The UX Best Practices that will make you a great designer

Whether you want a simple website, a software-as-a-service, or an eCommerce platform, using the UI/UX best practices is a must for optimising your site and the experience of your users.

In this article, we put together the top four of UX best practices selected by our team of seasoned UI and UX designers. If you put these into action, you will surely have a platform that not only stands out visually but also maximizes your user’s experience.

Keep it simple and consistent

A visitor spends less than 15 seconds on a website, so to keep them focused on your brand’s message you’ll need a clear and simple design. This is achieved by following the “less is more” concept. Users will find the key messaging on your website easier and faster if they have less content to scroll through. Therefore minimizing the options on your site will increase the likelihood that users will take the action your brand seeks, such as leading them through a conversion funnel.

A simple design also loads faster and reduces the bounce rate from your site, whilst boosting your site’s search engine optimisation. Readers will find it easier to scroll through your site if you are consistent. This applies to your colors, buttons, fonts, layout structure, and more. The point is to make these components familiar to your users, which will help make things more intuitive and predictable. And users like predictability! All of this consistency takes out the guesswork users may have when trying to interact with your website

Be intentional

Choose the elements of your design with a vision in your mind. The colors, visual elements, and layout you select should all be intentional. Looks aren’t everything! Design is more about how something works, rather than how it looks. It’s about both form and function.

Here are some guidelines:

• Choose a color because it’s part of the brand identity or because it evokes a certain emotion.
• Choose a font because it shows personality and allows the user to read your content more easily.
• Choose a layout that showcases the most important parts of your design.

Use responsive design

Mobile usage has already surpassed desktop usage and each year its share of online traffic rises. That’s why you need to use a responsive design on your site so that users can easily read and navigate it on any device.

A website design that isn’t mobile responsive might force users to enlarge the text on the screen to make it legible. The users who need to do this, will simply give up and leave your site.

Providing a responsive website doesn’t only enhance the user experience. In fact, Google awards higher rankings to sites that are mobile-friendly, which translates into higher traffic on your site. These websites load more quickly, look great on all screens and are easier to update.

Plan for the future

While building the website or mobile app that you need now, take into account that the site will most likely change in the future. This is why you should create a framework that’s flexible enough to allow you to adapt, change and expand the software as your business grows.

Choose your tools wisely so that you will not end up with a site with components that cannot be updated. Another way to future-proof your website is to monitor how your website performs. By using solid tracking and reporting from the start, you will have the necessary data to guide future decisions.