A website is all about user experience right? Undoubtedly, UX design is one of the vital elements of a website.
User experience is one vast practice. It’s subject to change as well. A competent designer knows it well how pivotal is to comprehend the timeline and resources to UX development.
When people use your UI, they definitely realize a vibe (either positive or negative). Then they come up with opinions. Believe us, this one impression holds conversion, profitability, and the success of your business.
We have seen quite a lot in the previous year. And we really don’t know whether it’s easy to single some remarkable trends from the mint.
Here are 15 essential rules that draw a bold line between a good designer and a great one.
Have a look:
1. UX is not all about UI: Holding a ‘Design Lead’ title might satisfy you. Wait a minute. Have checked out what others are doing?
There are actually plenty of people holding the same title.
Time to burst the bubble. 53% of the designers swap UX with UI.
“People ignore design that ignores people.”
— Frank Chimero,
What is the difference between UI/UX design?
It’s essential to know the difference between these two disciplines. Here we go-
UI– User interface is the space where the interaction between a product and the human happens, say for the landing page of the website
UX– User experience is an emotional reaction occurs after interacting with a product.
2. User research is necessary: There are designers in the industry with 15-20 years of professional experience in digital design.
These people know how to design a product for the audience.
These people know how to evolve the craft with a shift of time and trend. This is necessary. Else, stagnancy won’t be an alternative.
However, you have to know your audience well before start designing. Track the needs and the interests of your audience.
It’s the users who will use the product right? Instead of the features, focus on the benefits of the products.
3. Focus on the content: It’s the ‘content’ which decides the design of the website or the app. Deviating from the content will impact the user experience.
Do you know 46% of the users leave a site as they feel there’s a lack of message?
You can’t be brief with your content so that if anyone lands on your page find it difficult to understand the content.
In this approach of UX design, there’s normally a typical hierarchy. It’s the hierarchy of the content that drives you developing the entire foundation.
The key is to keep the content relevant and engaging.
4. Think from the user’s perspective: You are not the user. Are you?
Designers often mix that users will also have the same interface as they do.
If you are the designer, don’t assume that you will use the product. This effect is described as ‘false census’ in the study of Psychology.
People who will use the product are from different backgrounds, different tastes, and different mindsets.
How would you overcome this false census then?
There is a technique to destroy this false census. This is called ‘usability testing’. Show your design to your friends, family, or even colleagues.
This could be a bit time-consuming. But trust us this is the best way to find out whether you are going in the right direction.
5. Showing off the design won’t help:
“When UX doesn’t consider ALL users, shouldn’t it be known as “SOME User Experience” or… SUX?”
— Billy Gregory,
Showing off the design won’t help: Your back-end tech skill might be an extraordinary one, that never means it will serve your purpose.
The only opinion that matters would be the end-users’.
Accept this fact from the very beginning.
Of course, technically you know the best. UX is part of software development. So, users need a little time to understand the design archetype.
Try not to overdo it. Unless you have a sound interpretation, go by the existing UX principles.
Always remember people tend to choose online really really fast. Keep your design simple and engaging.
6. Play the ball with the short span design: Designers are creative people. Naturally, they tend to spread out creativity across all the corners.
Too much information, too much boredom!
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?
That’s how the users think when they see a website.
How do you get into UX design?
We know you are already in the state of shock.
Let someone concentrate on your work. Just don’t provide too much information so that they get distracted.
A 2015 study convoyed by Microsoft detected that the average human attention span has declined from 12 seconds to 8 seconds.
Already it’s 2019! Don’t you think this attention span has reduced as people are more time-bound than ever.
Making designs simpler and cutting short the interface will pull more and more audience. All information would be valuable and bang on.
7. Are you sure you know the right UX writing?
Do know you the correct UX writing?
Don’t mingle UX writing with copywriting. There are a lot of similarities though.
Because, both the jobs are designated to make the audience understand the product easily and well.
You can simply wipe out this article. Then you miss out the latest UX writing style. Can you afford?
UX design is done much before the product needs a copywriter. Technically the design team designs a webpage first. Then they send the screenshot to the marketing people in ‘Lorem Ipsum’ space holders.
Then copywriters appear to the scene to fill the space with information, instructions and may be a call-to-action at a later phase.
People see the entire content (Design+Words). Sometimes, the content overpowers the design. This is where designers find the most amount of difficulty.
For us, this is just like the run-of-the-mill. We have distinguished experts handling both the segments up to par.
8. The prototype appears first then developing the product: This is another area where most of the UX designers stumble upon. They put all their effort to make the design look good because they believe it’s good.
This is one fine area where you need to prioritize the prototype. Else, it might get really stressful by the end.
Prototyping is creating a product model before anything else so that it can be tested later. This actually helps you to test your proposition before you sit with your development team.
The fun part is you can actually use multiple designs for prototyping. A popular prototyping testing is ‘rapid prototyping’. With this method, you can create future state product really fast.
9. Focus on the navigation: Focus on the navigation: Navigations are so important that a user should better find it easily accessible. You can make navigations tangible through simple visual queues.
Make the navigations logical as well. For instance, if a user clicks on a new page and it slides in from the left, then the original page appears on the right side. Material Design uses paper as a source to layering, making the result very real and relevant.
A navigation menu is something that keeps your audience more context-oriented. Get the navigations a better visibility s that the users navigate your site with ease.
10. A good designer has to be a good storyteller: “There are three responses to a piece of design– yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for.” — Milton Glaser
Unless you are not a good storyteller people won’t pay heed to your design. Describe your story through design which includes-
- Structure
- Purpose
- Element
- Problems &
- Solution
Remember UX design should essentially have all these secret ingredients. A good, consistent story would generate 2X greater user experience.
Now let’s zoom onto the part ‘consistency’. ‘Consistency’ can be provided by consistent visuals, fonts, color themes, and CTAs to name a few.
11. Personalize the experience: When common people connect with any design they are likely to relate it with human characteristics. It could be either ‘thumbs up’/ ‘thumbs down’.
So, like or dislike are human impressions. Obviously, it comes from the connection which leads to their loyalty to the particular brand.
If a website looks every other website, it will hardly turn as many heads as it wants to. Dull, impersonal websites barely attract any audience.
A website essentially needs to be appealing. Work on your UX design to clasp a greater user base.
12. Users hate errors like anything: Your design should have the space for user errors. Plan your design in a way so that if a user does any mistake it still runs the same.
For instance, search engines autocorrect user spellings. If they didn’t, searches wouldn’t be likely the same. Work on accessibility and functionality.
Definitely, aesthetics is important but don’t neglect functionalities. It’s impossible to find all errors in a line while designing it.
Errors come in the frame when users make it.
How to fix the errors when you can’t foresee them?
If any error occurs, provide the instructions to solve it. If a website or an app stops because a user made a mistake it’s a huge turn-off.
To experience amazing web designs that build tremendous user experience team up with us. Experience the real power of design to influence the user.
For digital assistance give us a call: 9830035775