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Where will UX Design be in 5 years?

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Re: Where will UX Design be in 5 years?

#81
post #11

Great topic, but the article doesn't answer its own question. Predictions: - Microsoft will move the start menu to a different corner of the screen again. - Some phones will have a dedicated hardware "dismiss popup" button. - Neon colors with contrasting fringes will be used for visibility on AR displays. - Alexa will start initiating conversations. - Hyperreality.[1] [1] https://vimeo.com/166807261

"Alexa will start initiating conversations" hilarious :-)

Unfortunately probably true. Alexa: "Tomorrow is your wedding anniversary. Do you want me to sent your wife a present?"

Did I just write "unfortunately"? :-)

Re: Where will UX Design be in 5 years?

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Alexa will start initiating conversations" hilarious :-)

Unfortunately probably true. Alexa: "Tomorrow is your wedding anniversary. Do you want me to sent your wife a present?" Did I just write "unfortunately"? :-)

Alexa: link to product that your wife would like, made by the company who paid most for advertising, not the identical product made by their competitor

Re: Where will UX Design be in 5 years?

#83
My own predictions for Hot Web Trends of 2022:

Websites will be closer to content streaming apps rather than today's downloadable text/image/media pages. You'll view text media within a container that draws the content on the server side - ensuring that the user can't copy-paste it as text. Advertising will be baked in to the displayed content with no clear way for the client to distinguish it.

UX will aim to be as unobtrusive as possible. Users will be provided few direct controls, if any, and instead apps will infer what is best at keeping the user watching.

Video and animation will be more prevalent and seamlessly integrated with text content. Boxes of mixed media side-by-side will be considered messy and confusing, instead the app will decide what is most relevant to display, and when. Scrollbars will be a relic of the past.

Search boxes will be considered poor design: who enjoys wasting time typing? Server selected content will be continuously streamed until the user shows signs of wanting to leave, at which point clickbait will appear.

Voice will be pushed as the preferred method for interacting with devices. This will be done to move the user further away from the mouse/remote/controller or any other input that can exit/turn off the app or device. Voice commands will be advertised as active, but a ToS change will allow apps to eavesdrop on the mood of the audience. Advertisers will be especially interested in this data. Commercials may be skipped by saying out loud, "skip [brand name]".

Re: Where will UX Design be in 5 years?

#84
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if it's C++ it's QT which I need to doll out cash for. What? *EDIT: TIL, Qt is GPL, but offers a lesser licence for a price. For some reason, I didn't know that.

Yeah, either you make your whole project GPL, or you buy a license so you can make your code proprietary/non-GPL.

I thought LGPL meant if you link to (Qt) shared libraries, your project does not have to be LGPL ?

Re: Where will UX Design be in 5 years?

#85

My own predictions for Hot Web Trends of 2022: Websites will be closer to content streaming apps rather than today's downloadable text/image/media pages. You'll view text media within a container that draws the content on the server side - ensuring that the user can't copy-paste it as text. Advertising will be baked in to the displayed content with no clear way for the client to distinguish it. UX will aim to be as u…

how is this different from last gen television? (apart from the "voice commands")

Re: Where will UX Design be in 5 years?

#86
I've had the (still fairly unique) opportunity of actually having to make very different considerations with regards to user experience. This came in the form of designing for HoloLens. I bring this up because I believe in 5 years we'll be much closer to realizing the potential of VR and MR (mixed reality, like HoloLens.)

I do think VR devices will live a short life and die off. VR (in the form of a single purpose device) doesn't really have a place once a device can provide both augmentation and a totally virtual experience. I don't think we're far away from that.

Certainly what we'll see is a uptake in MR devices. I suspect future iterations of HoloLens and other MR devices will bring forth a desire to experience and incorporate MR. Some businesses are already jumping on the opportunity, but in my opinion the technology isn't quite there. In the case of HoloLens, it's clear it still lacks a real understanding of intuitive input.

