UI/UX

What is UI/UX in a nutshell? You could say it is the experience users have when using something. If the experience is bad, the user probably could not cope with it or needed too much time to understand how it works. A good experience is when the user feels at home with the application’s interface from the very start, understands how it works and is therefore happy to use it. There is no need to explain how big a role UI/UX plays in today’s world, full of new and innovative products. People are not put off by new things, but they are reluctant to adapt to poorly thought-out and unintuitive solutions. It is worth remembering that in the information age we process huge amounts of information every day and come into contact with new technologies, which is why the first contact with something new is decisive. The user will either receive it well and appreciate the designer’s work, or reject it and ruin the product’s chances of growth.

Examples of good and bad solutions are easiest to find in everyday objects. A door with no indication of how to open it: pull or push. A TV remote with lots of buttons for everything. A tax form with unclear fields. On the internet we can find even more examples like these.

Projects are born in the mind and evolve on successive media.

Do you often find that when you think about a solution, you sketch it on paper or a tablet to visualise your idea and analyse it further? When a project or idea is more complex, creating a prototype becomes necessary, if only to present it to other people so that they can quickly imagine the shape and scope of the project.

When we meet a client for the first time, we often hear: “I would like to create a website or an application that provides certain features in a certain way”. To continue working on the task, we need to show that we have correctly understood our client’s idea and that we can use the right tools to deliver the project.

By creating the first functional wireframes and choosing the technologies, we find out whether we have understood the project well and whether end users will understand it correctly.

When is it worth creating design and concept wireframes?

Every project with complex features, an unusual way of communicating, every start-up or simply every innovation requires an analysis of whether it can be implemented and the best way to achieve engagement and ease of use for end users. The cost of wireframing pays for itself many times over, because already at this stage we can foresee most of the risks to the project, eliminating the later costs of fixes, required changes and adapting to the realities of production.

How do we avoid mistakes when designing the interfaces of our applications? Jakob Nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics help, which say (in our own words):

1. You always know where you are: the user must know the current status and where they are. This is especially important when an application has many levels and the user has moved on to further steps, for example while placing an order, using filters or searching. This way the user can easily return to where they were.
2. You can relate to familiar things: the user can intuitively work out how to move around the application or interface thanks to symbols and language they already know. This makes it possible to use the application without instructions, because symbols and messages known from everyday life are carried over and refer to the elements of the system in a similar way.
3. You have control and freedom of choice: forcing users into specific behaviour never works and usually makes them leave for good. That is why it is essential to provide basic controls to go back, return to the main menu or cancel a process.
4. Consistency and standards: keeping the whole project consistent and sticking to proven patterns and standards ensures that users perceive it in a stable and correct way. Following standard UI/UX conventions is less risky. We all remember Google Plus, where the “like” button was labelled “+1”, and not even a giant like Google managed to change the well-established standard of the “like” button.
5. Error prevention: avoid situations where errors are likely to occur. Most often we can help the user when they interact with forms. That is where an application usually expects fully valid data, and the user should be prepared for that.
6. Recognition rather than recall: it is easier to suggest the shortest path to the goal than to show every possible option. This applies especially to search, which should recognise the user’s intent.
7. Flexibility and efficiency of use: the interface must allow a flexible approach by offering alternative ways to reach information and achieve goals. At the same time, these actions must be efficient and lead to the right result within the application.
8. Aesthetic and minimalist design: this point matters a lot to us, because apart from usability and the interface itself, it is key to positive reception and sales effectiveness. We make sure our graphics and layouts are not overloaded with unnecessary information, but focus on the essence of the message in the best possible form.
9. Helping users recognise and recover from errors: this principle applies mainly to more complex applications that are demanding to use. It requires instructions, help markers and messages explaining how individual fields and functions work.
10. Help and documentation: as with the previous point, in more complex applications the help and documentation system should be as complete as possible. The benefit of a well-documented project is that users need less contact with support, and there is no need to respond to requests such as questions about specific features.

With some exceptions, these principles apply to every application or complex website. We always make sure that our UX/UI design choices take them into account and, above all, we design from the end user’s perspective.