6 UI Design Tips for Effective User Interfaces

Suppose you recall the situation when using a digital product. In that case, you can easily navigate through the menus and features, recognize the purpose of the buttons and icons without additional time, and have the same seamless experience across web and app versions. You can be sure that this product has the best user interface (UI) designers.

The importance of UI is not only in providing aesthetic satisfaction. It fills the gap between the purely technical side of the application and its functionality, which has to be straightforward and enjoyable for every user. Investing in building a solid UI pays off. And this is confirmed by the numbers: a thought-after user interface boosts the conversion rates up to 200%, while a superior one can generate even 400%.

So why lose those percentages that generate your revenue, neglecting effective UI design? We are here to break down this topic into actionable tips for building UI with user comfort in mind.

UI Design Tips and Tricks

When aiming to create a good UI design, it is crucial to approach this process comprehensively. To encompass every aspect of this journey, you can focus on those pillars that keep the UI building procedure umbrella.

So here are the tricks and tips after considering which, you will be sure your users receive a top-class experience and want to come to your product repeatedly.

1. User-Centered Design

The concept of user-centered design (UCD) revolves around incorporating end-user needs and preferences. This means that all decisions are based on a clear understanding of what users want to see in the application rather than assumptions.

Implementing a consumer-focused approach comes with multiple benefits. The first one is improved usability. UCD allows creators to walk all the steps in “users” shoes, making an easy and intuitive interface. This leads directly to the following benefit, which is increased user satisfaction. Wouldn’t you be content with a product offering seamless navigation with advanced functionality? Indeed, you would! You would engage better and boost the conversion rate.

Why You Need to Research User Needs and Goals

The core of user-centered design is deep knowledge about user motives, pain points, and goals. Not listening to customer feedback through interviews and other research techniques puts you at risk of building a product that doesn’t reflect real user beliefs.

Diving deep into user research brings another point for you as a product owner: you think about your audience with empathy. Building emotional connection is a precious thing the digital world lacks after welcoming artificial intelligence and automation to the club.

Building UCD: Key Stages

Good user-centered design can be achieved by following these steps:

• Empathy. Researching deep user desires, staying on the same page with them, and aiming to create solutions for their pain points.
• Identification. Synthesizing valuable insights from user research and putting the information into an actionable plan.
• Idea creation. Drafting solutions that solve user pains.
• Prototyping. Creating UI app design prototypes that reflect and improve the main idea along the way.
• Testing. Encouraging real users to evaluate the design and then improving the current version based on their feedback.

2. Consistency and Clarity

Intuitive UI/UX design is built on two milestones: consistency and clarity. If the latter one is easy to understand, the question about consistency is more complicated. When a UI design is consistent, all its elements align with one idea, and users can predict the outcomes without spending much time researching the product. For instance, if you put a shopping cart in the upper right corner of every page, customers will reach it easily every time as they know where it is located.

Building a Consistent Visual Language

Every time you create a digital product design, you create your visual language, which reflects your brand’s identity. A consistent visual language consists of choosing these elements:

• Typography. Fonts, text size, headers, etc
• Signs. Icons, symbols, and indexes
• Color patterns. Color palette, contrasts, and schemes

Unifying all those UI aspects creates a consistent design that is easier to recognize and interact with.

Clear Labeling and Information Organization Tips

These UI design tips will guide you when aiming to create a clear and cohesive digital product design:

1. Communicate in simple language. Be as straightforward as possible. Don’t overwhelm users with technical terms unless this is required.
2. Be consistent with labels. Use the same label design across the whole platform. For example, if you created a red exit button, let it appear the same everywhere it is needed.
3. Highlight elements for better recognition. Emphasize elements with contrasting colors and different fonts for quicker reaction.
4. Design with accessibility and cultural differences in mind. To target a global audience, you must consider regional differences and provide alternative options for people with special needs.

3. Visual Hierarchy

The Nielsen Norman Group explains visual hierarchy as a way of controlling information delivery. This means that you, as a designer, prioritize some elements on the screen that influence how users perceive your product.

You have witnessed a poor visual hierarchy if you enter the website and can’t figure out what to do or where to click. As a human’s reaction to exploring the page is measured in milliseconds, it is crucial to prioritize UI elements so that they guide people from the very beginning.

