I just read this nice post on ‘The Top UX Trends of 2014‘ on UXMag.com. It had some useful observations, but was a bit long, so I’ve written up a summary…

Integration of social media into business practice (not just marketing) has become a necessity.

Large companies are realising the importance of user-centred development and are building in-house UX teams.

Are you tempted to click on the lettuce to see if a slide-out menu appears?

The Hamburger Icon and its partner-in-crime, the slide-out menu, having dominated mobile apps, have started making their way into desktop websites. There’s some voices saying this is a really bad idea. Consider using the word “Menu” instead. Can’t say I disagree!

The proliferation of new Apple devices with varying resolutions, and the introduction of higher and higher-resolution displays in both mobile and desktop, means the idea of working with pixels is dying quickly and responsive and (more importantly) resolution-independent design is becoming a the norm.

Forrester Research reports fewer companies are being rated by customers as providing “poor” or “very poor” customer experience, showing that many companies are putting serious effort into designing and managing great customer experience. As a result, “okay” is becoming the new baseline and to gain a competitive advantage you need to be great, rather than just “not terrible”.

The original article also has some predictions that their contributors shared last year that came true during 2014. I recommend reading the full thing if you’re interested in more details.

Image credit: ‘Hamburger‘ by Alexis Mialaret