The key principles of UX design
UX design. Get it right and you’ve got a product on your hands that solves a problem, that people can use effectively and that your users will love. Get it wrong (or even disregard it altogether) and you could be spending a whole lot of time and money on creating something that simply isn’t fit for purpose.
While we can’t give you a full “how to do UX design,” in a single article (the experts will tell you – it takes lots of research, studying and experience) we can help you get to grips with the basic principles.
The top design principle of UX design is, of course, usability. But this has its own elements that can make or break how well a product or service performs.
Developers will need to keep the following five components of usability in mind:
- How easy the product or service is to learn how to use (learnability)
- How quickly it provides solutions to the problems that users have (efficiency)
- Whether or not it is simple to come back to after some time away and pick it back up again seamlessly (memorability)
- How often does the user accidentally perform a task they didn’t mean to and how simple it is to rectify (errors)
- Overall satisfaction when engaging with the products and services
Usability should always come above all other aspects, so it can be worthwhile for app developers to start here and then apply other UX design principles as the design process unfolds.
Top 3 supporting design principles for products that perform
So, no prizes for guessing that user experience is all about usability. But there are 3 other supporting key principles of UX to bear in mind. Let’s take a look.
User-centricity
A user-centric product will be based on meeting the needs of the user – and this should be apparent from start to finish. This should incorporate user research for a deeper understanding of niche audiences and user testing to ensure needs are met.
Consistency
A great way to ensure that UX design is done properly is to implement consistency throughout the design phase. This will typically center on a cohesive design, both for the host of the product/service (think of a website having a clear theme), but should also extend to the design trends seen within the niche (for example, most websites that provide a specific service will have a similar layout). Focusing on this type of consistency will ensure products and services are not only easy to use, but simple to learn.
Accessibility
To improve accessibility, you will need to understand more specific user needs to improve the end product, such as colour contrast for those with visual impairment and text-to-voice capabilities for those who may have difficulty typing.
UX principles could make or break your design
If a wide range of users can’t easily use a product or service, it simply won’t work. If it’s frustrating to get to grips with, too complex to learn or users need to invest too much time and energy into figuring it out, it’s just not going to stick.
This means that UX design is an absolutely core consideration when creating both products and services for maximum engagement, reach and even scalability in the future.
