We asked a few of our talented User Experience Designers what some of their most (and least) favourite UX trends are for 2022.
Most favourite trends
Inclusive, accessible design
“While these aren't new topics, people are talking more about inclusive design and accessibility. Stakeholders are learning more about these topics and integrating user experience strategies into their business goals. To stay up-to-date, I love the resources provided on the UX Trends website.”
—Astrid Simões Tremper, Senior User Experience Designer
“Designers are really leaning into making the digital world a place that everyone can be a part of. Inclusive design makes digital products better for everyone.”
—Jane Mountain, Senior User Experience Designer
Collaborative tools and accessible research
“I think collaborative tools for continued remote work like Figma and Miro are helping companies with developing their own design systems and adopting collaborative work methods. I’m happy to see more interest and participation in using flexible, adaptive, and accessible research methodologies and frameworks.”
—Lilian Leung, User Experience Designer
Cursor interactions
“I really like how some organizations are starting to play with cursor interactions. Now, instead of the typical cursor arrow hovering and clicking a button as we expect, we’re seeing small differences in the cursor itself, the animation of the cursor and the feedback when the cursor is in different states. I've seen it done well, and not so well, but the cool thing is that people are being innovative and trying to to make the user experience a little more fun. Although I don't think this trend is 100% there yet, it's neat to see how it will evolve. Check out these inspirational examples from Dribbble.”
—Sarah Coney, User Experience Designer
Least favourite trends
Personalization by algorithm
“Personalization by algorithm is going to continue to grow in 2022 but does it really work? I don't know about you, but Netflix and Spotify are pretty terrible at predicting what I will like. And they hide things from me that I want to see and hear. Personalization will keep improving, but for the moment, it still feels like something that gets in the way, rather than helping. Not to mention that it forces us into a myopic bubble, which has been damaging to society as a whole.”
Augmented realities for metaverse spaces
Lilian and Astrid think there’s a lot of talk surrounding AR, VR, and XR and we’ll see those trends continue within "metaverse" spaces. Lilian believes there's a lot of promise in development of avatars and web 3.0, but they feel that the "trendy" approach of mixed speculative things like crypto currencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) is limiting and damaging in the long term.
Learn more about the people on our User Experience team who make our great work possible.