Annual Report Provides Insights Into Important Product and UX Design Strategies that Engage Users in New and Meaningful Ways.
Punchcut, a leading digital design firm that helps companies drive meaningful innovation in digital products, today released its annual trends report, FutureView: The Next Level of Conscious Design. The report provides an in-depth look at how businesses are implementing meaningful design innovations within digital products, and provides insights across four key themes that will drive the next era of digital interaction: Personal Innovation, Insightful Intelligence, Natural Immersion, and Communal Systems.
The report asserts that digital interactions must become more intuitive as intelligent experiences are seamlessly integrated into people’s lives. Consumers now expect products to be “conscious” – anticipatory and context-aware. As these digital experiences become more connected with the real world, people will have access to intelligent, intuitive tools that allow them to achieve their goals more quickly and easily. In the report, Punchcut reveals how Conscious Experience Design will continue to transform products across industries and improve the way people interact with technology and their environments across the themes:
1) Personal Innovation: People are increasingly embracing products that improve their lives, align with their values and aspirations, and lead to more meaningful interactions, relationships, and greater wellbeing. People are taking stock of their lives and prioritizing optimal value, wellbeing, and balance. Norms are being reevaluated, reprioritized, and renovated across work, family, community, and self-care. The pandemic forced many of these changes into the digital realm, driving a need for quality digital connection, shared experiences, and products that deliver value, spawning a new era of human ingenuity and personal innovation. Moving forward, people will continue to consciously revitalize their lives with human-centric digital solutions that are aligned with their personal and social wellbeing.
2) Insightful Intelligence: Artificial intelligence will deliver ultra-humanized assistance and contextual guidance resulting in products that will empower better decisions, save time and build personal relationships. People are growing overwhelmed with the number of digital services and decisions now permeating their lives. They’re only embracing products and services that expertly empower and guide them. With so many choices, and so much data, products must become smarter, more collaborative, and more accurate to become essential “digital partners” for users. AI is making digital partnerships a reality. As we look ahead, we will witness “cooperative intelligence” emerge as the essential core to future digital products and services. Human autonomy will be paramount as people more intimately collaborate with intelligent systems that know them and simplify their lives. In order to win meaningful digital partnerships with users, cooperative products will need to consciously reach beyond academic intelligence to engender trust, relatability, and emotional connections.
3) Natural Immersion: Immersive experiences will eliminate technology barriers and create more natural interactions that are spatial, sensory and seamless across digital-physical spaces. As the world opens up, people will seek more holistic solutions that seamlessly weave together both their virtual and physical worlds. Blended physical and digital experiences will enrich their experiences and enable authentic, natural connections. Convergent concepts such as the Metaverse will draw more interest and spark a reinvention of brand experiences across digital and physical immersive spaces––where the boundaries are increasingly blurred. But the first step will be recognizing that immersive design is not simply a technological approach but a conscious effort to design a more natural state of human interaction. A natural state that is more spatial, sensory, and seamless. With more spatial environments, multi-sensory interactions, and seamless ecosystems, companies can create immersive experiences that adapt to people and enable the next dimension in more natural product interactions and connections.
4) Communal Systems: Distributed collaboration and decentralized systems will enable creator-centric communities and new economies that thrive on shared relationships. Collaborative systems now underpin distributed services and remote teams – transforming work, healthcare and commerce. In turn, power is shifting from corporate centers to spread across virtual networks of individuals. Yet, people feel more siloed than ever. Humans are built to engage in spontaneous, real-life interactions. Virtual spaces must be augmented with real-world, physical interactions to help meet users’ emotional needs and strengthen relationships. As communal systems evolve, businesses must focus on enriching communities, not simply connected products. With the rise of blockchain, Web 3 and the metaverse, we will witness a future that empowers people as the creators of their own destiny in community-driven economies.
Ken Olewiler, Principal and Managing Director at Punchcut, observes: “Conscious Experience Design strategies have never been more important as companies build products that are more mindful of consumers’ evolving consciousness and wellbeing and leverage intelligent technology to seamlessly empower and enrich their lives. Companies must uplevel their empathy, methods and skills to design more humanized experiences that are naturally immersive and cooperative to deliver new value to customers. Conscious Experience Design is the most important advancement in UX design of this era.”
Are you interested in learning more about how to design your products and services for tomorrow? Join the customer experience conversation today to find out how conscious design can help you better engage with your customer base in 2022:
- Download a free copy of the Punchcut FutureView 2022 Report at https://punchcut.com/futureview2022/
- Learn more about successful Punchcut client projects
- Gain knowledge and design insights from the Punchcut blog
- Learn about Punchcut’s Design Acceleration offering
About Punchcut
Punchcut is a digital product design and innovation company that specializes in Conscious Experience Design. We consult with the world’s top companies to envision, design and realize next-generation digital products and services that more consciously engage customers and transform businesses across emerging technologies. We provide Design Acceleration services that spark future vision, energize product design and fuel design team growth for our partners. Learn more at www.punchcut.com.