User experience (UX) – we have seen it quite this year and will do so more in next. As a new discipline, optimizing the user experience for growth is a never-ending goal from many organizations. For example, 52% of users who have a bad mobile experience are less likely to engage with a company.
Everything in UI interface – its tools, techniques, or processes consists of a variety of content available for consumption across digital platforms optimized for the user. However, what matters the most is how the UX features are integrated into applications.
Here we uncover top UX trends for you:
Simplicity and Clarity in UI
User experiences revolve around product interfaces. It defines the interactions of users with the features of an app. At the same time, it also helps in reducing distractions and keeps your value proposition above the fold in app design. Here, simplicity is essential for catering to goal-oriented mobile users.
With a clear and simple call-to-action, it becomes easier for the user to know what they can expect on your mobile website. Additionally, use fewer complications in navigation patterns, lesser images, lesser plug-ins, lesser form fills, and lesser ways that can distract the users from the desired actions.
Well-Curated and Appealing Content
Despite having plenty of bells and whistles that make a product look good, content holds the key to engagement. This is where you can apply the tested content strategies like creating a visual hierarchy, removing design clutter, and maximizing white space in the design.
An easily accessible and properly curated content engages with the targeted users in a format that appeals to them. A product can sustain the competition in this field if it has the right balance of technology and content.
In fact, the process of application development shouldn’t be marred by the lack of content orientation even if there is a fantastic interface.
Faster Loading Speed
There is no denying the fact that faster loading mobile sites ensure better user experiences. Speed always drives conversions on digital platforms. In fact, surveys by Gomez.com and Akamai.com revealed that 47% of mobile users expect a site to load in less than 2 seconds and 40% of users leave landing pages that take more than 3 seconds to load.
To make it work, set aside a realistic performance budget and make your development team accountable for speed enhancement. Minimizing HTTP requests, minifying files, deferring JavaScript loading, reducing server response time, and choosing the right hosting partner are some effective ways to improve loading time of your landing pages
Personalized Customer Experiences
The trend of personalized user experiences is everywhere due to its growing demand. You can provide such direct interactions by using text messages or email marketing. By enabling geo-location, you can collect location data and personalize user experience through relevant recommendations. When doing so, protect the personal information of users from any security breaches. It is important to build lasting relationships with users to keep them interested.
More so, users are impressed by conversational interfaces as used in chatbots. This chatbot technology is also known as Natural Language Processing (NLP), and is deployed by Facebook to maintain its continuous interaction. Since this technology requires several taps, more developers are focusing on hybrid conversational interfaces. They merge Natural Language Processing with graphical elements like videos, images, and menu buttons.
Other factors like transparency, security, and emotional attachment to devices are also important. Users prefer human-like tendencies displayed in applications such as in-app chat features, login memory features, and in-app messaging.
Data-Oriented Design
It is unlikely to ignore data-backed design if you intend to create a UX-enabled application.
The process begins with the tracking of mobile KPIs. For example, retailers need important metrics like average order value and exit rate for monitoring at the checkout funnel. Similarly, lead generation businesses need to focus on primary call-to-action and their CTR.
When planning this factor, it is essential to consider the monitoring of micro conversions and interactions through comments, video views, social media shares, and user reviews.
Voice Activation
In the recent few years, it is estimated that voice activation has become a popular source of mobile searches. In 2016 alone, Google found that 20 percent of searches on the mobile devices were done through voice-activated interfaces.
The increasing use of virtual assistants will further fuel this trend. Interactive design and performance of Google Now, Alexa, and Siri define the success of this feature. It boosts user experiences by eliminating any source of friction in app design.
Cross-Functional Capabilities
An important factor that gets overlooked in mobile app development is the integration of cross-functional capabilities in the application process. Creating a wonderful web or mobile experience for users is a collective premise. The teams must unite to create such superlative UX capabilities.
While engineering teams can focus on optimization of critical tech, marketing teams must keep an eye on third-party tracking pixels and UX teams should be focused on reducing pain points for end-users.
Easier Payment Systems
In e-commerce mobile sites, payments are often a major let-off for the users. As a result, conversions get affected if you have a complicated payment system integrated into the design. To remove this inconvenience, you can leverage the auto-fill feature.
Eliminate unnecessary forms from the payment process and use one-tap checkout that also keeps information in a secure format. In addition, there should be a simple and fast checkout procedure. Provide easy access to offers and rewards to engage users.
Focus on New Tech and PWA
PWA or Progressive Web Apps is a new term used to facilitate the development of highly advanced mobile applications. It helps to improve user experiences radically by understanding user behaviors. It should be fast, reliable, engaging, and well-integrated.
The experience should be integrated with the device hardware. It should be integrated with platform settings and offer web push notifications. In a nutshell, introduce incremental technologies that enhance user experiences with each tap.
Authentication through Biometrics
Although biometrics is not a new technology, it is expected to become more accessible in the coming years. It brings more reliability and security in mobile apps. Biometrics will be used for identity management and authentication for both end-users and businesses. Products using this technology do not require conventional login methods. Hence, they enhance the speed and performance as well.
Apart from all these, preference of Android over iOS will continue in 2019 as well. It is currently preferred by more than 80 percent of developers resulting in approximately 2 billion Android devices getting activated every month. As the system gets to improve, more users are likely to convert to this operating system in the future.
To leverage the best UX trends discussed here, you should also observe the latest mobile trends like app manifest, material design components, scroll-triggered animations, and AMPs. There may not be a shortcut to improve UX of your applications instantly.
But, these trends can definitely show results over time. It requires a lot of patience, effective data analytics, and cross-functional capabilities to make that happen. Working with an experienced mobile app development company can take the pain out of this process if you want to focus on other core issues of your business.