Mobile, AI, and AR hit 2017 UX trends

Amazon have just presented their new business proposition with which they want to revolutionise the shopping experience in the physical world. ‘Amazon Go’ is a new kind of supermarket. There are no cashiers. Nor queues, but a lot of sensors that detect every product that leaves the shelves to fill the customer’s digital shopping cart. Shoppers only need an Amazon account, a smartphone, and the ‘Amazon Go’ app to come inside, pick up what they need, and walk out the door.
 
The shopping experience Amazon offers is as fast, easy, and seamless as it is online. To achieve that, the smartphone is again the integrative element that, together with a great sense of UX, allows the connection between two worlds and between different technologies with the objective of benefiting consumers.
 
Amazon inspire us with their commitment to innovation but also show us the right track: scanning codes, sensors, in-app mobile payments, and (especially) smartphones. The digitalisation of marketing and sales is also driven by mobile. The optimisation of businesses of any kind for mobile is, more than a need, a competitive advantage, and the 2017 UX trends confirm it as well.

Mobile at the centre

Mobile provides very valuable and rich data that brands can use to deliver context in order to ensure their messages are timely, relevant, and convenient. In this sense, mobile is one of the central stars of next year’s UX trends. Consumer eyes and fingerprints are getting used to app user experiences: tapping, sliding right and left, scrolling up and down.

As a result, desktop websites are increasingly looking more like apps. The shift between mobile and desktop interfaces is supposed to be smooth, consistent, and unnoticed by users. Following this, Google have removed their ads from their right menu and mymuesli.com uses a central content column, for example.

Artificial intelligence (AI)

The proliferation of messaging apps, the integration of chatbots, and the emergence of voice assistants such as Siri or Amazon Echo are challenging UX. Consumers demand a more intuitive and natural way to interact with their favourite devices and gadgets. Organisations should take advantage of the technology within reach to create holistic conversational solutions that strengthen the ability to do business on mobile and connected devices. For example, banks are reinforcing their customer services with the integration of intelligent virtual assistants with the objective of accelerating their customer self-services and reducing calls.

Connected devices also provide a big amount of data than can be used for placing content in the right context and for personalising experiences. There are websites that offer customers personalised content based on their purchase behaviour, search history, and visit frequency.

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR)

Virtual reality and especially augmented reality technology are said to revolutionise the relationship between businesses and consumers. They are seen as an extension of mobile experiences because they enable real-time and contextual responses to the users’ actions and interactions with the environment

In e-commerce, AR has a lot of potential. Actually, according to a 2016 Tech Pro Research report, 67% of businesses are considering using AR in the future. The fact is it is changing the way shoppers go shopping and make purchase decisions online, offering low-effort, seamless, and real-time experiences.

The White House has launched an AR app that provides an interactive tour through the building. Snapchat plays with face recognition to enrich the selfie experience and augment.com offers an AR app to help customers to choose the most convenient and accurate furniture for their house from the commodity of their couch.

Better be mobile user-friendly

On the basis that 6 out 10 consumers believe that their expectations of mobile experiences are not completely satisfied and that high performance and best-in-class user experience is a must to not lose customers and lead the m-commerce race, this white paper gives shop operators ultimate tips and best practices for usability and optimisation of all forms of web design to beat the main pain point of mobile commerce: the current low conversion rates.

There is also room for looking towards upcoming mobile trends and the challenges of mobile payments, which are being improved to conquer customers’ hearts. If you want to know the formula to win the mobile commerce race, download this whitepaper now for free! The update is currently available in German.