Methods for Building Harmonious Visual Hierarchy

Designers use diverse tricks and techniques to deliver the information in the correct order:

• Size. We notice first what is bigger.
• Color. We pay attention to bright colors like red or yellow as they attract us more than muted ones.
• Positioning. We consider the information put on top as more critical.

Good and Bad Visual Hierarchy: Examples

The fundamental principle of visual hierarchy dictates that nothing will seem important if every element is essential. To understand a good visual hierarchy, you can visit Spotify’s landing page. Thanks to color contrast, you will quickly find the “Get Spotify Free” button or subscription to their “Premium”. You will also have a smooth experience reading the information as it is given in moderation.

An example you should mark as a lesson is the Daily Mail website. This new platform presents too many headings, secondary headings, and pop-ups, making the user experience overwhelming.

4. Accessibility

Mobile UI design should be accessible to all users, including those with special needs. This is an ethical consideration and a general practice as, according to the World Health Organization, more than one billion people have different kinds of impairments.

By providing accessible UI design, you broaden your user base, stand as a respected brand on the market, and comply with regulations such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Design Solutions for Users with Disabilities

Tips for UI design that consider accessibility depend on users’ impairment.For example, for the category of people who have visual impairments, consider adding screen readers, text alternatives for visual elements, and the ability to enlarge the text size to the maximum.

People with cognitive impairments might need complex information broken down into simple pieces and written in simple language. If you provide audio material, add captions for people with hearing disabilities to comprehend it.

How to Build Accessible Interfaces

When implementing accessible design principles, you can follow these tips:

1. Create color contrast.
2. Produce descriptive alt-text images.
3. Build a clear and simple structure.
4. Include keyboard navigation.
5. Implement focus navigators.

5. Feedback and Microinteractions

Imagine the situation when you click on the image, and nothing happens. Then you double-check your Internet connection, reload the website and waste time doubting your every action. However, there was no fault from your side; the provider just omitted proper feedback, writing, “The image is uploading, please wait”. This is why providing clear feedback and encouraging microinteractions are crucial to ensure users are on the right path.

Why Care about Microinteractions in UI

As the name implies, microinteractions are often unnoticeable on the platform. However, these tiny details provide considerable value. First of all, they keep the user informed. And when people are aware of what is happening, they are calm.Secondly, instant feedback prevents errors. Instead of trying to fix something that is not working or loading, users will patiently wait as they receive a message. This stops them from creating more chaos.

And thirdly, those small interactions create an overall positive environment and bonding experience with the audience.

Examples of Effective Feedback and Microinteraction Practices

One solid example of effective feedback is form validation. Imagine that you are creating a password, and it has to follow all the security rules. How many attempts would you need to take if there were no indications of how strong your password is or what symbols it lacks? Numerous, which is why form validation is an excellent example of how effective feedback in UI is.

6. Testing and Iteration

UI design results validation occurs through testing and iteration. After you research the users, implement all possible solutions to their needs, and build accessible interfaces, you have to confirm all those findings practically apply to users’ situations. And testing is a brilliant instrument for that!

UI Testing Methods

To check whether your UI design is reliable and responsive, you can use various testing methods such as usability testing, A/B testing, interviewing, card sorting, and surveying users.

UI Design Iteration Based on Testing Results

An essential part of testing is transforming its results into an actionable plan. These steps will help you implement changes based on the testing results:

• Deal with key issues first. Prioritize fixing hot and critical problems, as users will mention them. But that doesn’t mean the whole list should be sent for immediate fixing.
• Don’t stop testing and test from the beginning. Implement testing from the prototypes. The earlier you spot errors, the easier it will be to fix them.
• Iterate with users in mind. While metrics are also important, the user-centered approach should also be applied to product improvement.

Conclusion

The user interface represents your “brand’s face”. So, it should be clean, cohesive, and intuitive. To achieve that result, you need to build your design following the principles of user-centricity, consistency and clarity, visual hierarchy, accessibility, feedback, testing, and iteration. However, building a design based on these aspects is not enough. You also need to keep your eyes open for updates within the design realm, test often, and encourage iterations.