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February 03, 2025 Edition

How Social Proof Shapes User Trust in Online Banking Across Cultures

UX Across Cultures

Navigating the cultural landscape in UX design

A column by Jo Chang
February 3, 2025

In the digital world, social proof is a powerful and effective way of boosting sales and expanding a service’s user base. People naturally look to other users for cues on how to behave—especially in uncertain or unfamiliar situations. The financial industry—particularly creators of mobile-banking apps—has embraced this strategy to drive growth. Banking is highly sensitive to trust factors, so social proof plays a critical role in customers’ decision making by providing reassurance and validation for their choices.

Popular approaches to social proof include ratings, reviews, and customer testimonials. However, online-banking services do not universally apply these common techniques, and their effectiveness varies across cultures. In this column, I’ll explore how cultural differences influence users’ behaviors relating to social proof within the context of online-banking services. Plus, I’ll provide examples from both Western and Eastern perspectives to illustrate the role that social proofs play. Read More

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Designing AI for Human Expertise: Preventing Cognitive Shortcuts

February 3, 2025

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly woven into the fabric of our daily lives, from recommendation engines to large language models (LLMs) that assist with our professional tasks. However, there is a growing concern that our reliance on AI systems promotes cognitive offloading, diminishes critical thinking, and disrupts the development of human mastery. As users delegate reasoning to AI systems, bypassing traditional methods of developing expertise, they reduce their critical engagement with their tasks. All of these factors warrant a deeper exploration to understand the implications of AI on human cognition, creativity, and innovation.

Current research into the influence of AI across different age groups and contexts is beginning to expose the full impact of cognitive offloading. Gerlich’s 2025 study, “AI Tools in Society: Impacts on Cognitive Offloading and the Future of Critical Thinking,” [1] provides valuable insights into this phenomenon. Through a mixed-methods approach to research, involving 666 participants, Gerlich found that heavy AI use significantly reduced users’ critical-thinking skills, mainly because users offloaded cognitive tasks to AI tools rather than engaging deeply with problems themselves. Younger participants, in particular, exhibited a higher dependence on AI tools and lower critical-thinking scores, emphasizing the need for strategies to mitigate these cognitive costs. Read More


Leveraging Human-Centered AI for Gen AI Experiences

February 3, 2025

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into user experiences is becoming increasingly prevalent. As UX professionals, we believe that understanding and leveraging human-centered AI (HCAI) is paramount in creating AI systems that are not only innovative but also ethical, inclusive, and put the human user first. Augmenting rather than replacing humans is a critical goal of HCAI. By focusing on ways in which humans can interact and collaborate with AI in an ethical manner, we can ensure that the intent of AI-driven technologies is to work for people rather than replacing them.

This article in our series on UX research (UXR) for GenAI delves into the principles of HCAI that are most applicable to UX research and provides practical insights on how to apply them when designing and researching AI experiences. Understanding and using these principles can help you to understand how to create ethical AI experiences that both are human centered and make AI work for humans. Read More


Smarter, Faster, Human: The Future of Design Systems with AI

February 3, 2025

In the ever-changing field of UX design, Generative AI (GenAI), has proven to be a twin enemy. While it can guarantee efficiency, scale, accuracy, it can also quickly become so depersonalized that it threatens to steal the heart of design. As UX professionals, we need to grapple with an important question: How can we harness the potential for positive change that artificial intelligence (AI) promises without its compromising the human-centric approach of our profession?

After more than 24 years working at the crossroads of UX design, technology, and human nature, my focus is now on the intersection of AI tools and human creativity. From scaling design systems to creating enterprise workflows, I’ve worked at the nexus of bringing AI into UX design, without violating principles of inclusivity or usability.

In this article, I’ll describe some guidelines and provide examples of how UX designers can leverage AI—not as a competitor, but as an enabler—by delivering faster, more robust, and more inclusive design systems. Read More


How Generative AI Can Personalize the User Journey

February 3, 2025

Business success lies in a product’s gaining popularity among a vast user base, across locations and boundaries. Generative AI (GenAI) solutions have disrupted the commercial landscape by personalizing the user journey and breaking the monotony of standard technologies and redundant marketing strategies. GenAI can predict what people might need or prefer in the future, unleashing personalization at a large scale and enhancing our ability to meet customer expectations across different platforms.

