In this era where attention is the new currency, implementing a good design practice cannot be more important than ever. The implication of a good UI design can be the deciding factor of whether the user will stay and use your website or simply click back and leave it. Hence, a good execution of UI design practice can be detrimental to the success of your website.
Even so, understanding a really good UI design practice can take years of study and life application. That may be the reason why some websites haven’t applied it yet. Nevertheless, there’s no reason you cannot implement a good UI design practice for your website. Because all you need to do is follow the 7 core UI design principles that we’ll talk about in this article.
Why UI Design Principle Is Crucial for Website Design
The simple answer: a lot.
The implementation of good UI design principles won’t only be beneficial for you as the owner, but it will overall enhance your user’s experience while using and navigating through your website. Especially nowadays, where there are lots of website options that offer the same service, the first impression matters more than ever. And you can achieve this by applying the 7 core UI design principles.
Furthermore, the use of good UI design principles will give your website higher credibility because it will look more professional, it will also enhance the user experiences, conversions, engagements, branding, and competitive edges, to encourage the users to keep coming back.
7 User Interface Design Principles for Website Design
For those who want to apply the best UI design principles to your website, here is the list.
UI Design Principles #1: Clarity
The first principle that all UI designer needs to pay attention to when designing a website is the clarity of each component. A clear user interface is the key to user-centric design, where the next course of action isn’t only obvious and can be done effortlessly by any kind of user. The better the UI design on a website, the more invisible the gap between experienced users and new users.
Hence, to implement this UI design principle for your website design, you can use this checklist:
- Is the navigation system between each page can be easily found?
- Does the contrast and color of your buttons are recognizable by any kind of user?
- Is the purpose of each element in your pages intuitive enough for any kind of user to know what it is?
There are a lot of other tips you can use to implement this design principle. However, these three are the bare minimum entry-level checklist if you are new to website UI design.
UI Design Principles #2: Visual hierarchy
One of the core UI design principles for a successful website is the visual hierarchy. It’s not only a principle but a tool you can use to direct the attention of your audience to a specific point in your pages.
By using this visual hierarchy, you can also emphasize the level of importance of each part of each element on your page for your user to take action. It ensures your users know which part to see first, which are next, and what action to take.
There are a few elements of visual hierarchy you need to take into account:
- Color
Some colors will take more attention than others. Implementing the right color is crucial for you to direct the attention of your audience to a certain point on your page. - Fonts
You can play around with different kinds of fonts, sizes, and weights to make different levels of importance of each sentence. - Negative Space
The difference between an elegant website and not sometimes isn’t the content within it, but the emptiness it employs. - Alignment
Never forget this one, visual hierarchy without good and consistent alignment will only distract your users.
UI Design Principles #3: Flexibility
It’s rare that a website only serves a single purpose. Flexibility is the key design principle in ensuring that any of your users can navigate through your website to do their desired actions and purpose.
Adding to the point of Clarity as the first UI design principle, the flexibility of your website will collaborate with the clarity of your interface to ensure that any level of users will be able to get what they need from your website.
You can implement this UI design principle from two practices: the design and the approach.
Implementing flexibility from the practice of design means you can add buttons or directions so the users can perform their desired actions with as few clicks as possible. This means you can add buttons for frequently performed steps such as going to the homepage, adding search features, and many more.
On the other hand, from the practice approach, you need to consider the flexibility of your user to use any kind of mode. That is phones, laptops, tablets, computers, voice commands, and many more.
UI Design Principles #4: Accessibility
The more market you reach, the more users come to your website – It’s a no-brainer. The exact reason applies to your website. That’s why considering accessibility for any user is important.
According to WHO, there are more than 2.2 billion people in the world are visually impaired. Taking them into consideration for your design won’t make your website dull, it’s the opposite. It will only introduce a set of constraints.
Furthermore, to maximize the accessibility of your website, here are some of the tips you can refer to:
- Comply with WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)
- Use WebAim Color Contrast Checker
- Use Alt text for each image
- Make it available in multiple languages
UI Design Principles #5: Familiarity/Intuitiveness
Ever wonder why almost every website (we know there are some bad ones) has navigation buttons at the top? The search box at the top right? And the Footer navigation menu at the bottom?
It’s to comply with this UI design principle: familiarity/intuitiveness.
It is said that the best interfaces are those that are familiar to any user.
The application of the familiarity/intuitiveness principle into designing your website will make the users of your website easily navigate, user, and get the desired outcome from your website. It will also increase the retention time and your users’ satisfaction, hence increasing its authority.
UI Design Principles #6: Efficiency
Efficiency is another design principle that’s crucial for your website. No one wants to use a website that forces them to take one or two extra steps just to get to the search button; No one wants to see a website full of useless information just to jumpstart the SEO score; And no one will engage with a website that has tons of useless buttons.
If you ask, efficiency isn’t about minimalism; It’s about using the bare minimum content to make full use of each part of your website.
My tips: eliminate all useless and redundant content.
UI Design Principles #7: Consistency
Last but not least, consistency is the one that ties it all. Consistency will support the clarity of your website, it’s the foundation of visual hierarchy, and it will also boost familiarity while navigating through your website.
So, what is this consistency in the UI design principle?
Consistency can be applied through several practices:
- Using the same color for similar buttons throughout
- Using the same font for similar content
- Using the same spacing throughout your website
- Using the same icon for each page
- And many more
The implementation of this design principle is easy, yet the impact would be detrimental to the quality of your website.
Conclusions
There is no end to improving the user interface for your website. It is also crucial because implementing good UI design practices on your website can increase it’s credibility, user experiences, authority, branding, conversions, and many more.
It might be difficult for a beginner to implement UI design practices into their website. However, it’s safe to say that if you just implement these 7 core UI design principles, your website will look professional, and it will gain credibility and authority in no time.
Also Read: What To Do When Your Website Goes Down: A Comprehensive Guide To Troubleshooting And Solutions
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q1: In summary, what are the 7 core UI design principles I need to apply:
The 7 core UI design principles are clarity, visual hierarchy, flexibility, accessibility, familiarity/intuitiveness, efficiency, and consistency.
Q2: How to balance beauty, creativity, and usability in implementing good UI design?
Here are some of the steps you can take:
- Understand the purpose of your user
- Meet them with the objective of your website
- Follow the 7 UI design principles
Editor
By Aleyna Akarsu– The Expert in Web Development, Marketing, and Online Business.