UX design trends for 2025

As we move further into Web 3.0, the importance of user experience (UX) design will continue to grow. It’s key to creating products and services that users love and keep coming back to. And as the industry changes, so too do UX and UI design trends.

In this article, we look at what experts predict will be the biggest trends in UX design in 2025. From integrating new technologies to rethinking design principles, we'll cover it all to help you stay ahead of the curve and create the best experience for your users.

A quick note before we dive in: This article updates the trends we covered for 2024. Many of last year's trends remain relevant:

• An increasing focus on voice user interfaces (VUIs).

• An emphasis on accessibility (now a non-negotiable).

• Experimenting with generative AI.

• Continued efforts in personalization (but now with a new twist).

This year, we’re seeing a couple of new trends emerge:

• An increased focus on privacy controls and data protection, driven by AI developments.

• A greater emphasis on micro-interactions, particularly in motion design.

Let's explore these trends in more detail.

1. Voice interfaces

Voice assistants and smart speakers are growing slowly, but the trend is upward – Insider Intelligence suggests almost half the US population will use them by 2026.

With the proliferation of smart speakers and voice-activated devices, we’ll likely see more companies incorporating voice user interfaces (VUIs) into their products and services. This incorporation of VUIs will require UX designers to create effective and intuitive voice experiences.

Thanks to developments in AI and natural language processing (NLP), VUIs are seeing more use. According to Chris Calo, Design and Creative Executive at Vulcan:

"Voice user interfaces have grown even more sophisticated with advancements in NLP and are finding their integrations beyond just virtual assistants in smart devices, enterprises, and so on.

As voice recognition technology continues to get better, VUIs are being implemented much more in hands-free environments, and that's something to keep an eye on."

Services that have so far led the way in voice-activated technology are Apple Siri, Google Assistant, and Amazon Alexa (and associated speaker products). While it might be a while before competitors arrive in this space, UX designers can think about creative ways to incorporate these existing services where appropriate (not every product needs it!).

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2. Accessibility is no longer trendy, but a non-negotiable

As awareness of accessibility issues grows, more businesses will prioritize accessibility and inclusivity in their products. This will require UX designers to understand accessibility best practices and design for a wide range of users, including those with disabilities.

These insights are consistent with what we heard from UX Design Lead Branko Dimitrijević at DesignRush:

"Accessibility has also gained prominence, becoming a non-negotiable part of UX. More design teams are building accessibility features like high-contrast text, changeable font sizes, keyboard navigation, and screen reader compatibility from the ground up.

This is no longer a "nice-to-have" element, but rather a required component of design that broadens audience reach and promotes diversity. Clients and users have increasing expectations for accessible designs, thus designers must satisfy these criteria."

Examples of accessibility best practices include using ALT text for images, closed captions and transcripts for videos, screen-reading and magnification options, and easy-to-read typography that scales with different screen sizes.

We also heard from Nick Guest, Senior Designer at Pixelstorm, who had some insights to share about specific tools he uses to improve accessibility:

"A wide range of accessibility tools has made the design process more engaging and accessible for designers. For instance, Adobe Color provides a great user experience with its color wheel, allowing you to find harmonious color combinations and then giving you accessible solutions for those colors."

Additionally, AI can identify specific requirements, allowing designers to create more inclusive interfaces; for example, a person with dyslexia might benefit from larger font sizes, while someone with color blindness may need a different color palette."

3. Experimentation with generative AI

In our trends roundup for 2024, we moved generative AI up the list. But with AI tools and functionality developing incredibly quickly, there are more new things to say.

In early 2023, ChatGPT – a popular natural language chatbot from OpenAI – became the fastest-growing consumer application in history, with an estimated 100 million monthly active users the month prior. Additionally, there are over 2 million developers using OpenAI’s API to build their tools.

In 2024, OpenAI released ChatGPT-4o and -4o mini, capable of reasoning across audio, vision, and text in real-time, as part of its mission to build "safe and beneficial AGI" (artificial general intelligence).

Why does this matter in the UI/UX world? Using generative AI and its machine learning algorithms can help revolutionize the product development process in multiple ways, like:

• It can sift through vast amounts of user data and help analyze patterns – significantly decreasing the time it takes to identify and make valuable insights. Not to mention helping to create even more personalized experiences that align with user needs.

• Detailed, well-crafted prompts can save hours of time creating mockups for design elements, web design, and layouts. These mockups can be a helpful starting point for rapid UX prototyping. Simply get an AI-generated mockup, open Figma, and work from there.

• Training an algorithm on your brand identity can also help create consistency across the user experience. With GPT-4o, the AI has an even better ability to understand brand identity and make informed recommendations.

These use cases are consistent with what we heard from Branko:

"Generative AI is a trend that has gained remarkable traction, with applications ranging from automated design mockups to user behavior prediction. As a tool, generative AI not only speeds up workflows but also opens doors to creative possibilities that were once limited by time or resources.

Its role in UX design is still expanding, but it’s clear that it will continue to influence how we approach everything from prototyping to content creation."

4. Personalization is getting an AI boost

As companies collect more first-party user data, we’ll see more personalized user experiences. UX designers should think about how to use this data effectively to create relevant and engaging experiences.

