The importance of User Interface and User Experience design cannot be overstated. It’s the first touch point between your product and your users, it can make or break their experience with your product, and it can be the difference between great success and abject failure. Here are 15 principles of UI/UX design that every designer should know.
Principle 1: Learn The Basics
As with anything, the first step to becoming a great UI/UX designer is to learn the basics. This means becoming familiar with the different aspects of design, such as layout, color theory, and typography. Once you have a solid foundation, you can start to experiment and explore different design techniques. There are many courses available online that can help you dive into the world of UI/UX design. Principle 2: Listen To Your Users: Your users know best what they want from your product. What might seem like an intuitive and natural user experience for one person may not be for another person. In order to create a successful product, it’s important to listen to your users’ feedback in order to develop something that meets their needs – not just yours!
Principle 2: Get Feedback
If you want to create a great user experience, you need to get feedback from users. Feedback can help you understand what users want and need, and it can also help you identify problems with your design. Getting feedback early and often is the best way to create a great user experience. There are several ways to do this: Invite people into your design process by soliciting their input. Conduct usability tests and surveys with real people who have never seen or used your product before. Share prototypes with colleagues or friends who might be able to offer useful insights into how well they work (and how much they will be used).
What’s important is that you are actively seeking out feedback on all aspects of your project–not just the parts that seem easy to test like appearance or function, but also the components that make up a user’s emotional connection to your product like security, trustworthiness, humor, joyfulness, and more.
Principle 3: Simplify Text
Users will usually scan text rather than read it word for word, so it’s important to make your text as easy to scan as possible. This can be done by breaking it up into shorter paragraphs with clear headings, using bullet points, and highlighting key words. Additionally, using images and infographics can help break up the text and make it more visually appealing. By simplifying your text, you’ll make it more user-friendly and increase the chances that users will actually read it. A good rule of thumb is to keep paragraphs short and sentences concise. You should also use plenty of white space (i.e., blank space) between sections in order to emphasize the breaks between them.
Use headings (e.g., H1, H2, etc.) when formatting your content so that users can quickly scan a page or skim through a document and see what’s most relevant at a glance. Bullet points are also very useful because they allow readers to easily digest large amounts of information without getting overwhelmed by long blocks of text or dense sentences filled with jargon.
Principle 4: Keep It Simple and Useful
It’s the little things that matter most when it comes to design. The devil is in the details, as they say. And when it comes to user experience, that couldn’t be more true. People have enough trouble with life; we should make them think less, says Jakob Nielsen. One way to do this is by ensuring each button has a clear purpose and the only thing on any given screen are the items you need. Simplicity itself: Fewer clutter, less intrusion.
Principle 5: Write For Everyone
You don’t have to be a copywriter to create good content, but you do have to think about the person who will be reading it. Write for everyone, not just yourself or your target market. Use simple language and short sentences. Get to the point. And make sure your content is error-free – typos and grammatical errors will turn people off. If someone writes their instead of there, does that mean they are unintelligent? Probably not, but there’s no need to assume anything!
Principle 6: Use Call To Actions
A call to action (CTA) is a statement or button that encourages a user to take some desired action, such as purchase a product, sign up for a service, or download something. CTAs are important because they can help guide users to take the next step in their customer journey. As a result, they should be strategically placed on your website so that people don’t miss them.
It’s also worth noting how your CTA will change depending on the platform you are designing for. For example, buttons and other types of web navigation elements may not make sense on mobile devices. And buttons should be oversized and always designed so that clicking them feels intuitive and effortless.
Some good examples include Dropbox’s Get Started CTA at the top right-hand corner of its homepage below its logo and YouTube’s Subscribe CTA below its play bar which takes viewers to an input form with text fields pre-populated with their email address and password.
Principle 7: Design For People First
In the world of UI/UX design, it’s easy to get caught up in the latest trends and technologies. But at the end of the day, we design for people – not machines. That’s why Principle 7 of our list is: Design For People First. Understand your users’ needs and motivations. Get out of the office and meet with them in their environment. Watch how they use your product or service before you say good enough. Talk to them about what they think would make their experience better than what you currently offer, no matter how much you think they might be wrong. Hire a diversity of people who have different backgrounds from yours so that you can see different perspectives when solving problems or developing new features or products.
Principle 8: Details, Details, Details
The devil is in the details, and nowhere is that more true than in the world of UI/UX design. Every element on a screen, no matter how small, should be given careful consideration. Even the smallest details can have a big impact on the overall user experience. Imagine an input field with an outline around it or one without any border at all—both would make it difficult to see where to type your information. A company logo needs to be recognizable from far away, so even if you’re going for a minimalist approach, you need to make sure the logo has plenty of room on the page and stands out against its background color. Likewise, each word in text needs spacing between letters; otherwise people will often think they mistyped something when they haven’t.
Final Note
If you want to improve your website’s design, consider hiring a UI/UX design studio. Specialists can help you focus on key areas, such as making your site more user-friendly and increasing conversion rates. Plus, they can also ensure that your site is designed with responsive design principles in mind, so it looks great on all devices. If you’re based in Bangalore, there are plenty of great studios to choose from. So why not get in touch with one today and see how they can help take your website to the next level? To learn more about UX design check out our blog post: Designing a Better User Experience.
Also Read: The Top 7 UI Elements That are Killing Your Website
Add Comment