual events.
While the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic seems to be slow insight, more companies are offering remote working options for their employees, which will also strengthen the use of AR VR technology. Accounting and consulting firm PwC announced that it will allow its 40,000 U.S. customer service employees to work virtually, which also gives them the freedom to live where they want. With this, one of America’s largest employers, permanently embraces remote working.
3. Metaverse
Facebook’s aforementioned name change to Meta, beckons the trending #metaverse. This is a virtual world in which users, digital devices and the environment are connected. Numerous devices, such as Oculus Quest, are now being designed to make that virtual world tangible.
Facebook, meanwhile, has launched a VR app for remote working, to make an attempt toward an eventual metaverse environment. This new Horizon Workrooms app can be used with the Oculus Quest 2 headset, which is partly a brand of the company. In the app, participants meet through an avatar version of themselves.
The American company is betting big on the metaverse and has announced plans to hire 10,000 people in the EU to work on it.
4. Audio content
Last year, the new app Clubhouse seemed to take off in a big way; through their invite-only system, the company created FOMO among the younger generation, making on-boarding seem to go at mach 10. Unlike previous years, where companies have focused primarily on visual design and visual content to attract users, the Clubhouse app, on the other hand, opted for an audio content-only strategy.
Clubhouse thus showed that the use of audio content is worth looking at for UX designers and content creators, in optimizing the user experience.
5. Accessibility in more sectors
The lack of insufficient accessibility to your digital platform, has already caused numerous lawsuits in America. According to the company Usablenet, between 2019 and 2020, the number of lawsuits over digital accessibility will increase by nearly 23 to 3,550 cases.
Guidelines for optimizing the accessibility of your digital platform? Provide the following:
- use contrasting colors
- Allow users to increase text size
- provide subtitles for videos
- provide descriptions of the images
6. Personalized & localized user experience
In 2022, it is all about providing a seamless user experience that is personal and local. Content and content is thus fully customized to the user.
Platforms should allow users to customize their dashboards, notifications and the content they see to suit individual needs. Moreover, it is advisable that research be done to identify the required localization in UX for each market.
By market, there are unique preferences that influence the checkout process, from adding to cart and payment methods that affect the user experience. For example, for Western markets, e-mail identification seems to be the preferred method of logging in, while the mobile number is the standard for Asian markets.
Ongoing trade barriers and trade wars, will help further split the market into adopting multiple sets of standards. The direct result is a different need and importance of UX localization globally to increase and adapt by region.
