It’s that time of year again. As you put the finishing touches on projects before the holiday season hits and try to plan out what faces you in the year ahead, take a moment to consider how your own area of expertise might change in 2019. At Clear Point, we pay close attention to the trends we’re seeing in the UX industry and we’ve come up with a brief list of predictions to consider in the new year.

Design thinking will become ubiquitous.

As we discussed in an earlier article, design thinking as a concept is moving from the world of visual and product design and into many different areas of our work life. We expect this trend to only increase in 2019, as companies realize how these design principles can help them make smarter and better decisions in many different aspects of their business.

As a designer, you’re already ahead of the curve. You can help lead design thinking workshops, integrate the approach deeper into your organization, or simply encourage your colleagues to try it out on their next project. Chances are they will thank you—and the results will speak for themselves.

User experience design will become universal across platforms.

Right now, sometimes our UX design is siloed depending on the platform we’re designing inside—mobile design, for example, may look and function differently than the design on a desktop browser. With more and more devices becoming portable and responsive, however, the distinction between a mobile and a desktop experience will begin to fade.

Imagine, for example, if you were able to create a single user experience that looked and acted virtually the same across your devices. We’re getting closer to that reality as desktop experiences become more mobile-like and portable devices become more powerful and begin to replace larger desktop systems—just think of Apple’s new iPad Pro, which is nearly as powerful as a laptop yet acts and runs more like a smartphone.

Organizations will start to speak like designers.

For a long time, user experience design was seen as a buzzword tossed around in the boardroom to sound up-to-date. Lately, though, organizations are showing a more nuanced appreciation for the language of user experience design, from an understanding of prototyping and design research to an enthusiasm for wireframing and other research practices.

While you still may need to educate your colleagues on the finer points of user experience design—including the fact that UX design can encompass many different roles, not limited to just visual design—the growing interest in the UX field among organizations of all sizes bodes well not just for you but for the profession as a whole.

While we can’t guarantee these predictions will come true in 2019, these are long-term trends that we’re seeing clearly across the industry. The good news is that these trends are widely positive for UX design as a whole and only underscore the continuing need for talented user-focused professionals.