A quick note: there’s a difference between personalization and customization. The former refers to practices from the business side, whereas the latter refers to tweaks a customer can make themselves. Both can make for great UX experiences, but advancements in AI make personalization a more significant asset.

With AI models improving in 2024, we're seeing a growing trend in the use of sophisticated AI for personalization tasks. Kate Varga, a Senior UX/UI designer at Creative Navy, shared a few new use cases:

“By studying user behaviors, AI can make predictions regarding people's preferences and suggest more products or content that will convert them. It is the most efficient and attentive user researcher, non-intrusive and inexhaustible."

She further added:

"User experiences are no longer static or established: with real-time AI algorithms, interfaces change before the users’ eyes in order to prioritize certain elements. Predictive analytics also play a role in increasing users’ screen time, as AI is able to make recommendations that are perfectly aligned with the user’s preferences.

AI can also study how the user interacts with notifications. It learns which of these alerts the user actually responds to and times them perfectly according to the person’s interaction habits. This maximizes user satisfaction and engagement."

She highlighted that these AI developments can have the effect of making us "prisoners of our own biases." This prediction leads us nicely into the first new entry into this year's trends – privacy and data protection in response to AI.

5. New privacy and data protection concerns and efforts

In my professional LinkedIn network, data privacy (and intellectual property) has become a huge conversation as we round off 2024.

Folks have been realizing that some of the important tools we use (like the LinkedIn platform itself, as well as others like Microsoft) have been rolling out updates that assume users are okay with their platforms using data from users to train AI.

In the UX space, designers have the opportunity to create products that uphold users' privacy and data protection while improving their experiences. We've seen this approach through Apple's release of Apple Intelligence and its focus on privacy, for example.

Speaking to folks on the ground about this, Elisa Montanari, Head of Organic Growth at Wrike, had a fair bit to say:

"As GenAI and data-driven personalization take hold, people are increasingly concerned about how brands use, store, and protect their data. Since some marketers and algorithms could be considered manipulative, user trust is often low.

As responsible designers and marketers, it’s our job to prove that we value privacy and design systems to uphold them and use personalization to better their UX, not our bottom line.

We’re seeing calls across the industry for more transparency around personalization and privacy, granular privacy controls, and data minimization. Designers are toeing the line to find the right balance between delivering tailored UX without asking for too much or using data without explicit consent.”

As the AI industry grows further in 2025, the need for user privacy will too. So, keep an eye on this space.

6. Greater emphasis on micro-interactions and motion design

The last trend is the increased interest in micro-interactions. A micro-interaction refers to subtle, visual animations (or physical haptics) that provide users feedback on their actions.

Here's a quick example from my iPhone 16:

When I press the volume button, a small animation pops out the side of the screen indicating I've successfully pressed the button. Another example is when the reaction emojis wiggle as you hover over the "like" button on LinkedIn:

These micro-interactions aim to make the user experience more engaging, intuitive, and efficient. A fair few of the folks we spoke to talked about micro-interactions, including Kevin Shahnazari, founder of FinlyWealth, who oversees his UX team to make complex financial decisions simpler for users. He said:

"My design team has tested several emerging trends, but none matched the impact of micro-interactions powered by real-time data. We added subtle animations that respond to users' credit profiles as they browse cards. This small change lifted our user engagement by 35% and dropped bounce rates by 28%.

We also noticed users respond better to interfaces that visually communicate data protection. Adding subtle encryption animations during sensitive data input boosted user trust scores by 40% in our latest user testing."

As you can see, blending both privacy communication with using micro-interactions works well for Kevin and his team. The trick we'll likely see over the coming years is mastering the balance of knowing when a micro-interaction enhances or detracts from the user experience.

Other UX design trends to look out for in 2025

While the above trends and progressive changes are front and center, there are a few other trends worth mentioning.

Sustainable design

While AI has gained a lot of hype and attention through 2024 and into 2025, it uses a lot more energy than you'd think. In an interview with Vox, Sasha Luccioni, a climate researcher at an AI company called Hugging Face, said that "switching from a nongenerative, good old-fashioned quote-unquote AI approach to a generative one can use 30 to 40 times more energy for the exact same task."

UX designers can lead the development of people and planet-friendly products. Watch for practices that reduce digital waste and overall data usage.

Wearable tech

Smartwatch and fitness tracker devices are expected to see continued growth, with India being the country seeing the most wearable usage (at 50%), followed by China (46%), the UK (42%), and Sweden (37%).

As a result, designers will need to consider the UX of wearable tech as the market grows. This includes alternative interfaces using shortened text, voice commands, and simplified buttons.

Looking ahead at UX design

If you’re looking for practical tools to help you with new and exciting UX design projects and research this year, why not sign up for a free Lyssna plan to access unlimited active tests?

Lyssna can help you with things like prototype testing and testing iconography, which, if you’re planning to try out some of these new trends, can come in handy during the design process.

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Alexander Boswell is a freelance B2B SaaS, MarTech, and eCommerce content marketing specialist going by SaaSOCIATE and a Business PhD candidate. When he’s not writing, he’s playing baseball and D&D.