To help you prepare for the year ahead, we’ve put together 4 key trends we think you need to be aware of in 2023.
It’s 2023, a brand new year filled with endless possibilities for you and your business. It’s also a chance to take a closer look at your website – more specifically, how you could improve the user experience and thereby increase conversions.
Here are 4 key trends:
AI
Artificial intelligence seems to be getting more and more airtime these days, primarily thanks to OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT or Lensa, the photo app that generates an AI image based on your selfies.
But AI is expected to start playing more of a role in our everyday lives, including how we search the internet and even in web UX. It’s still very much in its infancy, but according to Adam Fard, AI is set to support UX design by automating routine tasks (such as resizing or colour-correcting images), allowing you to focus on the bigger, more important tasks.
AI developers are even working on a solution to help streamline the user testing process, more specifically the data evaluation and hypothesis phase that typically comes after you’ve conducted user interviews.
Whilst this isn’t likely to be completely polished by the end of the year, AI in UX is definitely one to watch in 2023 (and beyond).
Accessibility
Accessibility is something that is very often overlooked by many business owners online, but it’s getting harder and harder to ignore. 2023 is expected to be a big year for accessibility, largely due to something called the European Accessibility Act (EAA).
The EAA came into effect in April 2019 and all EU member states must ensure all relevant measures have been implemented by 2025. But whilst that might seem like a while away yet, there’s a lot of work to be done to ensure full compliance, not least when you realise that the EAA covers everything from websites, smartphones and operating systems, to ebooks, banking systems and ticket machines.
But why do UK businesses need to be concerned?
If you’re a UK business and you sell products or services to customers within the European Union, then you need to follow the EAA’s accessibility requirements. If your business is purely online, just make sure that you’re following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (something we highly recommend doing anyway). With more than 2 million people living with sight loss in the UK alone, it’s vital that you make sure that your website is accessible to everyone – not least because considering the needs of your users can turn everyday visitors to your website into paying customers, ultimately increasing conversion rate.
User Testing
We love user testing at Clicky. It’s the only way to find out what your users really think of your website, and understand what pain points or issues they’re coming across when trying to navigate your website and convert.
That’s why we’re excited to see what 2023 holds for user testing. Users know what they want, what they like and what they don’t like, and it’s high time we start listening to them.
Whilst website data and performance metrics have their place (and are a vital part of creating good UX), they don’t tell us what our users are thinking or the blockers on a site that could be impacting conversion. And with GA4 (Google Analytics’ next generation of website analytics) now using machine learning to inform its data, it’s even more important to ensure that you’re listening to your real users to get the bigger picture.
2023 is the year of digging deeper into who your audience is, learning more about who they are, and using that insight to tailor your website to suit their individual needs.
And that leads us perfectly to our final point…
Personalisation
Forbes claims that 71% of consumers get frustrated when a shopping experience is impersonal. By that, they mean that unless the user feels valued on your website then they’re unlikely to convert. And thanks to big names like Spotify and Netflix, we’ve come to expect a certain standard of personalisation from every single website we visit.
Personalisation isn’t necessarily about knowing the names of your users (although it can definitely come in handy, especially for email campaigns). Personalisation is everything from showing a list of stores near to you on a supermarket website (without the user needing to input their address) to sharing a ‘Recommended For You’ section on an eCommerce website, based on products that a user has previously viewed or purchased.
And in 2023, personalisation is probably only going to become more significant. YouGov data found that 71% of Gen Z prefer personalised experiences, and with Gen Z making up around 40% (and growing) of the global consumer population, that’s not something to be ignored.
Summary
There are sure to be many more UX trends that pop up over the next 12 months and keeping on top of what’s hot (and what’s not) can be key to ensuring that you stay ahead of the game. Starting with these 4 key areas will help you start 2023 off on the right foot.
