From A to Z across the web, you’re having to do less to achieve more!

We chatted last week about how UX design has progressed apace, such that we have to think less and less about how we interact with websites and apps. Developers work hard to get inside our heads, and do away with the unnecessary actions of old – remember how we mentioned the ‘save’ button is steadily disappearing, for example?

Well, now we’re back with some more examples of things you probably hadn’t noticed, but which all go a long way to making your life a whole lot simpler, and more efficient.

Categorising your email

Many of us have fallen off the wagon when it comes to productivity mantras such as Inbox Zero; the tsunami of electronic messages overwhelmed us long ago. Thankfully, many of the basics are now handled for us. For example, Gmail will, at the very least, categorise all incoming messages as Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates and Forums, without you having to do a darn thing. Perhaps it’s just an illusion, but there’s something seemingly more manageable about having your mail split into tabs for you (perhaps tabs = priorities), than being crushed under the apparent weight of a monolithic inbox. The latter seems like that distressing point in a game of Tetris when you know you no longer have the time or space to manoeuvre, or even think.

Writing your own prose

Okay, so this one is still very much an evolving technology but, nonetheless, as I write this very document, some of my sentences are being finished for me. It’s a tad creepy, yet blindingly clever and makes for an interesting user experience. Hmmm, the thing is, I was going to write ‘…and makes for an intriguing user experience’, which raises the question of am I controlling my computer, or is it controlling me? Wormhole. The point is, I do actually quite like predictive text, especially when composing emails, and it is genuinely helpful. You will now not know if it’s the ‘real’ me or the ‘AI’ me writing, next time you get a message from me, but never mind!

Field help text and cleaner forms

You’re now much less likely to stumble across a cluttered and difficult to use web form. One of the key reasons for this is that help text, placeholder text, and field labels can all work together to provide the right information at the right time. For example, you can have a field in which the field placeholder text tells you what to write and, when you start typing, the placeholder text steps out of the way, shrinks to a sensible size, and becomes the field label instead. It’s all rather slick. Check it out here.

So whether it comes down to clever UX writing, handy UX utilities or thoughtfully implemented AI, user experience in general continues to move on at speed. We’d love to hear about the things you’ve (not) noticed…or the things you hope will be swept up soon, and become tasks of the past – let us know!