UX Best Practices

UI/UX design is a new and upcoming field in the digital media world, but its concepts have been around since the creation of interactive media.  Great UI/UX, or user interface and experience, is a balance of both high convertion rates and ease of use.  These two are great together because it means more business for your company and there is a lack of frustration with the software that can immediately leave a bad taste in a customer's mouth.  Thankfully, there is a lot of research out there for what makes great UI/UX. For your next web design project, try some of these suggestions out and see how they work out for your client's business.

1. Know Your User

This is a no brainer.  You need to design for the user and not yourself.  Context plays a big part in the design.  What is the site about?  What is the purpose?  What is the end goal?  Design these things with both the user and client in mind.

Also, while you may know how to use a website because you designed it, your users might not have the same intuition to click something.  Make things more intuitive.

2.  Surprise The User

While I just said to keep things intuitive, surprise the user occasionally.  This will provide a better user experience and it will stay in the user's mind.

3.  Solve Problems

One of the many reasons you have been hired as a ui/ux designer is to solve problems.  A website or product can be a great tool for solving problems.  Solve these problems through design, but keep things intuitive and don't over-complicate.  Everything on your website is there to help the user.

4. Keep a Consistent Navigation

One of the easiest ways to confuse a user is to switch up the navigation.  You may think that your navigation gets boring if it remains the same across all pages, but really it is quite comforting to know where the navigation is, know where the links are within the menu, and where they are at within the site.

5. Rethink What You Just Designed

There are multiple ways of designing something within every aspect of your design.  There are thousands of fonts, colors, shapes, layouts, progressions, forms, etc. etc. etc.

For example, instead of a three column layout, try out a one column layout.  A one column layout will keep your layout more focused.  It leads to a better narrative and better attentiveness.

For more of these examples, there is a great blog called goodui.org.  I recommend reading every one of their posts.