When your user interface developer are creating your site or app’s UI, you need to ensure that you keep your users’ expectations in mind. There are various interactions that happen between the screen that you are designing for and human cognition. You have to ensure that you make things simple for the users and they are not required to learn new toolsets or representations while using the app/site. Here are 2 things that you should definitely do with your user interface:
- Reduce or Eliminate Learning: How many actions or representations does your user need to remember in order to browse through the app? If the user has to learn new representations for every task that is undertaken, it becomes a problem. Hence, you follow platform conventions that ensure that new tasks are completed without the user being required to learn new tool-sets. You might think it is easy, but there are numerous examples of horror stories when it comes to this concept. Collaborate with your front end website developer, and come up with ways of eliminating inconsistencies between inside pages. These inconsistencies could be about fonts, colors, and more.
- No Confusion: You might use Microsoft Outlook at work and G-mail for your personal email conversations. While using the two tools, you would like to have consistency. That’s why both tools have similar folders ‘Inbox’, ‘Sent’, etc. The point here is that users bring expectations as well as learning with them. You need to be mindful of that and go the distance to reduce confusion.
How Front End Web Developers Can Achieve Consistency?
Here are some of the ways in which you, or your UI team, can achieve consistency with the user interface:
- Language Choice: When it comes to language, we are talking about words as well as tone in your marketing copies and user flow. This can have an influence on your users’ perception about your products. At the same time, poor selection of words and tone can lead to confusion. Everything matters! Let’s imagine you developed a website with friendly tone but an error message on the site is threatening, it meddles with your users’ minds and confuses them.
- Original Definition of UI Elements: There are numerous UI elements that you will use in your app/website. You will have message windows, radio buttons, menu bars, icons, scroll bars, etc. Your users have expectations about the intended use of these elements. As an example a radio button is present when there’s one of many options to be selected. On the other hand, check boxes let users check more options.
- Don’t Deviate from Conventions: Are we trying to say that you should imitate how other people have laid out their apps or websites? That’s not exactly how we will like to present this. However, there are conventions that your users have come to get used too. As an example, the company’s logo is on the top left side of the website. On the other hand, a search box is on the top right. You have to understand that humans have strong memory, and following conventions makes it easier for them to navigate through your site.
- Design for Your Users: When you hire a Front end developer designer, you talk about the quality of design and other things. However, do you ever talk about your users’ expectations? That’s what you should use to base your strategy on. Your site should have all those features as well as functions that your users expect from such sites.
- Consistent visual Elements: All your visual elements should be used consistently across your app/site. Your content, UI elements, background, and more should be harmonious and feel consistent throughout.
Following these tips can help you make your UI consistent and more successful.