Designing for the “Gen-Z”

Designing for Gen-Z

Image Source - www.eduswami.com

www.futurumresearch.com has coined a very interesting term called Digital Native for the ones born after 2000, the world calls them Generation Z. Adding to Generation Z are the millennials who are not only come to claim the largest share of market products today, but, are also will be the next biggest share of the working class. While Generation Z comes totally equipped with mobile and digital media, the millennials are but a mixed lot of digital and analog experiences.

Generation Z is integrally born in the digital wave and does not consider their involvement in the technology as addiction, as the other generations think they are. In fact, Generation Z sees technology as an extension of their normal life. They have aligned and adapted to the technology to fill their social, mental and physical spaces. The impact of technology so penetrating the lifestyle has its adverse effects and researchers are studying the involvement of Generation Z and their technology involvement.

Gen Z is born to technology and they see technology as inseparable. Rather their smartphone devices are such integral part of their lifestyles that it resembles an extended organ of their body. Education, entertainment, shopping, ordering food, booking movie tickets or online banking, everything is at their fingertips. Gen Z is spoilt for information and choices and therefore they value technology as a practical tool and not a developmental luxury. While the other generations have come a long way adopting and adjusting to technology, Gen Z is riding the

technology wave. No wonder you see babies, surfing YouTube for their favourite rhymes and children gamming like professionals. The adult Gen Z is supported to deal with different challenges except for the emotional one through technology. For emotional ones too they can easily reach their friends through technology.



The traditional shift to marketing and buying patterns

The buying patterns for Generation Z has largely been the digital way. The millennials and now the Generation Z are posing a challenge to marketers and promoters to hook these young consumers to screen. Considering the very short attention span and multiple screen juggling practices. The challenge is to keep these young consumers glued to your screen. Short and crisp is the way ahead for Generation Z.


The Budding Clients

It will not be a distant day when Gen Z will be the major clientele. From schoolwork, games, surfing, texting, shopping and entertainment, Gen Z relies on technology. Going forth many applications and products need to be designed around the needs of Gen Z. To capture this wave of Gen Z in all its fervour, designers and companies need to be workaround a few parameters that will define the user experiences for Gen Z.

Budding Clients



Dependence on Memory

Generation Z and to an extent the millennials are up for easy grabs for a calculator for solving simple math. The dependence on scheduler apps for updates and reminders is common. They have glued on to the screen and adrift from the world under the veil of their headphones. The short-term memories dependency of Generation Z is dependent and supported and controlled by the scheduler. They are continuously fed with a sea of data and thus a limitation to remember, recollect and the process is left to the comfort of external devices and technology.

www.Forbes.com states, we off-load memories to 'the cloud' just as readily as we would to a family member, friend or lover. It may be that the Internet is taking the place not just of other people as external sources of memory but also of our own cognitive facilities. The researchers call it "the Google effect."


Attention Span

Plethora of information makes data accessibility so easy that the essential what? and why? is often lost in a flood of information. The attention span of Generation Z is just 8 secs and they browse a minimum of 5 screens at a time.

Generation Z is not celebrity endorsement kinds. They are the ones who are captivated by the maximum follower bases- the influencers. YouTube has therefore seen the most subscriber base as Generation Z. The believe in what the masses believe, then call it herd mentality or a choice.

Gen Z in Retail

Image Source - www.openbusinesscouncil.org Influencers to Marketers


Working Designs

Designs that are bold, captivating and trendy will catch the fancy of a Gen Z, but be wary that their attention span is a few seconds and to make them stay on your product site is to supplement them with valuable information and insights, leading to call for action.


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Building Content

Gen Z would go through as much information to get their desired inputs. But, if you want to anchor the Gen Z to your product, creating compelling, authentic and versatile content is the need.


Fluid Borders

Geographical barriers are not a concern of Gen Z. For them, this world is their playground. The Gen Z is easily accessible to information across the world and that has again changed their decision-making power. The comparison now is not locally, but internationally. The fluid geographical borders technology presents have made Gen Z more worldly and accepting. Their tastes and communication sphere has enhanced to worldwide options. Worldwide education prospects and online shopping are the majorly accessed options.

Gen Z calls for constant information and likes to regale in this whirlwind of information. They are spoilt for choice and are experimental with their outlook.

There is a sea change the generations over the last decades have transitioned over. Lifestyles, education patterns, travel, food, culture and business have all influenced under the scope of technology. However, as Gen X or Gen Y, who were adroitly sharp at their memory and remember facts and figures from the wee days, are the Millennials and Gen Z losing the power of memory over cloud-based artificial storages as well as smartphone devices. The transition is to a technology-based lifestyle that is facilitating, yet, daunting the mere existence of your inherent resources. Call it development or name it an addiction, the fact is, the world is changing and so are the behavioural patterns.

Going forth, the challenge is not to deviate the Gen Z from technology, but be able to build experiences that are making Gen Z spend more and valuable time on your product page. The earlier generations would call this paradigm shift

merely losing control to technology whereas, the Gen Z calls it ‘Tuned-in to Technology.’


About Author

Amalendu Harjaa

Founder & CEO | Web2UI

Amalendu is an experience design specialist with 18+ years of experience, most of those years he spent exclusively as a User Experience Designer (UX Designer) with major IT agencies and E-Commerce portals. He has worked on a variety of projects including financial and forex web and mobile apps, e-commerce, brand and marketing sites, financial dashboards; user-generated content, social networking, and on-demand mobile applications for various clients. Pepperfry.Com, Funds-SP for S&P500, Porsche, Walmart are some of the clients he has worked with.

He is located in Mumbai, India and trying to help SaaS and tech start-ups with user and customer experience design via his company Web2UI (http:// web2ui.com).

In his free time, Amalendu loves to work as a short an ad filmmaker and he has won several awards for his film works and his short films have been selected in multiple prestigious film festivals around the globe.

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