Punchcut Launches FutureView 2021 Design Trends Report

Annual Trend Report Provides Insights on Shifting Consumer Values and Preferences; Outlines Steps Companies Can Take to Elevate Product and Service Design

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 02, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Punchcut, one of the leading digital product design firms, today launched its annual trends report, FutureView 2021: Designing a More Conscious Future. This year’s FutureView looks at how businesses can respond to rapidly evolving consumer values and preferences, and provides predictions across four key themes that will drive design and product evolution this year: Human Renewal, Intelligent Empowerment, Immersive Enrichment and Systemic Balance.

As businesses emerge from one of the most tumultuous years in history, companies are challenged to find new levels of agility and innovation to meet the needs of their customers. Buyers’ needs for immersive, human-centered digital experiences have rapidly evolved during the pandemic. The experiences of 2020 created a foundation for design innovation at a pace never seen before, with human-centered design taking center stage. In the report, Punchcut reveals business impacts and actions across the themes:

1) Human Renewal: Constant health vigilance and social isolation are prompting a renewal of personal values and a search for dynamic human connections. People struggling to cope with the lasting effects of the pandemic will seek comfort in more human-centric solutions that are empathetic to both personal and social values.

2) Intelligent Empowerment: For the past year, technology has been our lifeline to connection – providing remote “on-demand” access to virtually all parts of our lives. Digital transformation of our health and wellness, work style, media consumption, family, and personal interactions is accelerating. While fantastic, there is also the reality that we all suffer from “digital fatigue.” Fatigue and “on-demand” expectations are rapidly driving consumers and employees to seek more intelligent automation that frees them from the cognitive overload of constant digital management.

3) Immersive Enrichment: Digital technology has sustained our connections across distances, but the desire to interact more authentically will continue to drive new experiences. People will seek to fill the tactile void that distance has created and drive the use of haptics and other sensory technologies. Mixed spatial dynamics such as online and in-store shopping, at home or in-office working, or local or distant commerce, is rapidly creating a “hybridization” that is uniting digital and physical spaces and experiences.

4) Systemic Balance: Social distancing has forced the distribution of services and teams to operate from anywhere and everywhere. Remote and distance approaches are radically transforming vast business sectors including how we work, how we get healthcare, education, and of course commerce. Despite being temporary adaptations, many models will remain to provide flexibility into the future. As traditional sectors evolve to be systemic services, they’ll require major advances in edge infrastructure and more inclusive operating models. This innovation will open up opportunities to new populations but also trigger challenges for others based on variable conditions like economics, abilities, etc. Leaders will have a responsibility to extend flexible and equitable systems that find balance and harmony across distributed contexts.

“Now, more than ever, businesses must accelerate the adoption of human-centered conscious experience design that bridges humans and technology in new ways while ensuring that rapid digitization aligns with the changing values and sentiments of consumers,” said Ken Olewiler, co-founder and managing director at Punchcut. “After a year of social deprivation and digital fatigue, people are demanding more in every engagement, whether professional or personal. We see 2021 as a transitional year of renewal and growth that will require creativity, deep sensitivity, and conscious innovation as mantras of product teams and companies. Success will be driven by a renewed focus on the relationship between the technology they’re building and human experiences.”

If you’d like to learn more about the changing nature of product and service design in response to shifting consumer values, we invite you to join the UX design conversation and learn more about ways to accelerate design by putting your users’ thoughts, perceptions and needs at the center of product and service efforts.

About Punchcut

Punchcut is a digital product design and innovation company that specializes in future experience transformation. We consult with the world’s top companies to envision, design and realize next generation digital products and services that more consciously engage customers and transform businesses across emerging technologies. We provide Design Acceleration services that spark future vision, energize product design and fuel design team growth for our partners. Learn more at www.punchcut.com, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Media Contact:

[email protected]