brandonschauer.com — top 5 themes most critical to UX this year

top 5 themes most critical to UX this year

Some friends chairing a conference asked me today what I though the top 5 themes would be most critical to UX over the coming year. I said:

designing for mobile as the primary digital channel
experiences that bridge two channels — I used to say ‘web plus one channel,’ but it might be moving to ‘mobile plus one channel’
designing for and managing through the explosion of new devices
UX leadership inside the organization — leadership requires an entirely different set of skills (and perhaps values) than what is focused on inside the IA and UX community; organizations can’t invest in UX without individuals covering this gap; meanwhile, customer services, operations, and people from other backgrounds are jumping into the driver’s seat.
The UX factory — I’m not sure what else to call it, but I’ve seen many organizations staffing up UX teams in a big way, possibly in response to #3 above, or to compliment agile scrums. Designing the process, roles, and work for such staff — and doing it in a customer centered way — is a giant challenge until itself. While there’s plenty of UX-Teams-of-One out there, I believe there’s also growth in the UX-Teams-of-Plenty.