Alexandra Shelenkova, Head of the UX/UI Design Team at the eXpress corporate communications and mobility platform, told Global CIO what a business solution should be like so that it is chosen by young people and not rejected by older professionals.
Everyone wants to work in an application that looks beautiful. A user interface is good when it is based on user experience, so if harmony between UI and UX is achieved, the product will not only be beautiful, but also convenient.
UI - User Interface - what the interface looks like and what physical characteristics it has, i.e. how the user sees the site or application.
UX — User Experience — what experience/impression the user gets from working with the interface, whether he manages to achieve the goal and how easy or difficult it is to do so.
Experience shows that a corporate product for young people, like any other, should first and foremost be convenient. As a result, UX design of software always begins with thinking about convenience.
What does convenient mean?
- The interface should be understandable to everyone, intuitive, and pleasant to work with. To the credit of zoomers, they are usually experienced users of software products.
- The product should seem simple, but at the same time be functional enough.
- The product must have a mobile version. It has long been the norm for young people to solve all their problems on their smartphones – from anywhere, not necessarily from home or the office.
It is really important for young employees to get positive emotions. Stickers are assistants in this. Stickers appeared in the eXpress app three or four years ago, precisely at the request of young users.
Personalization is also in trend. Thus, eXpress users can upload their own sticker packs, and a special bot helps them with this.
Tags are another popular tool among young people and very convenient to use. In eXpress, the functionality of tags is very broad, you can create your own, link them to chats, messages, users, projects, positions, groups of people.
Key UX trends that enterprise software developers adhere to
- Inclusive design makes the product accessible to all categories of users, regardless of their age, disabilities, and conditions of working with the product.
- Minimalism and simplicity in UX design mean that all elements will be easy to read, with an emphasis on key functions.
- Advanced security and privacy features, improved encryption and data protection mechanisms reduce the risk of loss or compromise of information.
- Integration tools allow you to create full-fledged work accounts, open access to any digital services of the company.
- Integration tools allow you to create full-fledged work offices, provide access to any digital services of the company.
UX should be responsive - it is important for the user to see the response from the system during the work.
AI services are now also integrated with corporate platforms.
At eXpress, we always keep our finger on the pulse, selecting ideas that we can refine for our business tasks, and being well-read is one of the most important qualities for any designer of a corporate application.
Analysts predict that in 2024, trends will gain popularity in UX design that will certainly be appreciated not only by young people, but also by older users. New technological breakthroughs await us. For example, VR and AR may soon become familiar elements of the UX of mobile applications. Buttons, on the contrary, will begin to become a thing of the past - we will control the interface with gestures, voice commands or eye movements. And that means there's a lot of interesting things ahead.
You can read the article in more detail on the Global CIO website.
