With the technological advancement of the 21st century, everyone wants to experience the best technology without spending too much time and exhausting their busy brains. The same goes for browsing websites or mobile apps, where the faster and more responsive the website or mobile app is, the more successful it is. And, when it comes to user satisfaction of a mobile app or website, most tech companies focus on the user interface (UI) of the apps and user experience (UX) design. However, most of the time people confuse the terms UI and UX. So, we are here to decipher the concept of UI and UX design.
What is user interface design?
User interface, which is everything that has to do with appearance.
User interface (UI), on the other hand, is the process of improving the presentation and interactivity of the web or mobile app. It focuses on how the application looks and interacts with users. Every screen, page, buttons and other visual elements that you see when using an application is the User Interface of that application.
What is UX design?
UX design works on the user experience.
User experience (UX) design is the procedure to improve the overall experience of users when interacting with the application or website in order to achieve its goal of providing maximum customer satisfaction. It takes customers into account and creates the basic skeleton of any application. It mainly focuses on the wireframe of an application and structuring all its components and elements in a proper way to create the user flow.
So why is UI/UX design so important?
UI/UX design and user experience help to gain consumers’ trust and get them to use your application or website by providing them with what they are looking for. The number of consumers you get on your website/app can measure the success of great UI and UX.
For a start-up or small business, the importance of UI and UX design becomes even more crucial, as first impressions last a long time and the use of UI and UX design can make or break brand recognition.
The 8 keys to UI/UX design
There goes the key components of UI/UX design, which you should keep in mind:
Information architecture.
Information architecture, also known as IA, is about satisfying business strategies by designing the information structure of the application or site. The primary function of IA is to provide your users with easy navigation, regardless of the browser they use. It is about using maximum permutations and combinations to provide the best navigation and top-level menu.
Interaction design
Interaction design is about creating the conceptual design with which users interact with the product and/or application. This interaction includes various elements such as aesthetics, color, font, icons, images, motion, sound, space, graphics, etc.
Usability
Usability can also be referred to as ease of use. In addition to finding out whether users get the information they want when using the application or visiting the site for the first time and whether the application/website is easy to navigate, usability also encompasses ways to handle errors.
Wireframing
Wireframing involves creating a sample application to test the features, look and feel and usability of the application before launch. It is an inexpensive way to test functionality and evaluate whether the application is fit for purpose.
Visual design
The visual design of the application or website is like defining the company’s brand. The completion of the visual design can affect user behavior and is therefore the most important component of user interface design. Visual design is not only about selecting the best images, colors, icons and fonts, but also identifying the aspect of the application that affects the interaction of its users.
Simple and uncomplicated is best
Easy, uncomplicated and simple websites attract people more than over-designed and complex ones. So don’t try to overload your website with complexity. Instead, try to make it simple and convenient. This way, you will make visitors happy, as they will be able to go through your website without any difficulty.
Select your layout using grids
Well, imagine you have a place to live where there are no rooms, just a large living room. And in that living room you are supposed to cook, clean, rest, play and dress. Imagine that everything is lying here and there, your utensils on the bed, shoes in the kitchen, clothes in the dining room. Wouldn’t it be a mess? Obviously it would be.
So, we guess you’ve understood how important compartments are, right? Just like in the previous example, rooms are necessary to organize your home. In the same way, a website needs different sections to organize everything properly.
In addition, grid layouts organize your site’s content into different columns, boxes and sections that line up and look balanced. In this way, they make a website well organized and easy to use.
White Space
Now comes the most important part of a good website, which is the white space. It also has to do with the height of the text. So, line height is the most important area you should focus on. You must complement a line height, otherwise, your sentences will turn into a huge block of letters.
Content design/writing
There is this golden line to always remember and that is- “Content is king and will always be king” but the queen here is marketing: both need each other to run a kingdom.
