What Is The Importance Of UI/UX?
Do you know, many users abandon a website in 10-20 seconds? Also, more than 28% of the population uninstalls an app within just a couple of days? Quite disappointing, right? Do you want to know the reason behind this? If so, then keep reading ..
- February 3, 2023
- by Rajeev Nar
What Exactly Is UI/UX Design?
The UI is an acronym for User Interface. In simple words, it is the process of improving and enhancing the interactivity and presentation of the mobile application or website. It focuses on the look and design of the application. Every screen, buttons, page and various other visual components that you see at the time of using an application is the user interface.
Now, as you know what’s UI or user interface, let’s have a quick briefing of UX or User Experience. To say it simply, User Experience or UX is the strategy of enhancing the comprehensive experience of the users or visitors when they connect with a website or an application. This is done to fulfil its objective of offering maximum consumer satisfaction.
What Are The Points Of Importance Of UI/UX Design?
A good website should be well designed and developed. UI/UX is important in the following ways:
It increases customer satisfaction therefore improved ROI
A good website design offers your users simple navigation and engaging content. This makes the visitors satisfied with the services of your website. Moreover, the satisfied clients will be a source of more conversions as they will recommend your business to others as well. Apart from this, they will also become more loyal to your business and will come back again. As a result of which, your ROI would increase.
Assists you to understand your audience
Before generating UI/UX, you need to understand the needs of all your clients. This will display that your website is designed by considering the users. Hence, your website will attract the people it is built for.
Besides, UI/UX also lets you segment your audience which is very important for understanding the wants of your audience. Most importantly, a proper understanding of the users makes it simple to convert them into loyal customers. As a result, your actual sales will increase.
Raises your brand
When you invest in a systematic UI/UX design, it helps in increasing consumer satisfaction and this makes the clients happy. Even people love working with brands that make them happy. Most importantly, they will let you know the features that need an upgrade, as a result of which you work on making the website better.
This enhances the credibility and trustworthiness of your business as a client develops good relationships with your brand and company. All this leads to the growth of your business.
Saves money and time
Believe us, if you’ll invest in UI/UX design, then there are fewer chances that the clients will find any issues with your website. Moreover, a complete and flawless product will not require any quick upgrades and thus it saves your time and money that you could have spent on the update.
Most importantly, your time and money on upgrades will be saved.
What Are All The Basics Of UI/UX Design?
The glory of any website depends on how good its web design is. Web design is the most crucial part of your website building. It is the first thing that users and potential customers are going to see, that’s why it must be done cautiously with utmost perfection. If you miss out on any aspect, then it might prove to be a huge loss for you.
But how to do it and what are the basics of web design? Wait, wait.. do not bother yourself much, we are right here just to let you know everything about UI/UX design.
So, here are the basics of designing your website…
Simple and Uncomplicated Is The Best
The easy, uncomplicated and simple websites attract more people than the ones that are way too over-designed and complex. That’s why do not try to overburden your website with complexity. Instead, try to make it simple and convenient. By doing so, you will make the visitors happy as they can easily go through your website without any difficulties.
Sectionalise Your Design By Using Grids
Okay, imagine you get a place to live where there are no rooms, just one big hall. And in that hall you are supposed to cook, clean, rest, play and dress up. Imagine, everything is lying here and there, your utensils on the bed, shoes in the kitchen, clothes in the dining. Wouldn’t it be messy, obviously it would be.
So, we guess you’ve understood how important compartments are, right? Just like in the above example rooms are needed to organise your house. In the same way, a website needs different sections to organise everything properly.
Moreover, the grid layouts organise the content of your site into different columns, boxes and sections that line up and look balanced. Hence, they successfully make a website well organised and easy to use.
White Space
Now, comes the most important part of a good website, which is white space. It is also concerned with the height of the text. That’s why line-height is the most significant area where you should focus on. You must supplement a line-height, otherwise, your sentences will become a huge block of letters.
Content Design/Writing
There is this golden line that you need to remember always and it’s- “Content is the king and it will always be the king” but the queen here is marketing. They both need each other to run a kingdom.
