Design Hacks
Designing an aesthetic and functional app is a complex and critical task. People who focus solely on functionality end up with bleak-looking UIs that can be irritating to view. Prioritizing only aesthetics will create a pretty, empty shell that serves no purpose.
The impact of your design’s first impression is vital in providing your end-user with a pleasant UX, as studies have shown that there are Credibility Judgments in Design. Research suggests that customers may mistrust outdated or incorrect designs, regardless of how well your program operates.
Developers and designers live in a constantly evolving space where the concept of good design is always changing. It can be challenging to comprehend the design, especially when you need to interact with functionality.
Figuring out a good UI design for agile development projects can include a lot of trial and error, but you can become more effective with the help of some design hacks. The daunting task can appear doable and even enjoyable with a few helpful hints and techniques.
There are several free online image editing free online tools available, including:
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Nowadays, consumers have a wide variety of options to pick and choose from, and most are adept at perceiving which app has more effort put into it. While the effort they usually look for is in the design, it’s the quickest way they evaluate quality.
Ensure all images are of good quality and are free of blur. Keep an eye out for consistency in your color scheme, and ensure there are no jarring differences in your app. One thing you can keep an eye on is making sure your logo flows well with your design theme.
Whether it be inconsistent spacing or typography errors, you must be vigilant in maintaining a quality standard throughout your entire app. One good way to spot these inconsistencies is to test your product; it is always a great way to find these mistakes.
As with any agile development, you must ensure your work is revised. It is best to have someone else test your work, as it may find inconsistencies that escape you.
If your app has a long boot-up, consider adding a splash screen. While it may appear to be a small detail, staring at a blank screen may not inspire hope for your users. Some users might outright close your app if they stare at a blank screen for more than a few seconds, thinking it’s bugged, then uninstall it.
Consider adding a splash screen related to the theme of your app. Business-related apps would benefit more from a professional-looking splash screen.
With agile development, try to constantly update and add minor changes to your splash screen now and then. As with most of your designs, try to innovate and add new fresh appearances.
Maintaining identical colors for your go buttons is one example of maintaining consistency in your theme and action items.
If one of them is colored green, then all your go buttons must be colored green.
Keeping consistency within all visual elements is vital for your app. Your user will require more effort to navigate around the app; maintaining similarities will help them in this process.
Another example is keeping equal padding on specific screens. Repetition of similar elements reinforces its intended action and helps keep your app easy to navigate.
Try to take pauses during agile development to notice if there are certain inconsistencies in your work; this will always pay off!
Most of your users will prefer efficiency over a complex design layout if it means it will save them time. Ensure the most integral parts are only a few clicks away; always prioritize the primary functions of your app.
It’s also good practice not to change out where things are too much as it’ll confuse older users. As with agile development, if a design layout works, it’s best to stick with it, only offering minor changes.
Not to imply that there should be no change, but too many changes will make users of your software have to relearn it, which will not go down well with them.
See the most used features on your app, and minimize the clicks required to perform that action. User experience is vital for any app and should not rank over speed.
Giving care and attention to providing the user with a pleasant experience will always pay off. Listen to feedback offered by your users; they’re the ones that use your app more than you do!
Knowing more about The ROI of Enterprise UX will help state the importance of user experience.
Nowadays, people use multiple devices and expect them to function similarly. Those using a desktop version of your app will likely wish to seek its mobile counterpart when they are far from a computer.
Your design has to be similar to all platforms it encompasses. The experience has to be similar enough that the user will feel confident that the variant functions just as well as the other one.
It’s vital to keep the same user experience amongst all platforms. You must work around a touch screen and use a mouse in your design.
Developing for mobile is entirely different compared to Windows or other platforms. Everything is different, from the programming, flow of navigation, and the operating system.
A good principle for apps to follow is that mobile users will bring a shorter attention span. Countless studies show the effect phones have on our minds.
This also follows back to keeping your clicks short, as this is especially true among mobile apps.
Keep the design themes and colors similar across all platforms, as it helps establish unity among them.
In most cases, you edit and polish the layout for the ideal user experience for your app. No matter how much you optimize your app, you can’t satisfy everyone. It’s a great practice to offer customization so people can tailor your app to fit their needs to a tee.
Offering a light and dark mode for users to choose their ideal preference is a solid start. Too much white text on a dark background might make your app difficult to use by those with vision issues.
