UX Design Principles And Best Practices
Your user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design play an important role in the success of your website or app, but they don’t always get the attention they deserve when you’re launching your product. They should, though — you never know what elements of your UI or UX design could be causing problems until it’s too late. If you’re building a new product or planning to revamp an existing one, following these best practices and principles can help ensure that your product is successful and easy to use from day one!
- User Interface
- Information Architecture
- User Experience (UX)
- Applied Business Knowledge
User Interface
A good user interface design can make or break a software product. If users can’t figure out how to use your software product, they will quickly move on and never return. This is why you should care about hiring a professional UI designer to create an easy-to-use interface for your app. If you want to design your own user interface, be sure to follow these 5 key UX design principles. The first principle is information architecture which refers to how users interact with your app.
Navigation should be clear and consistent and not confusing at all; it’s important that your app has a simple layout so users know where they are located in an intuitive way while interacting with it. For example, if you have a mobile app, don’t put too many buttons on one screen because it might overwhelm people and cause them to get lost. The second UX design principle is the feedback:
You need to give feedback immediately after each action. People need instant gratification when using apps or websites otherwise they’ll feel like nothing is happening and become frustrated very quickly. For example, if someone clicks a button on your website or mobile app, there needs to be some sort of visual indication (such as an animation) showing that their click was registered by the system otherwise they’ll think their action didn’t work and click again which causes more confusion than anything else.
Information Architecture
When you create a site or app, you don’t want your users to feel lost or confused. That’s why it’s important to carefully organize your content and features into easily digestible chunks. Think of information architecture as an index for your user—how would they want to read through your product? Are there different levels of depth, does their path matter, what is essential, and what can be removed? All these things should be thought out from a user-experience perspective because research shows that navigating easily is one of the most important aspects of UX design.
When users have an easier time understanding how an interface works, they enjoy using it more and are more likely to come back in order to get value out of it. In fact, according to Nielsen Norman Group, users who said they were satisfied with the ease of use spent twice as much time on a website than those who were dissatisfied. In other words, easy navigation means more engagement and higher conversions. UX design principles like information architecture help bridge gaps between your brand’s goals and its user experience so that everyone wins in the end.
User Experience (UX)
UX design focuses on how to design interfaces, websites, mobile apps, and experiences that are simple, functional, and pleasant for users. UX designers focus on finding a balance between business goals and user needs through user research. In an industry filled with names like user experience, information architecture, and interaction design, it can be confusing to know exactly what makes someone a UX designer.
UI (User Interface) Design: Some people get confused by user interface (UI) design because they don’t realize that UI is a component of UX. UI refers to how you present your content or data to your users, including things like buttons, icons, and images. UI designers use wireframes as tools for creating layouts that make sense in terms of both usability and aesthetics.
Interaction Design: Interaction design is also sometimes referred to as IDX or human-computer interaction (HCI). This type of design focuses on creating usable interactions between humans and computers. For example, if you want your computer screen to look like a button when you tap it with your finger, then you’re working in HCI/interaction design. Information Architecture: Information architecture deals with organizing content so that it’s easy for people to find what they need without getting lost or overwhelmed by too much information at once.
Applied Business Knowledge
If there’s one thing that new designers need to take away from all of my advice, it’s applied business knowledge. You can follow every guideline in detail and live by every rule your professor and books tell you, but if you don’t know why you do something a certain way, it won’t matter.
Understanding why rules are in place will help make your design more efficient and allow you to make better decisions while working on real projects. One good example is knowing when to throw a close enough is a good enough approach out the window. There’s nothing worse than spending hours perfecting pixel-perfect details only to realize no one will ever notice or care about them.
Learn how to determine what needs attention and what doesn’t. For instance, white space has a purpose and plays an important role in setting content apart from each other; using gut instinct alone won’t always lead to the best results. To figure out exactly where white space should go, research human psychology and see how different colors affect moods—and then apply those principles to your designs.
Take full advantage of libraries like Google Images and ColourLovers for inspiration as well. They’re great resources for getting started with colors that work well together or picking colors based on themes (such as pink for breast cancer awareness). These simple tweaks may not seem like much at first glance, but they go a long way toward creating user interfaces people love using.
So for better UI design, good research is required you have to do it carefully.
