Key Elements Of UX/UI Design
Most people interact with the Internet daily, but not everyone experiences the Web in the same way or for the same reasons.
That’s why a great UX (user experience) is key for many businesses. If you’ve ever deleted an app or refused to shop online at a certain site again, you’ll know that the value that could represent across thousands of people can hit businesses where it hurts. UX is a huge, ever-growing field, and the expertise behind each decision we make and the path we follow in our digital lives.
When you want to make or buy something while on a website, you make decisions. Analyzing the key elements of UX, you will better understand how these decisions are made. By meeting the needs of users, we motivate them to stay on the website, engage in interaction, and be more satisfied.
What is UX?
Before going to see the most important elements, let’s address what is UX?. UX is an abbreviation for user experience, and it refers to all the aspects of the end user’s interaction with a system, product, service or company. it means that when designing any kind of new interface, it is important from a user experience perspective that you try to be consistent and predictable in your choice of interface elements. Overall experience encompasses all the elements that together make up an interface, including visual design, text, layout, brand, sound, and interaction. Great UX design is all about choosing to adopt the right elements when appropriate to help with task completion, efficiency, and satisfaction. Whether you’re designing an app or a website, UX design is all about usability. Designing for the user experience.
To ensure the UX of your website is just as good (if not better) than everyone else’s, there are a few key components you should consider during the design process. The process goes from bottom to top.
- Strategy:
The strategy defines the reason why an application or product exists, why you are doing the whole business, who you are doing and why people would use it. The main goal here is to define the needs of users and business goals. This can be done through strategic research where potential users would be interviewed on one side, and business needs would be adjusted on the other.
- Volume:
The scope defines the functional and content requirements. What features and content should the product contain? Requirements should meet strategic goals.
- Functional Requirements: related to the functioning of the entire side, as certain parts work together. These are the characteristics that the user needs to store to achieve a specific goal.
- Content Requirements: the information we need to give value to what we do (text, images, video). Without defining the content, we will not know how much time it takes the complete the project.
- Structure:
The structure defines the user’s interaction with the product, the behavior of the whole system, how it is organized, and how much it should be displayed at a given moment. There are two structural components: interactive design & information architecture.
- Interactive Design: When functional features are already defined, it defines the user’s relationship with the product as a system that needs to respond to given user requests.
- Information Architecture (IA): When requirements are given, it defines how the content should be organized and where it is set, in order to facilitate the user’s understanding of the product.
Excellent Interactive Design:
- Helps users meet their goals;
- Has effective interactivity and functionality (what the user can do);
- It informs the user about changing conditions while on the page (the file has been saved, feedback when the wrong email has been entered, etc.);
- Prevents errors when the application requires confirmation from the user for a potentially harmful effect (eg, deletion).
Excellent Information Architecture:
- Organizes content by categories and priority information based on user needs and business goals;
- Making easily understandable content and switching from one content to another is simple.
- It is suitable for your audience.
- It is flexible for adaptation and adapts to changes.
- Skeleton:
The skeleton determines the visual form of the screen and presents all the elements that need to interact. Shows how the user moves through information and how the information is presented to be clear, effective, and obvious.
Wireframes are widely used to create a visual format. It is a static diagram that presents the visual format of the product, which includes content, navigation, and all forms of interaction.
The skeleton is divided into three parts: Design of the interface, design of navigation, and information design.
- Interface Design: Presenting and editing elements so they can interact with the functionality of the application;
- Navigation Design: the way of navigating through the information;
- Information Design: presentation of the information in an easily understandable way.
The skeleton should answer the following questions:
- What visual forms should be presented on the screen?
- How can interactions be presented and divided?
- How can a user move around the site or application?
- How can the content be presented?
- Area:
The last step. It refers to how your product, typography, colors, the actual layout, and so on will look. The goal is to simplify things, be easy to understand,for and the user to absorb the necessary information. It is necessary to visually present the entire content and buttons, for the user to know what they can do and how to communicate with them.
Conclusion:
Everything is connected. If you do not have a clear strategy, you pay the price over the entire project. An ordinary decision can completely change the course of the project. It’s okay to make your decisions change from time to time, and of course, you can “punch”. It’s not good to make fixed decisions because, in the end, it can turn out to be a product that no one wants. Changes are inevitable.
The root of every successful design is a strategy, which later becomes the scope where the goals of the user and the business are set. Below is the structure where the interactions and the distribution of information are defined. Through wireframes, “scanners are made” to present the interactions and structure defined in the design. The skeleton allows the information to be presented. Finally, on the surface, all the decisions made up to then are taken into account, and a final visual presentation is made.
Understanding Your Role in the Design Process: Problems, Not Solutions
In terms of aesthetics, a design is, by and large, a tool to convey a message to your users. Are you a large company? Are you a professional? Do you have a sense of humor? Or simply (and most importantly), “What is it that you do?” These are all questions that will be answered for your users in fewer than 5 seconds of viewing your website, so you must be sending the right message. Just because you’re a small company doesn’t mean your site needs to be presented as such. There are several steps you can take to assure yourself that you’ll end up with top-notch website design:
- Understand Your Users:
It’s important to understand your users and their expectations. This is usually accomplished via experience in any given field; alternatively, market research can supply you with the answers you need if you’re relatively new in your industry.
- Inform your designer of problems in your design; avoid supplying him or her with solutions:
When I design a site for a client, I’m inevitably supplied with a solution. You should let your designer know of the problem you’re having rather than give him or her a solution. For example, I might be told to remove the blue background and replace it with a pink background. What the client should really say here is that the site needs to look more feminine (assuming that’s the problem). There are many alternative remedies for this other than the most obvious (making the entire background pink).
- Leave your (Personal) tastes at the door*:
If your website isn’t for personal branding, it’s important to try to avoid seeking designs that satisfy your tastes over the tastes and needs of your users and your business. If you have an idea you think would be great or if you see something you hate, it’s best to gather opinions from several other people before getting your heart set on it. Designers hear ideas all the time; many ideas that are new to clients fall cliché to the ears of designers. Oftentimes, we know something will not work based on the fact that we’ve already tried it in the past.
- Don’t be afraid of change:
If your business has never had any professional marketing or branding consultation, it’s usually best to let go of any de facto branding you might have and let professional designers guide you to something more appropriate.
- Talk to Your Designer:
It’s important to keep an open line of communication and to express your concerns. As designers, we love input and ideas from our clients and anyone else who has the patience to look at our work. We especially love well-thought-out ideas rather than seemingly arbitrary ones. The biggest mistake clients make is dictating the design before discussing their options with their designer, this approach will result in a failed design. After all, you are paying someone for their expertise in design, it doesn’t make sense to try to take on the role of a designer.
If you have an idea or concern, discuss it with your designer. A good designer will give you feedback and will supply a solution or solutions (s).
*Be aware, there is a gray area; you need to be happy with your final design. Just because your design was not dictated by your taste doesn’t mean you have to accept whatever you receive in terms of design.
Your taste will have an effect on the site’s outcome – that’s ok (sometimes it can even work in your favor). What you want to avoid is having your design dictated and possibly hindered by your personal taste, rather than what’s best for your company, brand, and/or users.
If you take nothing else from this, remember Problems, not solutions.
