Designing for Gen Z Means Letting Go (a Little)

Here’s the shift: We're not designing to impress anymore, we're designing to connect, and that changes everything. You can’t design at these generations, you have to design with them in mind. Which sounds obvious, until you actually try it.

Gen Z doesn’t want perfection, they want presence

They’re not looking for curated or corporate. Definitely not anything that feels like it went through six rounds of approval before going live. They don’t need you to be cool. They need you to be honest, not just another polished brand voice.

Whether it’s a lo-fi video or a post that feels a little rough around the edges, they’ll choose real over refined every time. If you’re still putting out glossy content with perfectly lit stock photography and over-edited captions... they’ve already scrolled past.

They’re not attention-deficit, they’re attention-selective

There’s a big difference. It means they can focus, they just won’t waste it on content that doesn’t speak to them. Gen Z - and let’s be honest: Gen Alpha’s not far behind - grew up with content coming at them from every direction. So no, their attention span isn’t shorter, it’s just sharper.

They scroll past a hundred things before breakfast. In reality, you have one second, maybe less, to prove you're worth stopping for. A headline that feels like a friend speaking? That might be the difference between a swipe and a save.

Design isn’t just about how something looks anymore

There is a shift happening where it’s not just layout, colour and a cool font that carries the message. What really matters now is tone, timing, and authenticity. It’s knowing how to show something instead of explaining it, and being real while doing it. Content that really resonates are visuals and short-form video that feel intentional but not over designed.

Good scanability also really matters. Not because people are lazy, but because they’re overloaded. If you can say it in five words instead of twenty, do it. If it needs to breathe visually, let it.

This audience does not need perfection. In fact, they’re very suspicious of it.

Community isn’t a buzzword. It’s the point

Gen Z doesn’t just want to be seen, they want to belong. They want to feel like a piece of content understands them, or even better, includes them.

That means shifting from audience to participation. From message to conversation. From “look at us” to “we see you.” Which is uncomfortable for some companies, because it means letting go of a little control, opening things up and being okay with not having the final say on how something lands.

But if you’re communicating to people who grew up remixing internet culture in their bedrooms, you can’t expect them to just consume. They want to co-create, respond, share and build on top of what you started.

Connection is the new metric

If you care about building something that lasts, something people will actually come back to, then this way of thinking isn’t optional, it’s essential. The metrics are shifting. Clicks and views still matter, but what’s harder to measure is starting to matter more:

• Did someone feel seen?
• Did they pause?
• Did they share it with someone who gets it?

That’s the kind of connection we should be designing for. That’s where the real value is. Not in the polished content, not in the amount of page views, but in that tiny moment where someone thinks, this feels like it’s for me.

If we can design for that, we’re on the right track.