Look at other successful apps and see how customizable they are by their users. Another idea is to have someone else navigate the app for a bit and offer their insight. Gathering opinions from both tech-savvy and non-tech-savvy folk is a fantastic way to learn what options would best benefit your app and its users.
With agile development, you can always see which features are needed and what might be a waste of time. It’s good to take pauses and see what might be useful and what might be a gimmick.
Reading more about agile development and UI can help you with how to navigate implementing a good UI design.
When keeping the basic design principles, stick to what’s tried and tested when relating to the app’s design interface; this is why most successful apps mimic one another. Many apps build off previous and established patterns and apply them to their apps.
For mobile apps, stick to the traditional common UI touch patterns. Keep the color red mostly for errors, and see what other apps have established for their key patterns.
Shaking things up too much will require a longer learning curve from your user and might result in them feeling overwhelmed and uninstalling your app.
Establish the common UI patterns, then add your personal touch afterward. You’ll have a functional app that looks fresh and meets user expectations without being a clone of similar apps.
A study found a correlation between the effect of user-perceived quality and the use of perceived quality. Maintaining similar UI templates to other similar apps has an impact that is worth consideration.
Make sure your app is easily accessible by being proofed for things such as misclicks. While it is impossible to account for everything possible, there are a few guidelines you can follow that will help make certain that your app is more accessible.
This in-depth guide to Windows’ recommendations delves into several essential details for app-building. It recommends adding support for all keyboard interactions and screen readers. Customization is also high on the list, with notable features such as font, color, contrast, and zoom.
Keyboard accessibility commands allow the user to interact with your app only by using a keyboard, a feature many people use. Notable keyboard accessibility commands include using tab and arrow keys to let the user freely navigate around the app and initiating commands by using the spacebar and enter keys.
The guide also details and provides tips on reducing UI button pressing. Adding a high-contrast theme will also help those without a perfect vision.
One major, often overlooked, detail in mobile apps is providing properly sized buttons. You must ensure that your buttons are large enough and have ample space to avoid any misclicks. Many apps feature small navigation buttons and are always frustrating to work around.
In essence, adding accessibility design to your app makes it suitable for a much larger demographic. Paying attention to this segment will ensure users don’t leave your app for another!
Mobile design has rules you must follow to guarantee a pleasant user experience. You must look into these UI design elements early in your app; the same applies to agile development.
Apple has released a guide for UI Design Dos and Don’ts that encompasses amazing tips for creating a great app on mobile. Android also provides a guide for great UX practices for mobile, based on Google Play Instant.
Both guides provide necessary design element choices that provide an improved user experience for your mobile app.
Formatting content in a way where the user can see all the primary information without the need to zoom out or scroll horizontally is just one of many good habits to follow for mobile UI design.
Just as stated with accessibility, create buttons that are at least 44 points by 44 points so that there are far fewer misclicks occurring.
While some user interface elements are excellent on one platform, they may not be the best on another. For selecting dates as an example, a scrolling menu is always the best as it fits the mobile interface with its screen size limitations. A scrolling interface for a Windows app wouldn’t work, as there is far too much valuable screen space.
Finding a good text size is also key, 11 points are deemed as good for font size for eligibility. Providing larger font sizes for customizability would also greatly help those who prefer larger text for reading.
For text, providing adequate spacing will also give your app a better look and feel to it, squishing text together can feel overwhelming to the user. Another font-related tip is to provide good contrast between the background color and your font color. Good contrast enables quick and easy readability.
For apps with images, ensure all of them are of high quality. Images that appear blurry instantly convey unprofessionalism and might have your users wonder where else you cut corners. Also, check the ratio of your images to see that none become distorted.
Aligning your images, texts, and buttons together might seem like a laborious and time-consuming job, but its visual impact is undeniable.
Colors play a vital theme in your user interface. Finding a good color theme for your app is essential so that you are not left with colors clashing with one another.
There has been a recent diversion in the app space into having a minimal use of color, and only using a few primary ones.
Sticking to a small color palette will also help portray a brand identity within your app, so choose yours carefully!
It’s also important to remember that you need to keep text readability in mind!
Make a color palette so your app can be bright and colorful without overwhelming. Color code sections to draw visual interest and keep things neat. Keep in mind the purpose of your app when making aesthetic decisions to join functionality and beauty and your app will be gorgeous.
An organized, functional app with aesthetic flair is beautiful and should be your goal.
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