Six Design Practices to Power-up Your UI UX

Experience Designing is like the important cogs of your ambitious online vehicle. Be it a website or a mobile app, a solid UI/UX clockwork can make users keep coming back to your product again and again. Best UI/UX designers out there can vouch for this.

So what if, for some reason, you’ve failed to incorporate crucial UI UX design practices into your product? The results could be disheartening - analytics would show unimpressive or poor metrics, your product would go nowhere in terms of both revenue and users engagement, it might not help users attain their goal when they use your product, and, worse of all, they could lie dormant in app stores like those poor apps with no takers.

Having a few neat design practices up your sleeve before you begin your project can help you outsmart the above risks.

That is what we are going to discuss here. We show you some design procedures to help you power up the UI/UX of your mobile app (or your website).

Here we go.

Choose the right navigation menu

Since mobile has become the ultimate device among users, ensure that your UI or UX meets the mobile device design standards. Navigations Menus are one of the areas where it can annoy users the most. If your product has a typical, long, old-school navigation menus, it time to change them.

The main function of navigation menu is to enhance a better flow of content and overall structure and hierarchy of the app.

Mobile users have short attention spans. So, the fewer the options on the menu, the better. Menus with fewer options takes lesser screen space, offers better touch functionality and readability; and it doesn’t feel heavy.

Explore navigation menus such as Tabbler, Rudder, Drawer, Rectangular and Grid. They all have their own set of advantages and disadvantages, use it according to your need.

Push Notifications

Push Notifications are both blessing and curse. It’s a blessing when used sparsely, but, if used in excess, it can turn out to be a weapon that can harm your own app.

A survey by Localytics Data Team showed that Push Notifications can help improve app traffic by 88%, and they have also prompted over 65% of users to download apps. The survey also showed that around 50% of users showed displeasure when they saw Push Notifications.

Use Push Notifications as long as it offers some valuable information. Do NOT send them for the same of using them or just to impress your users.

Incorporate New Touch Gestures

Gestures make user experience more dynamic and satisfying. Powerful gesture-driven mobile apps are capable of keeping users hooked to the app for a longer time, and of course, they give a sense of authentication while performing actions.

Gestures and animations have become so widely accepted that Android and iOS, both have their own set of guidelines for gestures. It is imperative for developers in both specialization to fully understand these guidelines before designing products.

Along with touch gestures don’t forget to add haptics. Those subtle vibrations and bumps adds more dynamism to your product.

Give a human touch

When users interact with your app, try to make them feel as if they are interacting with another human, as much as possible. You can deliver that look and feel through three elements:

Interactive Content: Make the text/description sound more natural. Use natural language sentences. Don’t be too formal. Let it have an informal, courteous, and friendly tone.

Through AI or chatbots: These are future technologies. Live chats are sort of over. Leverage the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Chatbots.

Voice Integration: Integrating voice can add another dimension to your product. No wonder why Echo, Siri, Alexa, and Home are becoming such a craze.

Mining from past experiences

If you are an experienced UX designer, it is worth going back to your previous projects to get some insights and ideas. This does not mean that rip-off design ideas from those projects. Just consider insights and lessons you’ve learned the hard way in those projects.

Most designers leave the past where it should be. As far as designing is concerned, it is always good to visit old projects and gather fine bits of valuable insights and best practices you’ve gathered. After all, that’s what gaining experience is all about, isn’t it?

Endnote

For any UI or UX designer it is important to keep up with the changing trends. For instance, every time a new iPhone is released, new features and design changes are made, impacting the way it has been designed. Learning new Android and iOS guidelines will help a lot. Educating yourself with best practices is another great to way to sharpen your UI/UX skills further. This article was intended to offer such practices, and we hope it has helped you in some way.

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