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1. Social networking glut gets cleaned up.

The pretenders will be separated from the contenders when some social networking sites deliver ROI, and many others do not. This saturated marketplace will contract, but the sites that remain will have staying power.

The social networking sites with enough influence to be profitable will continue to hold sway in professional arenas. People will rework their identities on LinkedIn and Facebook, now that these sites are an important recruiting tool for employers.

2. Consumers of news will participate in creating the story.

User-generated content has been gaining ground on media sites over the past several years, but it will be ubiquitous on news sites in 2008, even in small markets. News organizations have grappled with how much weight to lend to submissions from non staff members, but the trend will move towards assigning these comments and photos a high value–in some cases equal to the original content.

3. Pepperoni would be GR8!

Maybe you’ll be surfing the Internet on your iPhone and make an impulse buy. Or maybe you’ll text message an order for a pizza. One way or another, you’ll find yourself buying something using your wireless phone in 2008.

This trend is supported and enabled by the proliferation of wireless networks and the improvements in mobile browsers. According to Forrester Research, 40% of mobile users like the idea of connecting to the Internet using their cell phone but think the technology could be better[1]. Given the consumer demand, and the iPhone’s entrance into the marketplace, the mobile browser technology will have to respond with innovation.

4. Website search continues to fall short.

Adding search functionality to a website is easy enough, but yielding relevant results requires regular care and feeding. When it comes to site-specific search, users will still expect miracles, and will still be disappointed. To buck this trend, organizations need to recognize that site search is just as important as navigation structure, and warrants the investment of time, money, and resources.

5. Feature-oriented sites will be back in vogue.

After years of feature-overload, websites like Google simplified complex experiences by stripping out features. Now, sites like Ask.com will prove that users are ready for a few bells and whistles.

6. Web analytics will be represented in increasingly visual ways.

Page views and click through data will be plotted in bubble charts, word trees, and maps to provide the interpreter with a rapid understanding of both broad trends and granular details. Usability methods and Web analytics tools will be seamlessly used together to gain insight on Web users.

7. One Laptop per Child’s XO laptop will become the brag accessory of the DC Metro.

Oh wait, this one has already happened.

8. What exactly do you do?

User experience will be more commonly understood outside of our field in 2008. (Did you hear that the term was used in a Vehix.com commercial in 2007?) By next holiday season, we predict that our relatives might actually understand what it is that we do for a living.

Within the field, practitioners will continue to divide into subgroups and experiment with labels to describe the range of roles and functions they serve.

9. Corporate blogging won’t be an oxymoron.

Companies will offer more junkets to popular bloggers so they can generate publicity for their products. Companies will also set up puppet blogs as pure product placement, blurring the lines between independent blogging and corporate advertisement, much like viral videos.

10. Enjoyable will be heard as often as usable.

We all know that a usable interface is critical to a successful website. Going forward, delighting users with an enjoyable online experience will be equally important. Users will demand more than just functionality to warrant repeat site visits.

11. Behavioral personas will replace user profiles.

Traditionally, user experience professionals assessed the usability of a site through the eyes of a user profile, defined by the fictional user’s gender, age, and income level. In 2008, personas will be increasingly tied to behavior (how often the user visits the site, how long they linger, and how many purchases they make) rather than demographic information.

The logical extension of this new perspective on user-centered design is that more websites will be organized around user behavior, rather than relying on a traditional, hierarchical navigation.

12. The content management system (CMS) market will split.

The crowded CMS vendor space will split into two key segments. On the one hand, there will be vendors that provide content management services as platform components. These vendors focus on the nuts and bolts of content management and content publishing, including repository services and workflow management. The second group will provide rich online marketing application suites and will highlight their extensive feature sets.

CMS vendors that currently defy either category will migrate in one direction or the other – to where the demand lies.

13. Digital readers will become widely adopted.

Now that people are accustomed to reading on the Web, they will embrace the convenience of digital readers. Technical improvements, including wireless downloads and screen quality, will ensure their adoption.

The shift from hardbound books, magazines, and the morning paper to a portable electronic device will have tremendous implications for the publishing industry. This technology will reinforce consumers' desire to access content on demand, creating the need for an iTunes-like distribution system for articles and books.

14. Big Brother will deliver more compelling online ads.

Despite Facebook's misstep with its intrusive ad program "Beacon," online advertisers will increasingly incorporate information about online (and offline!) customer behavior and preferences into their promotion strategies. The result will be hyper-targeted advertising that users will find less annoying, more memorable, and more persuasive.

Resources and References

[1] Forrester Research Survey, North American Technographics Consumer Technology Online Survey, Q1 2007.

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