Believe it or not, design was once viewed as a luxury, not an importance. Marketers and business-minds-alike were more concerned with getting the information dispersed, and if it looked pretty … well, that’s good too.
But today, consumers are demanding much more thought behind the campaign, product, or service. With technology readily available, consumers are informed, and their attention is much harder to grab (not to mention the thousands of businesses vying for their attention).
Businesses are also getting smarter. Not only are they making design a top priority, but they are recognizing that design is more about being human-centric and less about “making it pretty” (though, aesthetics are never a bad thing).
In this post, we discuss how design is reshaping the way consumers and businesses interact with these four trends.
UX Design: An Emerging Industry Within Design
UX is the abbreviated form of “user experience.” While it is a field of its own, UX is an element of design that embraces design thinking. Several designers and marketers are adapting the design thinking mindset to drive marketing initiatives.
Successful UX design is intuitive and thus, user friendly. But according to uxdesign.cc, these phrases are new norms that should inhabit all realms of UX naturally. But how do we know the success of UX?
To answer this question, let’s discuss Design Thinking: a user-centered research and design process.
The phases of design thinking include:
- Empathy: Get to know your audience through interviews and observations.
- Define: Once you get a good sense of pain points and opportunities, define the problem and provide an outline of research for your stakeholders. It also helps to develop personas to later fuel ideation.
- Ideate: Think like your consumer and brainstorm possible solutions to the defined problem.
- Prototype: Maybe you found the perfect solution to the defined problem, but never be sure of this until you explore everything in greater detail.
- Test: Place the prototype in the hands of the user and gather feedback. You may need to reiterate some ideas, but that is the whole point of testing. Why put money towards implementing an idea that was not supported by your customer-personas in the very beginning?
UX takes on many forms, but most people are familiar with the way it correlates with technology. Perhaps this is because we live in such a tech-heavy world, where the most interaction is often found on the internet.
Design, Business, and Storytelling
As previously mentioned, consumers are targeted by thousands of industries, and it takes a lot more for a simple web graphic to stand out. But let’s not disregard the power of thoughtful marketing — there are several trending elements of design that work to tell a story in a unique way.
Some of these elements include:
- Animations
- Custom Illustrations
- Videos
- Etc.
According to this article on Hubspot, a leading marketing platform: “Web graphics are now about creating emotional connections and telling a story through content- this feature spearheads the beginning of a company’s ‘story.’”
To summarize, words are not the only way to tell a story; good design takes consumers on a journey in such a subtle way that they don’t even realize that they are being sold.
Avoid Information Overload: The Minimalist Approach
In other words, minimalism does not mean we neglect the details; it means that we highlight what is most important. Minimalism does not mean boring; it means the designer put thought into the most essential elements on the page.
Bold colors, creative typography, and strong shapes are still trending across the industry but so is the idea of minimalism. The question is this: How can we use these elements of style in a way that is clean and pleasing to the user? There is a way, and designers are proving it across platforms.
Design Programs at WVU
West Virginia University offers an award-winning online master’s of Data Marketing Communications to help you launch your career as a user-centric designer. Upon completion of the program, graduates learn how to foster innovation through collecting and analyzing data, gleaning key brand and consumer insights from the data, and developing a competitive marketing communications advantage.
For an emphasis on fine arts, WVU offers a MFA in Graphic Design. This curriculum is designed to help students master the art of ceramics, graphic design, intermedia/photography, painting, printmaking, and sculpture. These elements are important because they work to find new ways to communicate effectively — a huge goal for businesses everywhere.
Design is innovative and progressive. Mastering the skills of captivation can be challenging but definitely worth the chase towards success. We invite you to take on these challenges by studying with us at WVU!
The Admissions team here at WVU invites you to check out our new resource — A Guide to Graduate Assistantships at West Virginia University — and learn what kind of graduate assistantship opportunities we offer!