Moreover, the constructive design of the website holds both great design and great content. By using properly and proficiently written blogs, you can attract a lot of people and turn them into potential customers.
Readability and Typography
The fonts, font size, font colour and everything related to font matters when it comes to a website. A properly readable and simple font is going to attract a lot of customers in comparison to the one with designer fonts.
Generally, fonts such as Calibri, Verdana and Arial etc. are quite easier to read and understand.
Right, Left and Center Aligned Text
When the lines of the text are aligned rightwards, it is called the right-aligned text. Also, they flush on the right side and are uneven on the left.
Likewise, when the lines of the text are aligned leftwards, then it is known as the left aligned text. It is usually flush on the left side and rough on the right.
In contrast to these both, there’s centre-aligned text. When the lines of text are aligned at the centre, then it is called centre aligned. The lines are uneven and ragged on both sides i.e., right and left.
Navigation
Various studies reveal that navigation is most important to gain visitors. It displays that visitors or users stay longer on websites that have easy navigation.
Moreover, some tricks for successful navigation include a logical hierarchy of pages by keeping the navigation easy, intuitive and consistent on every page.
Load Time
No one likes that loading button, right? So make sure that the loading time of your website isn’t too long. In addition to this, there are some other hacks like image optimisation, composing the code into central Javascript or CSS and minimising the HTML, CSS and JAVA.
Mobile Friendly
Your website or application should be mobile friendly as most of the users assess it through mobile and multiple other devices. That’s why it is necessary to make your website mobile-friendly.
Primary UX Motions
The other thing that your website or application must have is basic motions of UX like cloning, transformation, masking, overlay and all others that are related to the continuity of the object. Most importantly, these semantic tools are sceptic of any particular prototyping tool.
Attractive Fonts
The fonts that you use on your website should be readable and visible enough. Moreover, it must be attractive and should attract the minds of readers. Also, do not undervalue the importance of choosing the right design of font and the deep impact it has on the visitors.
The experienced and pro designers already know this, so they choose fonts very deliberately and cautiously.
Aesthetically Pleasing
Making your website aesthetic and pleasing can be a daunting task. But you already know about its importance in developing trust and credibility , because that’s what you look for yourself.
Why Consistency In UX/UI Design is so Important?
Consistency is the key to achieve success, be it in any task or anything else. In UI/UX design consistency is related to making sure that the components in a user interface are consistent and uniform. If they are consistent, then they all will look and work in the same way. This proves to the users that the user interface is correct, also it develops a sense of familiarity, control and reliability.
Furthermore, to initiate consistency in the UI design, one should focus on being consistent with other alike applications/websites, device UI instructions and behaviours, and with the same design.
Now, you must be wondering what all are the benefits of consistency in the UX/UI design, right? See, we don’t want to leave you wondering about anything, that’s why we have jotted down almost everything that arises in your mind. All you need to do is keep reading till the end and you’ll surely get answers to all the questions.
Benefits Of Consistency In UI/UX Design:
Enhanced Usability
If your app is consistent, then it will be much easier for the users to navigate and use it since they don’t need to learn anything new. Also, they know what is where and what to expect as they have already learned it by using your website or application.
Needless to say, this will make your visitors feel happy and comfortable. Moreover, they will also feel motivated to use the application or website.
Eliminates The Confusion
A consistent and uniform user interface encourages communication. Also, you can make use of visual consistency to make the content navigable, prioritise it and highlight the significant parts of it.
Moreover, by using uniformity to make a logical structure and to define where visitors will find what, you’ll free yourself from the frustrated and confused users as there won’t be any.
Raises an Emotional Response
As we have already discussed that consistency will help your users to navigate through the website. In addition to that, it will so assist the users in feeling confident about managing the website or application. This way, they will feel motivated and it will bring out an emotional response and this all will lead to a pleasant experience.
What Is The Scope of UI/UX Design?
No doubt, UI and UX design had faced a lot of disapproval when it came into existence. People used to think that the user experience wouldn’t make much difference. But at that time, they weren’t wrong either. The web applications in the older times were not that difficult and complex, they used to be simple and static. So, aiming to increase or enhance the user experience or user interface didn’t feel like a significant thing to do.
