The 6 design trends John Maeda predicted in his State of the Union | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

John Maeda’s 2017 Design in Tech Report predicted rapid growth and transformation in product design. The article argues that companies increasingly need designers because technology has become easy to build, making user experience and emotional relevance key differentiators. However, fragmented tools and outdated education remain major challenges.

Designer Hiring Surges

• Major corporations are expanding their product design teams.
• Companies such as Facebook, Google, and Amazon reportedly hired 65% more designers in the previous year.
• More than 35 design agencies were acquired by large companies over two years.
• As app development becomes commoditized, design determines how useful and meaningful products feel to people.

More Inclusive Design

• Technology’s broader reach requires products designed for people from varied backgrounds and experiences.
• Companies including Airbnb, Slack, Google, and Microsoft were highlighted as leaders in inclusive design.
• Inclusion is becoming both a social responsibility and a product-quality requirement.

Design Education Falls Behind

• Many design programs remain focused on print-era disciplines such as traditional typography.
• Schools often fail to teach digital product design for web and mobile platforms.
• More than two-thirds of surveyed students said they learned digital skills independently through resources such as Lynda.com.
• Maeda expects educational institutions to change slowly because their structures and processes evolve deliberately.

Design-Focused Investment

• Venture capital is showing greater interest in companies built around design.
• Two VC firms were reportedly launching with design-focused investment strategies.
• Designers themselves show entrepreneurial interest: 80% of those surveyed said they would start a company if they had sufficient funding.

Growing Number of Design Tools

• Product design tools remain fragmented, supporting different workflows rather than one unified process.
• Many companies are attempting to streamline collaboration and production.
• Maeda warned that increasingly sophisticated tools could create more opportunities for machine intelligence and eventually reduce demand for some design work.

Emerging Specializations

• Voice-interface design is growing alongside products such as Amazon Alexa.
• Cybersecurity is creating demand for specialized designers.
• China is expected to become increasingly influential in the global design landscape.

The outlook for technology and product design is strong, but the industry must address outdated education and disconnected workflows. Designers, companies hiring them, and toolmakers all have opportunities—especially to create more unified, collaborative design processes.