7 Essential Rules of User Interface Design

Like every other creative field, the field of design is constantly changing with the passage of time. Hence for an expert designer, there’s still a lot to learn and deal with to stay ahead of the competitions and match clients’ expectations.

User Interface Design is a promising market that is becoming even more relevant on a daily basis. With dramatically advancing technology, the demand for more custom made experiences that users can relate to when browsing a company’s website is rapidly on the increase. To build up your design to some degree, here are seven important rules of user interface design that you should keep in mind…

1. Clarity is Job

Clarity is job Clarity is the first and most important job of any interface. Users are going to stay away from interface elements that do not have very clear meanings. To be effective using an interface you’ve designed, people must be able to recognize what it is, care about why they would use it. As people are very busy, you have to create your design very simple and easy to understand. Don’t make your users guess on something complex, give them the straight text, phrases and the concepts.

2. Proximity

Users expect to see interface elements perfectly linked to the things they control. For instance, on Facebook, to change your profile picture, you simply click on the picture and instantly get the option to change it. This is far better than going to some general settings menu just to change your profile picture.

3. Defaults

Defaults usually go unrecognized, but they are important to an interface. Defaults are almost everywhere in settings. Desktop backgrounds, ringtones, television and so on, lots of people never change their defaults. It’s important to make sure that your default settings are suitable for a large batch of users to easily understand and navigate.

4. Guided Actions

Users are more willing to complete an action, if the interface instructs them to. If you like users to get engaged, request them to do it. Provide instructions to your customers like, “How you feeling?”, “What’s in your mind?”, “Want to say something?” etc… by this type of lines they get excited and do post on your site.

5. Performance Loading Time

If your task takes more time to be completed, the possibilities are very low that your customer will complete it. In this running technical world, people are not interested in holding and waiting for task to be completed. So, make your site fast and make your input boxes as short as possible.

6. Constraint

Reducing user actions on a system is going to reduce performance load and confusion. Generally this will lead to user satisfaction and greater completion. If a site is too cluttered, people don’t know where to look or exactly what to click on. When designing an interface, it is advisable to present users with the necessary information, instead of making them look around for it.

7. Feedback

When you switch on the fan, you expect the fan to turn on. If nothing happens, you might assume that something is going wrong. This is equally same when it comes to design. No one likes being uncertain about their actions, so there should be feedback courtesy of messages and notifications to show visitors that their actions were successful and have been acknowledged by particular department. Feedback is the simplest way to inform your users about their actions whether it is successful or not which is taken on your site. Feedback makes users feel confident and in control.

Final Thought

Stick to these 7 rules and profit by having a site with a high quality UI that will allow users to have the ideal experience with your site. Better design and experience is a major factor to building the conversions and generating the leads you want. In addition, elements of user experience design are a key factor in search engine ranking. Never undervalue the power of excellent user experience!