But, the time has changed now and it’s all different now. The websites and web applications these days are more complex and dynamic. This increases the complexity for the visitors to use and understand it. That’s why taking proper care of UI and UX has become so important now.
According to some stats of last year, 62% of the population uses the internet. That means, around 4.8 billion people!! Organisations and businesses are taking this opportunity to increase their business on the internet to reach lots and lots of people. You see, now almost every business is on the internet, also offline businesses are planning to join the online world. The point of letting you know all this is, that is the reason why the UI/UX are so much in trend now.
You must be thinking that we have just talked about the past and present but what about the future? What about the future scope of UI/UX? Some people say that there will come a time when everything about UI/UX will be explored and there will be nothing new left to be done. So, for that we’ll just ask you to ask yourself this question- ” Will I expect the same Interface and designs from a website or web application after 6-10 years that I expect today?” We are pretty sure that your answer is going to be No because our needs keep on changing and when it comes to expecting from UI/UX, our expectations are always high and dynamic.
Also, just for your knowledge, let us tell you that the number of people using the internet has increased by 1000% in the past 5 years. That’s why, believe us when we say that the scope of UI/UX is going to grow more and more with time. And yes, till people will use the internet, the UX/UX will grow massively. The point is, people are not going to stop using the internet. Now rest, you are smart enough to understand, right!
What Do UI And UX Designers Do?
If you wish to pursue your career as a UI/Ux designer, then you might be interested in knowing how they work and what they do. What’s their role in an organisation and what do they do, right?
Being a UI/UX designer you are supposed to develop technology and products usable, accessible and enjoyable for humans. The UX/UI designers work in coordination with a big team and they often find themselves linking the user, key business people and the development team.
Furthermore, being a UX designer your first and foremost focus should be on the users. Whether you’re coming up with a brand new feature, designing a new product or making changes to the old ones; the UX designer must focus on offering the best experience for the users.
Consequently, you are also accountable for making sure that the service or product fulfils the needs of the business. You must ask some questions like – Is it in alignment with the vision of the CEO? Will it help increase the revenue and retain the customers?
Now, if we talk about the kinds of projects that a UX designer is going to work on, then they’ll differ from organisation to organisation, and by your priorities as well.
Also, you might find yourself designing mobile applications, websites, software and even AR, VR or voice devices. In addition to this, some UX designers focus mainly on services instead of tangible products like designing the full-fledged experience of staying at a place or using a public vehicle.
Other than this, there are various general functions that UX designers offer/perform. They are as follows:
- Creating the user personas.
- Conducting proper user research.
- Designing wireframes and user flows.
- Making the prototypes.
- Conducting proper user testing.
Besides, it is necessary to know that UX designers are not responsible for the visual designing of the product. Instead, they mainly focus on the website/application journey of the user and how they can make it better for the users.
How to improve UI/UX design skills as a developer?
By investing your time and energy, you can surely improve your design skills as a developer. You just have to know that all the brilliant designers started from scratch, they too were there where you are now. And they reached there only because of their dedication and hard work.
Read and Research Daily
Everything is running super fast, so if you wish to be at the top, then you need to master the concepts such as colour theory, grid theory, typography, alignment and layout and computer and human interaction. Your goal is to develop a place for the users where they can feel comfortable viewing the virtual products.
To do that, you should study the behaviour of visitors in various situations and understand their thought pattern and what they’re looking for.
Join online course
Online courses are a good place to learn and know about new things. Also, the teachers make the learning faster and simpler. Moreover, the Internet these days is full of online courses, you can find them anywhere. Some of them are paid but there are some free courses as well. You can develop your skills this way.
Practice By Remaking The Designs
Remaking the old designs will help you in getting a sense of the fonts, spacing, colours, dimensions etc. As long as you’re using those designs just for practising purposes, then it’s fine.
Moreover, ask questions to yourself which will help you to analyse it. Also, focus on particular design elements such as buttons, colours, navigation bars etc.
Start freelance work
Freelancing is a brilliant way to experience things and to step out of your comfort zone. After all, what can be the better way for improving the skills if not facing new challenges and learning to adapt to them?
