User experience (UX) design has been gaining traction as an industry trend in recent years. It’s still new enough, however, that many people have never heard of it—let alone have had the opportunity to learn about it in depth. For designers who are seeking to learn more about UX principles, but who aren’t sure where to start, this guide will cover everything you need to know about UX design so you can use it in your work today.
The Basics
Designing a product is all about creating a user interface that both engages and delights users. It starts with understanding how people view, interact with, and respond to products. The most important thing you can do when designing a product is identify your target audience and understand what they want in order to provide an experience. To do this, you must dig deep into the consumer’s habits by conducting research on who your customers are and what they need.
Use Realistic Mockups
Designing for the web is different than designing for an application or a product. With the web, there are more facets to consider when designing user interfaces (UI) and user experiences (UX). In this post, we’ll take a look at some of these differences. Specifically, we’ll focus on getting started with UIX design by exploring some UI concepts in greater detail.
Align Intuition with Functionality
In designing your application, you take into account the type of end user who will be using it. They may have different experience levels and expertise, which is why you need to design with functionality in mind. For example, an interface may be cluttered for a novice, but pleasantly simplistic for a veteran.
Map Out Key Messages
The human brain has an incredible capacity for learning – we quickly pick up new ideas, even those outside of our expertise. However, it can only handle so much input at a time before becoming overwhelmed. When you design your user interface (UI), it’s important to focus on which tasks your users are trying to complete and prioritize them in a way that makes sense for the context.
Practice Smarter, Not Harder
UI/UX design is a highly detailed profession where each change, no matter how minute, can have an enormous impact on the success of your website. Your goal as a designer should be to make your website intuitive and easy for visitors to use. To accomplish this goal, you need to understand the following five fundamental principles: user empathy, usability testing, web standards, heuristic evaluation methods, and visual design.
Do What Works Best for Users, Not Yourself
One of the fundamental steps in creating any design, whether it’s UI/UX, graphic design, or any other form of creative content is to make sure it fulfills the needs of the user. Designers often start from their own end point, what they want for themselves rather than what the user would like. Consequently, one important rule in UI/UX is do what works best for users, not yourself.
Keep Your Audience in Mind
Don’t get too caught up in the specifics of what it takes to make a website look beautiful, there’s more to great design than just visual beauty. That’s why we’re going to focus on the human aspect of design – user-centric design. What we mean by this is taking into account the needs and desires of your audience so that you can tailor your product accordingly. You want visitors coming back for more so let’s talk about how you can keep them interested from start to finish.
Minimize Unexpected Displays of Information (UDIs)
UDIs are also called ‘navigations’, but they represent any element on a page (mostly graphics) which directs or influences the reader. If they don’t match, the user will be confused. A simple way to prevent this is by using whitespace. Leave some space in between objects so the user can anticipate what might happen next without having it happen too quickly.
Aim to Create Clear Calls-to-Action (CTAs)
- Evaluate the full website or app flow before adding a CTA. What are you trying to lead your visitors to do? For example, if your intent is for them to sign up for a newsletter, then put it somewhere on the site where it’s easy for them to find, and make sure you have an attractive design.
- Add important CTAs as soon as possible in the visitor’s website or app journey. It’s a good idea to include at least one CTA at every page of your site; when people browse from page to page, they’re likely to forget about the last call-to-action they saw.
- Keep CTAs clear and concise: three words is best, including action verbs like learn more or sign up.
- Make buttons clear and easily identifiable so that users know what they’re clicking on: clickable icons (such as arrows) work well here.
Utilize Page Transitions That Seamlessly Guide Users Along Their Journey
Page transitions are an important tool in designing UI/UX interfaces. There are many transitions to choose from, but the most common way is a slide transition. Pages can be turned or slided, two distinct ways of achieving a transition. However, it’s important to avoid confusing your users by following certain rules for when you should use which transition.
Final Note
It’s never too late to take charge of your UI/UX needs, even if you don’t consider yourself the most technologically savvy person. Rather than invest the time into learning how design interfaces from scratch, hire a UI/UX company in India. Investing in UI/UX design is always worthwhile in both tangible and intangible ways. You get a new design for your website or app that has been created with the latest trends in mind, which will help you gain traction over competitors.
