Creating a awesome user-friendly interface isn’t just about making things look pretty ,it’s about crafting an experience that feels seamless and natural. While most other tutorials focus on just colors and fonts, let’s explore three essential UI principles that can elevate your designs in ways you might not have considered before.
Here are some UI techniques that will change the way you design your pages.
1. Consistency Is Key (But Don’t Be Boring)
Consistency in UI design builds trust and reduces the cognitive load on users. This means using the same styles for buttons, headings, and navigation elements throughout your design. But here’s the twist—consistency doesn’t mean cloning everything.
Imagine you’re designing a travel booking site. The “Book Now” button should look and feel the same on every page, but you can tweak its size or placement based on the context. On a homepage, it might be big and bold, grabbing attention. On a confirmation page, it could be smaller and subtler.
Consistency makes users feel at home. They don’t need to re-learn how to interact with each page. At the same time, subtle variations keep your design dynamic and engaging.
2. Invisible Navigation
The best navigation is the one users don’t even think about. If people have to pause and figure out where to click or scroll, you’ve already lost their attention. Keep navigation simple, logical, and aligned with user expectations.
Think about e-commerce giants like Amazon. The search bar is always at the top, and categories are neatly tucked into drop down menus. Users don’t need a guidebook, it feels natural.
Stick to familiar navigation patterns unless you have a reason to do otherwise.
Use breadcrumbs to them know where they are on your site.
Always test navigation on different devices, for mobile users.
3. Feedback: Let Users Know What’s Happening
Users hate feeling lost. Every action they take like clicking a button or uploading a file, should come with immediate feedback. Without this, users start to wonder weather they are doing things right.
Think about loading animations. When you upload a photo on Instagram, you see a spinning icon or a progress bar. It’s a small touch, but it tells you, “Hang tight, we’re working on it.”
Use animations sparingly but wisely.
A small bounce when users hover over a button adds a extra delight.
For critical actions (like form submissions), show success or error messages immediately.
Be clear and specific: “File uploaded successfully!” is much better than a simple ‘Success’.
Avoid ambiguity.
A loading spinner is great, but combine it with ‘Saving changes…’ to set expectations.
Great UI design is about understanding how users think and feel as they interact with your product. Most of the insight fro here are from the book Don’t Make me Think
These principles may seem simple, but their impact is great. After all, great design isn’t just about what users see it’s about how you make them feel (User experience).
Thanks for the read. I am working on LiveAPI : Super Convenient API docs Generation in Scale. If you are interested feel free to explore the product.