Other than gaining experience, freelancing also helps you in developing your communication skills as you communicate with clients regarding your project.
How Do You Improve The User Experience?
Now, how can you make the user experience better? We are going to tell you about it, just keep reading further.
An ideal user experience must be effortless and less complex. That is the reason, reducing or decreasing the efforts is a big component of improving the UI/UX design. People do not wish to click on the links that are dead and fetch useless information.
Also, they’ll prefer the interfaces that can let them perform their task in a short span f time. In addition to this, they’ll choose the interface which lets them leave the brands that don’t fulfil these ease of use and efficiency standards.
Moreover, there are plenty of ways by which you can enhance the user experience. But we have listed down a few important ones, they are as follows:
Educate The Users
The user experience is highly instinctive and the outcome of important development and research in the initial days. To make IX better, devote your efforts and time in educating the consumers and familiarising them with the new behavioural pattern, and hold a grip there. Also, to improve the user experience, you must work on integrating it with social media.
Colour And Contrast
The colour and contrast of your website must be comfortable for the eyes of users. Also, make sure that colour-blind visitors can also read the information given on your application or website without feeling uncomfortable.
Loading
Everyone is in a hurry, no one can afford to waste even a single second. That’s why the loading time of your website must be less. Make sure that the users can fulfil their goals easily and quickly. The loading behaviour, loading and waiting time and the smoothness of the animation should be such that it can influence the perception of users.
Readability
Make use of the type of font that can be easily readable and understandable by the users. Also, make sure that it is a phone or mobile-sized i.e., there shouldn’t be many banners. Other than this, try avoiding the caps.
How Do You Measure The User Experience?
Knowing the behaviour of users and how they rate your user experience is significant, however, it is so difficult to learn that without UX tools and metrics.
Moreover, the quality of UX is a tough matter, it cannot be tackled by using just one tool because it is built using several tiny components. To provide a better experience for users, understanding their behaviour and attitude is so important. There are various metrics and tools out of which many are data-driven. That says, analysing and collecting data on your website has never been as important as it is today.
Here are some tools that you can use to measure the user experience.
Google Analytics
The very first thing that enters the mind at the time of talking about statistics and data is Google analytics. To collect statistics and data, every website uses Google analytics. Undoubtedly, this tool can be very significant to know more about your website but know that it shouldn’t be the only way.
This tool will provide you with almost all the important numbers about your visitors and users, but it will not tell you the reason behind those numbers. It is just a quantitative tool, that is used significantly for the collection of information about the number of people who visited your website, which pages are famous, the place from where visitors come from, the source of the users, the amount of time they spend on the site and everything else.
Heatmaps
Another important way of measuring user experience is heatmaps. There are three types of heatmaps, they are scroll heatmaps, click heatmaps, and segment heatmaps. Each map offers a different type of insight into the behaviour of users on your application or website and how and where you can make it better.
- Click heatmaps will let you know the point where users tap on your website.
- Scroll heatmaps to tell us how far the visitors go or scroll down the website.
- And segment heatmaps identify the most famous areas of your web page.
Session Replays
Other than heatmaps, session replays offer a good insight into the behaviour of users on the site. They represent the movement of the mouse of each user. They display the mouse movement of every single visitor, which lets us know about their behaviours. According to us, a combination of all these tools is a must to measure the user experience in a much better way.
Use Polls To Get Feedback
Feedback polls are one of the nicest ways to check the satisfaction customers are getting by using your website. So, make sure to create polls to receive the feedback of your visitors.
For instance, create a poll of two-three important but short questions about your website. Also, you can make use of ratings too, but numbers alone are not enough, right?
But where to put these polls, it’s simple you can either put them on your website or you can send them to people via social media or emails. The main goal is to get the feedback but do not force it on users.
Conclusion
Okay, so we have finally arrived at the end of this article and we hope you are now fully aware of UI/UX design, it’s importance, scope and everything that you wished to know.
To conclude we would just say, being a UI/UX designer, you should never stop wishing for self improvement. Also, as the latest softwares are emerging continuously, you can definitely make use of that to enhance your skill set and to make sure that you design the user interface in the best possible way.