Designing for Gen Z: What the Next Generation Expects

This is more than a matter of taste; it is cultural. What one generation sees as clutter, another sees as context.

A few months ago, I was having coffee with a Gen Z UX intern. We started talking about their phone habits. “I use Snapchat a lot,” they said. “Instagram and Facebook? My mom uses those. For me, Snapchat is where my friends are, where everything feels private, where it all disappears. It feels like it belongs to us, not to corporations.”

That statement stuck with me—not just because it distinguished platforms, but because it revealed what Gen Z really expects. Where my generation once marveled at technology, Gen Z treats it as infrastructure. For them, a bad interface is as unacceptable as a faulty light switch. And like infrastructure, design must be reliable, adaptable, and respectful.

Recent data from Canada supports this. According to a 2025 survey, 69% of Gen Z report using Instagram weekly, with YouTube close behind at 64%. But only 51% say the same about Facebook. (environics.ca) This means Instagram remains deeply relevant, though younger users often treat it differently: less like a photo album, more like a real-time stream of ephemeral stories. Facebook, by contrast, has largely lost its cultural hold among Gen Z.

But that doesn’t mean these platforms are dying. Many in older generations still find comfort in Facebook and Instagram. For them, permanence is a feature, not a flaw. Facebook serves as a digital scrapbook—a place where birthdays, anniversaries, and family photos can be revisited for years. Instagram’s curated grids, polished filters, and long-term archives give them a sense of order and continuity. Where Gen Z demands freedom from permanence, older users welcome it.

This is more than a matter of taste; it is cultural. What one generation sees as clutter, another sees as context. What one calls privacy, another calls permanence. And both views are valid. The challenge for design is not to declare one approach superior, but to recognize how expectations shift over time. What was once innovation becomes baggage. What was once clarity becomes opacity.

Hidden settings may please the designer’s eye, but they frustrate the user who knows more is possible. Gen Z will not accept the hidden levers of control. They want the system revealed, ready, and willing to adapt to them. Older generations, however, may accept more complexity if it delivers continuity and stability. They are willing to navigate menus and sub-menus if the payoff is preserving their digital history.

The lesson for designers is not to chase trends or pander to youth. It is to design with respect—for different needs, different cultures of use, different definitions of what technology should be. For Gen Z, design must feel like infrastructure: reliable, fast, and respectful of privacy. For older generations, it must feel like memory: stable, consistent, and enduring.

The next frontier of user experience is not simplicity, but respect. Respect for the way Gen Z uses technology as infrastructure, but also respect for the way older generations use it as connection and archive. Design that honours both will not just survive trends—it will endure.