By leveraging GenAI-driven personalization, marketers can create impactful content strategies and offer unique experiences that match distinct customer preferences. Let’s consider some examples of the use of GenAI that showcase how it can personalize the user journey and offer the user an immersive experience. Read More

January 20, 2025 Edition

Designing for Patient Empowerment: Avoiding Errors in the Healthcare UX

Inclusive User Experiences

Designing for neurodiversity

A column by Yuri Shapochka
January 20, 2025

Healthcare user experiences are at a crossroads. On one side is empowerment—the illumination of clear paths through confidence, knowledge, and control. On the other is confusion—a shadowy labyrinth that is fraught with anxiety and uncertainty. For patients who are navigating the world of digital healthcare, every interaction with a telehealth platform, a patient portal, or a wearable device can feel like a moment of decision.

The promise of healthcare technologies is undeniable. They aim to connect patients and providers, streamline care, and provide a clearer picture of a patient’s health. But here’s the reality: even the most innovative tools can fail their users if their design leads to frustration or missteps. A poorly labeled button, an inaccessible user interface, or an unclear workflow can turn what should be a life-saving tool into a source of error and, in the worst cases, endanger patients’ well-being. Read More


The Intersection between IT Systems Architecture and the User Experience

Envisioning New Horizons

A critical look at UX design practice

A column by Silvia Podesta
January 20, 2025

When we think about UX design, our minds often gravitate toward the features and functionalities that we can implement to make users’ interactions with a system smoother, more enjoyable, and ultimately, more satisfying. However, it is crucial that we not overlook a vital element that significantly influences the user experiences of the digital systems on which modern society relies: the architectures of IT (Information Technology) systems.

The design and implementation of IT systems play a pivotal role in shaping how users engage with them. This has traditionally been the domain of IT professionals who are known as solution architects, so for many UX designers, this can feel like somewhat uncharted territory. Furthermore, because these systems operate behind the scenes, their complexities often seem like a black box—too technical or abstract to have any tangible effect on the user experience. Read More


Emotional Intelligence in AI-Driven UX Design

January 20, 2025

Emotional intelligence (EI) is an essential element of user experiences that are driven by artificial intelligence (AI). Human-centered design (HCD) focuses not only on the tasks that users need to accomplish but also on the emotions they experience throughout their digital journeys.

EI, typically a human trait, lets AI models establish associations between certain design elements and users’ corresponding emotions. Integrating EI into AI involves designing user interfaces and experiences that respond to users’ emotional states, fostering better engagement and reducing friction. In this context, UX design is not only about usability or accessibility but also about empathy—creating a connection between a product and its users that feels almost human. Read More


Mapping the Hotel Guest Journey to Optimize the Customer Experience

January 20, 2025

Imagine that from the time guests research a hotel’s services to the time they check out, they feel like VIPs (Very Important People). They leave with a smile, write a glowing online review, and plan to return. They also spread positive word-of-mouth about the brand and, over time, are likely to become loyal guests. These are the impacts of refining the guest experience.

In this article, I’ll take a close look at the hotel customer journey—and how a business can optimize hotel operations to deliver an exceptional customer experience.

What Is the Hotel Customer Journey?

The hotel customer journey is the path guests take from the moment they first hear about a hotel to the time they complete their visit—and beyond. It includes all the touchpoints at which guests interact with a brand. These touchpoints cover everything from booking a room to staying at the hotel to post-stay interactions such as surveys and loyalty-program invitations. Every stage of this journey shapes the guest experience and guests’ likelihood of returning. Read More


Machines to Minds: Human-Centered Design in a Technology-Driven Era

January 20, 2025

Human-centered design (HCD) has become ever more essential. Projections indicate that, by 2025, nearly 75% of organizations will prioritize HCD as a digital strategy, signaling a shift toward user-oriented innovation. In this article, I’ll explore what HCD means within the context of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, emphasizing its core principles and recent growth trends.

Real-world examples such as Airbnb’s personalized user experiences and IBM’s inclusive design practices demonstrate how technology can augment human interactions rather than diminish them. I’ll discuss collaboration between AI and HCD, address bias within automated systems and potential trends that promise to alter our understanding of design in an ever-evolving landscape. Read More