A website is now much more than a simple group of interconnected pages. It acts as an interface for different things for the website owners to communicate effectively with a user and affect each other. This virtual interaction creates an experience for the web page visitor, and it is the responsibility of a web designer to make this experience optimally enjoyable.
A user-first approach to web design and development is the first and foremost way to ensure this successful user experience. Atomic design concept in website design is so popular now, and there are millions of web pages across the internet developed in this model. Better user-experience in web design now owe largely to the scientific field of HCI (human-computer interaction), and here we will discuss some designer tips from the HCI standards to help you focus more on users and create user-friendly interfaces.
UI Design
User interface design (UI) primarily focuses on the functionality and layout of the web interfaces, which is a subset of the UX design, which projects a larger picture and a complete experience. Here come the tips.
1. Know the users
Above everything else to be considered, you have to know who your users are, inside out precisely. This not only means knowing the demographic data of the users through analytical research, but also the way how they interact with the internet avenue.
As Rochester web design experts reiterate, getting the desired level of empathy needs to be planned after carefully analyzing the user stats. This requires in-depth knowledge of the people who use the website. To plan it, you may have to talk to them face to face or watch them interacting with your product and also with the competitor’s products. You also have to ask them questions as to what is their opinion about the design etc.
2. Understand how they use your interface
Before initiating the design work, you have to define how an exact user persona will use your interface. With a myriad of desktop, handheld, touch-based devices available to access the internet, it is a pivotal concern now. Users access web info in two ways now as:
- Directly by interacting with the elements of a product or service like tapping a button, swiping a card, or dragging over an item with a fingertip.
- Indirectly by interacting with some elements other than the product like pointing the mouse over and clicking, using shortcut keys, typing info into an input form, etc.
So likely to assessing who the users are, it is essential to analyze what devices they use. If you are designing something for seniors, you may not have to learn more on swiping.
3. Set further expectations
Every user action comes with consequences, and so with natural anxiety. Be sure that your users know what happens next when they click on a button. You can do it during the design itself as to:
- Highlighting a button corresponding to the desired action.
- Using a common symbol like a trash can or a plus sign to add more items or that of a magnifying glass 🔍 to search etc.
Even though you take extra care to design user-friendly UI for optimum UX, one can anticipate some mistake are to err human, People do a mistake, but never let them suffer its consequences. When it comes to e-com web design, you can find a lot of prevention techniques, especially while creating forms. Anticipate that your users may make a mistake and help them out to avoid it rather than ending up in trouble.
You may also like to read: Focusing On The Finest UX Norms For The Lizard Brains