The Future of UX Leadership
In the past decade, the UX industry has gained a lot of attention. Every business owner, large scale or small scale, wants their platforms, products, and service integrated with an engaging and intuitive user experience.
UX has become the differentiator for most businesses. The UX industry has seen some significant changes with time. It has constantly evolved with the new technology to help improve the unidirectional product design landscape.
Evolution is the key to a better future!
Leadership in UX
“Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future.”
Leadership is a rare quality, especially for a competitive and niche domain like UX. Truly inspiring leaders realize that there are numerous paths one can take to become a transcendent leader.
A UX leader needs to encompass numerous skills and be a true hybrid ambassador to look over every aspect of designs.
To list a few, these are some of the things a true UX leader should possess.
- Have the vision to establish, operate and enunciate the project.
- To work with everyone across the team.
- Mapping the growth rate and giving the team a direction to move forward.
- Create challenges for the team to keep them motivated.
- Take design decisions to get the best results.
Even though you might think that being a leader can be daunting because of the chief skills, but the attributes of leadership can be learned and developed with time.
Characteristics of UX Leadership
The experiences every individual accumulates over time are different for everyone. Thus, every leader has a distinctive way of conveying their ideas. However, there are a few characteristics, qualities, and attributes that every great leader shares.
UX design leaders who understand the nut and bolts of UX work and strive to give it they're all for the growth of UX design companies is one of the common characteristics among great leaders.
To list a few more, here are the characteristics that all great UX leaders possess.
1. Masters of Process
Whichever way they choose to pursue, they aim to achieve the best results. For example, a UX leader will start a project by doing thorough research, deliver holistic insights, and assess compelling design concepts.
2. Cross-functional team management
To create an intuitive user experience, it takes a joint effort from the whole team, including designers, developers, curators, etc. A great leader will focus on everyone, communicating with them to keep them all on the same page. To give you a better understanding, consider the case of a UX Manager. He/she will lead a team that is driven by a collaborative, fast-paced, and results-driven environment.
3. Front and backstage handling
A great leader will be part of both the front design stage and the backstage tech required to make the design. Being a UX leader, you need to have an understanding of each team’s strengths and weaknesses. Communicating with them on their level of understanding will help you become a better leader.
4. Draw connections
Every leader is a great connector. Not just with people, they can connect different aspects of designs to create an engaging user experience. People should look up to him/her to learn, emulate, and get inspired.
5. Create relevance
When it comes to UX leaders, they need to question every aspect of the design, asses them thoroughly, and make design decisions that can create relevance for the users. They help UX design companies and organizations to create relevance and meaning for their design solutions.
6. Cheerleaders of Usability
Embedding good user experience into every aspect of the UX design company’s projects is the main part of usability. A great leader will always focus on making things smooth and easy-going for their customer and customers’ customers.
A UX leader always knows how to see the bigger picture and design solutions that can focus on the pain points of the users.
Future of UX
The UX industry needs to pivot from its current path, adapt to newer technological advancements, and then companies can be on the path to thrive in the coming future.
Even though we cannot predict the future, we can plan our present and start adapting to the innovative changes that are trending in the current design market.
Let’s take a look at some of the fresh innovative designing trends tearing up the design space.
Augmented Reality
Augmented Reality is a technology that can give you a real-life experience digitally. The plan is to give the users a virtual experience that is integrated with the real world. The combination of UX and AR can further enhance the usability of the platform making it a pleasurable experience for the users.
Virtual Reality
Imagine experiencing something that feels real without actually experiencing it.
Virtual Reality is all about immersing in the computerized virtual world to give you an experience that feels real. All your senses are triggered here to make the experience authentic. UX can further enhance the experience multifold.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence is about system learning that can help the users to solve issues all by themselves. It is more focused on the machine learning part of the design where your product/service automatically processes the data, finds the connection, and learns to make decisions on behalf of the users.
Artificial Intelligence is something that scares people but with the correct UX integration, this feeling can be transformed into fascination. With the correct integration of user experience, AI can become a part of our everyday work solving our problems and offering a flawless solution.
Conclusion
The UX industry is headed in the right direction and the future seems to be full of opportunities. Designers need to understand more about the new technological advancement to up their game.
Let’s start by familiarizing ourselves with these new technologies and focus on the main goal of enhancing user experience. Big things are coming our way, so let us prepare ourselves to embrace this new world rule.
