UXPA 2023: Impressions on the State of UX

I have just returned from the UXPA 2023 conference with an interesting overview of the UX industry, including some turbulence that a certain calmness, pragmatism, and more rigour will follow. The development of new methods, which was highly emphasized, is positive, but a mastery of the fundamentals of the field must accompany it. Therefore, the quality of UX education will become increasingly important. "Intelligent" tools will become more common, accompanied by new UX needs related to interfaces for interacting with artificial intelligence.

Economically, there have been massive layoffs in the United States, especially in large companies that may have overcommitted in recent years. On the contrary, there is still demand coming from several sectors. For example, Ford and Bloomberg were recruiting at the conference, among others. The situation seems more stable in Quebec and Canada, but let's stay aware.?

I met two UX entrepreneurs with their agencies, like Agence Bassan . They are Shannon Halgren, PhD , from SAGE RESEARCH + DESIGN in Boulder, and Lene Leth Rasmussen from Loop UX in Copenhagen. These two women inspire me in this uncertain business context to keep both hands on the wheel, ready to change course at any moment, to slow down (hopefully not) or to accelerate (we are working on it). The indicators are contradictory or ambiguous, so we must actively stay alert to signals and opportunities without losing our guiding star. Let's keep sight of our objectives.

Because as the speaker Adrienne Guillory, MBA , reminded us, the most senior among us had seen other challenges: the dot-com bubble burst in the early 2000s and the economic crisis of 2008, to name a few. We have all gone through them, and it won't be any different now. Therefore, the key lies in sound management, of course, but also in project diversification and the quality of expertise and deliverables.

UX as a discipline is expanding rapidly in several emerging economies. I was discussing this with my colleague Ahmad ALhuwwari ???????? from Orange in Jordan. Ahmad is the new Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at UXPA International . The sector's rapid growth there is reminiscent of the excitement we experienced in North America a few years ago.

Listening to him provides a relevant update—or a reminder, perhaps? —of what we need to do to ensure the sustainability and development of UX in our practices. This implies a thorough understanding of business needs and the needs and expectations of customers and users. In fact, in his conference titled "UX Enterprise Story: How to apply a UX process to a company without it," he provided an updated playbook for what we still often need to implement but is not easy to deploy: a fully-capable UX that includes an organizational change management component.

From the perspective of UX practice, while we are witnessing a proliferation of research and design methods, each more exciting than the last, revisiting methodological, political, and economic fundamentals creates a more solid and sustainable foundation. And that is important for UX.

These foundations will enable us to tackle the new challenges and possibilities artificial intelligence poses. The coming months and years will be exciting but demanding. To continue evolving over the years, the quality of UX education must support increased professionalism in our work. The role of new professionals and the attitude of senior professionals toward the new realities of UX will be decisive. We will need to adapt. More on that soon!