User Interface Design Rules: The Complete Guide for Beginners

 

As a designer, you need to comply with certain rules of design to properly build useful and navigable products. These rules help you design for the public and not just yourself.

The user interface is an essential component of a website or an app. Nobody notices when it's consciously done, but everyone can tell when the design is poor.

Why design with rules?

• To efficiently design interfaces that resolve existing and potential obstacles

• To create a platform that all users can navigate and operate regardless of their knowledge level and disabilities.

Design Rules for Beginners 

To become an outstanding UI designer, here are five important rules to design by.

• Keep the UI design simple

This point is key. Design process can be fun and, if caution isn't taken, you may end up prioritizing your preferences and overloading the page with unnecessary information. Great UI design is functional; never just aesthetics. Self-indulgent only distracts from those elements that are truly relevant to the user.

• Place users in control

Keeping users in control makes them comfortable; they will learn quickly and gain a fast sense of mastery. You can achieve this by making actions reversible and using visual cues. Good UIs aren't complete without these.

• Make your user feel comfortable with the product 

Start by removing elements that add no value to your user. Irrelevant information doesn't only delay decision making but also create confusion—and you don't want that. Minimize your use of jargons and avoid requesting user data severally. Design for multiple interfaces to allow for convenience.

• Make consistency your watchword

Whether it's visual consistency or functional consistency, try to design in such a manner that is in line with users expectation and industry standards 

• Give relevant feedback

Keep users informed of their every move. Acknowledge that their actions have been recorded and alert them when they're headed in a terrible direction. Use big, important call-to-actions for big and important forms of feedback. Meanwhile, smaller and more frequent actions require smaller forms of acknowledgment.

These are not all! There are more design rules to be applied when creating appealing interfaces for users. But they come in design books which often come at a cost and can be tedious to understand. However, Zuri Design Rules Book is one of the most immersive and personalized design guidelines you can find. It was created with the learner—you—in mind, and almost feels like your personal human design mentor.

Get the design guide for free here.