The Complexity of User Interface Design
A DON’T DO GUIDE TO DESIGNING FOR THE USER.
Not all design is equal, and it couldn’t be more true for interface design, which I will now refer to as UI throughout the rest of this article. Now, I don’t want to have a drawn out piece about bitching and complaining on the ins and outs of UI design, but I do want to touch on a few points.
Anytime you’re dealing with UI design, you have to always keep the user in mind. You have to make decisions based on how the user will react, perform and even live in the interface you’re designing, or your product if you are building it yourself. So let’s go over some keys points to keep in mind.
Quick Wins.
Firstly, let me get this out of the way right now. With UI, there are no quick wins. Everything is (or should be) super calculated to make sure that users have the best experience. There is nothing quick about making UI great for your customer base. So throw that shit out of your mind.
Polishing the Turd.
Let’s face it, you can’t polish a turd. It can’t be done folks. So that crappy UI that you’re designing for, really think about the User Experience before you go asking your designer friend, agency or freelancer to dig around in Sketch or Photoshop. Everyone suffers from bad user experience, you, your company, your customers and your team.
Keep Shit Simple. Plain and Simple.
It’s human nature to think everyone wants to see everything at any given time on a computer screen, right? Wrong! The more stuff you pile on that screen the less it becomes usable. We’re not saying hiding stuff, but this is where good content hierarchy, comes into play. A designer who knows content hierarchy can be a mastermind to your game plan of UI nirvana.
Listen to ALL of your customers.
Time and time again, we see startups making the bad decision of listening to a few of their customers rather than the full pack or even a majority of them. When getting user feedback, don’t take comments from two or three customers to heart if you have 15,000. Especially if it’s stupid shit, like a button color. This is a sure fire way to clutter up any interface with unwanted content making your UI absolutely unusable.
Involve Actual Customers
At any time that you’re building things, or making things for your customers, it’s always a good idea to involve them right? I mean let’s face it, you’re building it for them, you might as well get their input before completely turning their lives upside down. We’ve touched on user testing and how important it is in previous articles.
A second strong point to this is, involve actual customers, not only your QA reps, not only your mother-in-law or your spouse. If you have access to customers, use them. They will be your best tool to tell you what they want.
In Closing
That wasn’t too bad was it? The closing statement I want to make here is that no design is easy design especially in UI. If you’re a company with a product, an entrepreneur with a dream, or a designer yourself, don’t make the mistakes we’ve covered in this post. They will come back to bite you on the ass every time.
