In todays class we looked at tying everything together, looking at different elements that make up the overall design of user interfaces. When designing UI’s, there should be clarity as to what the app functions, as well as looking good. In todays class we will be really reinforcing this and considering the aspects that make a UI extremely functional while also looking good.
When designing UI’s, it is vitally important that it is consistent throughout. The way that this can be done is by using the same elements such as colour, icons style, imagery style, typography, and tone of voice. The reason why consistency in UI design is important as it creates a mental model for users, which helps with navigation. As you can see below, Instagrams UI is consistent throughout, using the same typography, colours, and icon style.
Jakob’s law is this: “Users spend most of their time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know”. This is very important to consider as users have pre-supposed expectations that they have naturally gotten from other UI’s, so when designing UI’s, we must not design completely different layouts that users have to learn to use. We should try to minimise the amount of change that we make compared to other UI’s, so that users can pick up our interfaces and be able to use them straight away.
The law of Prägnanz is this: “People will perceive and interpret ambiguous or complex images as the simplest form possible, because it is the interpretation that requires the least cognitive effort of us.” This law is very interesting as it is scientifically proven that the human eye likes to find simplicity in complex shapes because it stops us from becoming overwhelmed, so when designing for UX, it is important to ensure that our designs, when stripped back, are made up of shapes that are simple and not complexing. The more complex the design is, the longer it takes users to understand what they are looking at.
Organisation is important in UI design as it enhances user interaction and user experience. A well-organised interface ensures that elements are arranged evenly, making it easier for users do tasks without having to think as much. Organisation makes the interface less confusing and clustered. This is a great skill to have when trying to fit a lot of information on a small screen, so as designers we must know how organise our interfaces to make the user experience more enjoyable. Duolingo are great at this, as they display a lot of information but use the space they have effectively to ensure that their UI’s don’t get clustered.
We then looked a little bit into colour, considering some of the different ways that we can use colour to enhance our UI’s and ultimately create a better experience for the user. There are a few different types of colour styles that we can use for UI. These are:
Monochrome: This is a colour palette where a single colour tint is used as the basis for all shades and hues found within the image.
Analogous: These are colours that are beside each other in the colour wheel. They are usually very similar to one an other. This is a great way to set the temperature of a UI.
Complementary: colours are pairs of colours which, when combined or mixed, cancel each other out by producing a grayscale colour like white or black. They usually work quite well together and are often used as colour combinations.
I then looked into the Apple Interface Guidelines that were sent to us, and I found some information that was very insightful and useful. One specific area that I looked at was their buttons, as I always thought that they had effective buttons in their UI’s, and they said how their buttons are to look good while also being functional. They emphasised making buttons easy to use by having plenty of space around them, with at least 44pt space around them so people can select them easily. Another area that I looked into was app icons. As an Apple user I always noticed how their app icons always look great and are consistent no matter what app is being shown, so I wanted to find out more about how they achieve this. They highlighted making app icons simple and versatile for different platforms, and only including text when it is essential for your brand. This way they use primarily visual icons, and looking at my phone now, I see hardly any app icons using text on their designs for this reason. Learning about Apple’s Interface Guidelines was definitely a good read and I learnt a lot about effective interface design.