Any outstanding product, be it an app, website, or something else, is designed with utility and aesthetic quality at its core. As already stated, UX design gives a product its functional components. UI (User Interface) Design addresses the equally crucial visual and interactive elements. Simply put, the product's UI determines its voice and personality; hence its brand.
How Does It Work?
As was already established, the main goal of user interface design is to increase user happiness. During UI design, two important aspects are highlighted:
- Design tone: This has to do with the product's aesthetic appeal, which is the main driver of user engagement.
- Design revision: The UI phase invariably serves as a point of reflection, providing designers with an opportunity to review all parts of the work completed, including the UX.
UI Design Process
The UI phase has been divided into three easy parts.
Mood Board
This skeletal framework outlines the various aesthetic components and how they relate to one another. The primary purpose of a mood board for designers is to communicate ideas to all appropriate parties through a visual medium. This offers, among other things, font samples, color scheme possibilities, and reference pictures and movies.
These examples aid stakeholders in clearly visualizing the designer's style and tone approach, which helps all parties involved understand the design. One of the most significant benefits of using a mood board is the ability to identify any gaps in the design process early on. Because of the quick turnaround time, both time and possibly capital are saved.
The approach is fundamentally very similar to wireframing, although it focuses more on a visual [design] environment. Simply put, a mood board makes all the relevant reference materials for an upcoming graphic design instantly visible, making it easier for everyone involved to comprehend the designer's chosen visual strategy.
Visual Design
This is the process of making all of the product's or service's visual components, which incorporates the mood board's aesthetic guidelines. The main goal of all the back-and-forth communication with stakeholders during the process is to match relevance with the client and user expectations.
Visual design is completing all necessary visual elements, including design, layout, interaction, graphics, interactions, animations, color schemes, photography, videography, and typography. Here, the primary goal for designers is to provide a design that is appealing, engaging, and in line with the requirements and objectives of the client's business.
User research is a significant force behind the visual design and serves as the basis for the entire procedure. Using research insights, design professionals can map out the target group's conscious and unconscious behavioral trends. Designers can only create functionally intuitive and customized apps by following such steps without sacrificing aesthetic integrity.
Usability Testing
Usability testing fundamentally serves as a point of comparison based on user feedback to assess whether or not a particular product is in line with stakeholder expectations, including those of users and clients. It entails distributing the product or service in its beta phase to a specific group of users to acquire information about their comprehension and response. A product or service's many features and components may occasionally be tested separately to determine its usability and value from the user's perspective.
The implementation step for this process is not always set in stone. It can change depending on several variables, including user demand and the intricacy of the design itself. Usability testing could be done earlier, such as during wireframing, if the product in issue is a massive app with deep functionality and design features.
Keeping it Simple
One of the most important signs of a successful user interface is clarity, which denotes a well-executed design with clear interaction. The visual design components must be made with the least amount of screen clutter. The same rule applies to how people navigate a site or app: they must be able to get there as quickly as feasible.
One Egg, Many Baskets
Nowadays, users may access their apps on various platforms and devices, including smartphones, tablets, and computers. Each platform has a distinct scope in terms of functionality and aesthetics. Therefore, product visual and functional design must be fluid and flexible enough to use each platform type fully.
Comfort in Knowing
People are creatures of habit who seek solace in an overall feeling of regularity. This is particularly true for user interface (UI) design because users get quite comfortable with their trip through various product interfaces concerning their interactions with those interfaces. Therefore, designers must be conscious of usage patterns and consumer behavior while creating products that provide similar services. They will then have a broad framework to work from, which they may then modify or develop.
Efficiency
As previously noted, practical design is about finding value in simplicity. Good designers ensure that their products enable consumers to execute the necessary activities in the shortest amount of time. This is a convenience that outweighs any elaborate aesthetics by a wide margin.
The Benefits of UI Design
Maximized User Engagement
A product or service that adheres to sound UI design principles will closely match user expectations while intuitively guiding the user's experience in the most straightforward way possible.
Memorable User Experience
Users have a memorable experience thanks to the functionality's simplicity and aesthetic attractiveness. They will continue to see that product or service favorably, even in the long run.
Increase in the overall brand recall: Effective UI strategies enable brands to take advantage of the enormous influence that a user's first impression can have on their actions. Users will be more likely to remember a product with good design and balanced functionalities, making them devoted customers of both the product and, by extension, the brand.
Conclusion
Most people misperception that user interface and user experience are very different things. For a great product to be created, both the UI Design and UX components must work together. Interdependency is the only word that accurately captures both UI and UX.
