Basic principles of User Experience (UX) design

yinka ogunlami 16:05 - 01 February 2016

A great UX differentiates a brand from its competitors, keep users happy and fulfills the ultimate goal of making sales when applied to a digital marketing strategy.

A user experience (UX) is simply the overall satisfaction from interacting with a digital tool by a user while user experience design (UDX) is the process of applying proven principles, techniques and features to a digital tool to create and optimize user experience.

For a company or a business websites to have a great UX, there are certain principles that need to be followed in order for customers to receive that premium satisfaction worth sharing with others.

These basic principles include - user-centric design, usability and conventions, simplicity and credibility.

1. User-centric design: It is a wonder how most times brands in a bid to have the best website forget the user in the 'user experience'.

Most business owners, marketers and web owners do what they think would be suitable for the brand or company without considering customers who obviously browse their site for relevant information.

UX is often compromised when the design process decisions are made internally by owners of brands and businesses at the expense of what the user really needs.

According to Quirk, for a web designer, in order to get a user-centric design the following questions should be asked:

Who is the user of my website?
What does the user want and need from my website?
What is the real reason behind the user coming to my website?
What are my users’ capabilities, web skills and available technology?
What features should be added to make user experience asker and better for visitors to the site?

As far as these questions go, many users really do not know what they want or need from your website till you show them. It is the job of the UX practitioner to discover these through adequate research with a clear interpretation in the best way possible.

2. Usability and conventions: Usability is making the digital assets built by web designers easy and intuitive to use. Users shouldn't have to think too hard about what to do when they get to your website, the whole idea is for them to just do what they have to do.

Usability is important to a UX design and involves sticking to standard practice which are common rules guiding the structure and display of things on the web. These popular conventions include:

The logo at the top left corner, already linked and takes the user back to the home page
Links are blue or red and underlined
Search boxes placed at the top of the page with a standard word like 'search' or a magnifying glass icon
Navigation menus at the top or left of the web page

When sticking to these conventions, ensure that all website elements such as logos, menus, colors and layout are easy to find, distinct and consistent throughout the site.

When considering usability, here are four things you must never do when building a website that is user-friendly:

Don't build a site entirely on flash - this is because search engine spiders cannot effectively trawl flash sites and these sites may not be accessible on many mobile devices.
Don't resize Windows or launch site in a pop-up
Don't distract users with things like blinking images, flashing lights, automatic sound, scrolling text, unusual fonts.
Entry or splash pages are a no-no (they are pages site visitors encounter first before reaching the home page)

At RDM, our clients' worries to provide their customers the ultimate user experience are put to rest because we apply these UX principles to suit their business needs.

Article by Ogechukwu Okonkwo

This is a feature by RDM