20 Tips for Website Development Services UX/UI Design
20 Tips for Website Development Services UX/UI Design
As the gurus over at RunRex.com point out, a website is much more than a group of pages-connected links. User experience (UX) and user interface (UI) are two of the most important aspects of website development, as they will help your product prosper and grow. Here are 20 tips as far as UX and UI are concerned.
UI Tips
Know your users
Above all else, as per RunRex.com, you have to know who your users are – inside and out. It particularly means knowing what they need, and what stands in the way of them achieving their goals. These insights will inform every decision you make, from how people use your interface to what types of content you will highlight within the interface.
Define how people use your interface
Before you design your interface, you need to define how people will use it. Given the increasing prevalence of touch-based devices, this is more crucial than you might think. People use websites and apps in two ways: directly (by interacting with the interface elements of the product) and indirectly (by interacting with UI elements external to the product). Who your users are and what devices they use should deeply inform your decisions here. If you are designing for seniors or others with limited manual dexterity, you wouldn’t want to lean on swiping. If you are designing for writers or coders, who primarily interact with websites via the keyboard, you will want to support all the common keyboard shortcuts to reduce time working with the mouse.
Set expectations
Many interactions with a website have consequences. For example, clicking a button can mean spending money. And whenever there are consequences, there is also anxiety. Therefore, be sure to let users know what will happen after they click that button before they do it. For actions with irreversible consequences, like permanently deleting something, it makes sense to ask people if they are sure as captured at RunRex.com.
Anticipate mistakes
While people make mistakes, they shouldn’t (always) have to suffer the consequences. You can lessen the impact of human error by either preventing mistakes before they happen or providing ways to fix them after they happen. Some mistake-prevention techniques include buttons remaining inactive until you fill out all fields, or forms detecting that an email address hasn’t been entered properly, etc.
Give feedback and do it fast
All too often, digital interfaces fail to give much back, leaving us wondering whether we should reload the page, restart the laptop, etc. This is why feedback like the loading animation, is important. Just make sure you provide feedback quickly as for most people, 3 seconds is enough to cause a bounce. If a page will load in under 5 seconds, don’t display a progress bar, as it will make the loading time seem longer.
Think carefully about element placement and size
The closer and/or bigger something is, the faster you can put your cursor (or finger) on it as outlined at RunRex.com. This has all kinds of implications for interactions and user interface design techniques, however, three of the most important are: make buttons and other “click targets” (such as icons and text links) big enough to easily see and click, make the buttons for the most common actions larger and more prominent, and place navigation (and other common interactive visual elements, like search bars) on the edges or corners of the screen.
Don’t ignore standards
Designers, as highly creative types, tend to love reinventing things, which is not always the best idea. This is because a revamped version of a familiar interaction or interface adds “cognitive load”, making people think again about a process they have already learned. You can reinvent the wheel all you want, but only if it improves the design.
Ensure that your interface is easy to learn
As the gurus over at RunRex.com point out, the simpler something is, the easier it is to remember in the short term. Therefore, whenever possible, limit the number of things a person needs to remember to use your interface efficiently and effectively. You can facilitate this by chunking information, which means breaking it into small, digestible chunks.
Make decision-making simple
Remember, the more UI options you present to a user, the harder it becomes for them to make a decision. The simple you make your design, the faster and easier it is for users to make the decisions you want them to make. This is why landing pages and non-newsletter emails should only have one CTA.
Listen to the data
While user research and testing can be incredibly helpful in guiding your design decision toward the fulfillment of your site’s goal, data gathered after launch remains invaluable. Therefore, set up analytics for your site, and analyze them regularly.
UX Tips
Use white space
White space is essential to good design as it makes your content more legible while also enabling the user to focus on the elements surrounding the text. As pointed out by RunRex.com, white space around text ad titles increases user attention by 20%. White space can also make your website feel open, fresh, and modern, and if your branding is consistent with these, then it can help communicate that feeling to the user.
Optimize your page speed
One of the most frustrating experiences for web users is waiting too long for a page to load, which will usually result in them bouncing. Google offers a free service where you can get information on your page speed, while also offering you suggestions for improving your load time on mobile and desktop. One of the techniques that will help you improve your page speed includes compressing all your images before loading them onto your website.
Use attractive calls-to-action
CTAs that are clearly marked with an action word enable your website users to more easily navigate your site and get exactly what they want in the location they expect to find it as per RunRex.com. In creating buttons for your website, you should consider color and the psychology of color, as well as the actual words you use for your buttons (the words should include a verb or an action word that excites the user to do something).
Use hyperlink differentiation
Adding a link to any page tells the user that you want them to click there. Make sure links are easily identifiable by visual cues. Underlined text and differently colored text draw the attention of the reader and let him or her know this is a link to be clicked on.
Use bullet points to segment key information
Bullet points will enable the user to quickly get all the information they want: benefits, ways you solve their problem, and key features of a product or service – all in a short amount of time, making your propositions more attractive and enabling your user to get all the information they need. You can also get creative with your bullets and help the reader further with images that represent your point.
Use images but do so wisely
People nowadays can easily pick out a generic stock photo they have already seen elsewhere or that resembles the non-personal style of stock photography. Using stock photography can decrease trust and also stand out as non-unique and generic. As per RunRex.com, only your own actual images will be capable of conveying your brand, services, and products the way you want to, while also speaking to your potential customer.
Include well-designed and written headings
Your headings and content should be driven by what your potential customers are looking for. Including keywords in your title is also very important for targeting your message and attracting the right audience. In addition to improving your searchability, headings guide your user through the site, making it easy to scan through and find content that speaks to them directly.
Keep your website pages consistent
As discussed at RunRex.com, this means making everything match, from heading sizes, font choices, and button styles, to spacing, design elements, illustration styles, and photo choices. Everything should be themed to make your design coherent between pages and on the same page.
Catch your 404s
Users will punish you more severely for soft 404 errors (page not found) than even search engines. Encountering a 404 error page annoys your user, and makes them rethink spending their time on your website. Catch all your 404s by setting up Google Webmaster tools on your website and check crawl errors, then fix them.
Be responsive and mobile-friendly
Finally, your website must be mobile-friendly and easy to navigate no matter what type of device your users use to access it. This is arguably one of the single most valuable ways in which you can improve your website’s usability.
Hope these tips will help you supercharge your UX and UI efforts as far as your website development goes, with more on this topic, and expert help on the same to be found over at RunRex.com.