I think one of the big mistakes people make when considering new UX patterns in 3D space is that not everything is designed for 3D space. And conversely, not everything designed for 2D interfaces works in 3D. You can't just move your app to VR. Certainly you'd think it would be rather strange if a restaurant provided its menu as a stack of blocks. Some interfaces are indeed better suited for 2D, so for that reason I believe there is a place for some 2D interfaces in a mixed reality future.

The other big mistake I've found people make is the idea that in order for something to have great UX, it should mimic real life. Perhaps this is true in some cases, and if you're building a product that's designed to mimic real life then that's probably the best choice. But new experiences will undoubtedly emerge (more often than not, I suspect), experiences which are foreign in concept to us now because its simply not possible in our physical world, and that will be a real test for UX experts out there.

One thing we will need to focus on is understanding what it means for an interaction to be discoverable. A lot of people seem to think voice is intuitive, but I don't think that could be further from the truth unless you've got a general intelligence to talk to. No one thinks automated answering systems are user friendly. Even with general intelligence it can be hard to put your intention into words when it comes time to "take an action."

Personally I think the optimal solution for these types of interfaces will be a mixture of context awareness and neural impulses. If I can look at a TV, and the device can see what I'm looking at (on board camera also sees a TV) then it has an understanding of what actions I might be interested in performing. At that point it can show options in 2D above the TV or however you want to lay it out. I'd then be able to look at the option I want (device tracks pupils and knows with accuracy what I'm looking at) and think about touching it. This impulse acts as an "invoke" action on the current thing I'm focused on.

If this stuff becomes possible, then that's about as low friction as I can think of without interfacing with the brain. Will be be there in 5 years? Hard to say. I'd be willing to bet we might have something that gets us partly or mostly there, and may have to be tethered to a secondary device like a phone for additional processing.

Re: Where will UX Design be in 5 years?

#87
post #85

My own predictions for Hot Web Trends of 2022: Websites will be closer to content streaming apps rather than today's downloadable text/image/media pages. You'll view text media within a container that draws the content on the server side - ensuring that the user can't copy-paste it as text. Advertising will be baked in to the displayed content with no clear way for the client to distinguish it. UX will aim to be as u…

how is this different from last gen television? (apart from the "voice commands")

[deleted]

Re: Where will UX Design be in 5 years?

#88
post #8

To be honest UI dev tools just plain suck, making everything move more slowly that it needs to. If I'm on the web it's the HTML + CSS clusterfuck, If I'm in C# I'm writing color converters for WPF, if it's Java I have to use the outdated looking Swing, if it's C++ it's QT which I need to doll out cash for. Additionally every smart phone OS has it's own groundbreaking GUI layout concepts and ideas too. Then you get th…

UI UX

UX = UI + ?

UX % UI = ?

Is it a feeling or a thing perhaps?

Re: Where will UX Design be in 5 years?

#89

If I could express a desire rather than a prediction, it's that "undiscoverable" UIs die. I hate having to swipe and tap and generally mess with the screen in the hope of triggering some secret feature. I don't know when it became trendy to get rid of UI chrome but I really wish it would come back. (I wouldn't mind if the hamburger menu died either.)

While we're at it, can we kill the fixed headers that waste 10-20% of my screen space on every page? I already know what website I'm on, thanks.

I use this [1] extension to automatically remove fixed elements. And this [2] in case there is something left, or something I just don't like to look at. Probably the most used extensions I have unfortunately.

[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fix-fixed/fmekfmdh...

[2] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/click-to-remove-el...

Re: Where will UX Design be in 5 years?

#90
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Microsoft will move the start menu to a different corner of the screen again." Aren't they transitioning to a new business model that doesn't incentivize marketing-driven design anymore?

Where did you read that? All I'm seeing is more and more ads in win 10 as time goes on.

Wait, wait, I've been in an OSX/AdBlock/uBlock bubble since Windows 7, are you saying that the latest mass consumer version of Windows has advertisements built in like network television?
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