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Design UI Design UX Design

Modern Vintage Graphic Designs Are Back In Trend!

Vintage Designs

Whenever we talk about material goods, “vintage” refers to any contemporary designs that is more than 20 years old but less than 100 years – to be considered antique. The term can be used more freely in design, although it still refers to an earlier style created during previous times. Now and again, we see a revival of classic designs in a variety of sectors. The majority of them evoke memories of decades – or perhaps centuries ago.

When appropriately used, vintage elements and marketing strategies attract high-value consumers. It compels people to participate in your old storyline and maintains their loyalty. What is it about them that make them so enticing to the audience? What makes them popular? Let us investigate!

How Is Vintage Designs Defined?

By definition, the term “vintage” refers to a period when anything of value was created or to a high-quality product, idea, or philosophy developed in the past. At the moment, the term “vintage” refers to anything that evokes memories of a bygone era or fashion style. Vintage designs use features, colors, and items that reflect popular styles of a particular age.

Distinguishing Retro From Vintage Designs

Many individuals do not take some time to grasp the distinctions between these phrases properly, and as a result, the terms are commonly misinterpreted. Retro is a term that refers to something relatively modern (a commodity, a style) that emulates something from the past. Retro is not original but is influenced by the original to seem authentic. Vintage denotes something unique, original, and has a lifespan of between 20 and 100 years. It is scarcer and hence more valuable than its retro cousin.

What Are Modern Vintage Designs?

Modern Vintage Designs incorporate aspects from the past and present, as well as a touch of futurism. This technique may help modern audiences connect with antique designs or perhaps serve as a center point for older and younger generations.

Modern Vintage Graphic Designs enable us to create and make use of the best of all worlds. We can approach current and antique eras from a variety of angles. This creates limitless opportunities for creativity to develop. For instance, we may reproduce old images from the 1980s or 1990s in contemporary surroundings and give Gen Z the same vibe.

Why is Vintage Design Becoming So Popular?

Individual Appearance – There are several explanations behind vintage popularity. One of them is that customers think conventional fashion has lost its individuality and supermarket fashion has become too generic. Vintage has an inherent quality that elevates it above things picked for their fitting, authenticity, and design value.

Trends That Never Fade – Consumers recognize that antique clothing may be adapted to current trends while still serving as timeless classics that can become wardrobe mainstays. It’s one of the primary reasons vintage has gained popularity.

Personality and Expression – Being unique is a critical component of looking trendy. It reveals a great deal about your character and lifestyle. Vintage clothes enable individuals to express themselves while also aiming to create a fashion contradiction.

Soul and History – Vintage clothing encompasses much more than simply worn-out garments. They are historically and artistically significant, and they are brimming with the tales and experiences of those who came before us and wore them. Possessing and wearing antique clothes help preserve those individuals, their heritage, and their talent alive.

Conclusion

Vintage clothing never fades away. Retro styles are constantly resurfacing. Whether your firm is in fashion, information technology, travel, education, or another area, you will occasionally need to adapt to modern vintage graphics. Contact Us today to know more.

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UI Design Web Design

Try These 5 Web Design Principles To improve Your Conversion Rate

Web Design Principles

Every business wants to grow and increase its sales. Companies put a lot of time, effort and money into devising marketing strategies to boost their revenues. A website is one way to market their offerings to the people using the internet (which, by the way, is huge in number). A lot of marketers boast the importance of SEO, social media, creating lead magnets that convert, etc. Yet, creating a brilliant website is the first and most important step. 

Stanford University’s research stated that 46.1% of people say a website’s design is the top criteria for deciding a company’s credibility. Therefore, it’s highly critical that your design looks professional. This article will share five web design principles that will boost your conversion rate, thereby creating more revenue for our business.

1. The 8-Second Rule

Studies have suggested that you only have 8 seconds, on average, to get a visitor’s attention. The human attention span on the internet is too short. There’s a very tiny window of opportunity for you to engage a user once they land on your website; every second count. Here’s what you can do:

  • Use a crisp, benefit-driven, pin-pointed headline in large font
  • Include multimedia such as audio, video or other interactive content.
  • Use eye-catching, attention-drawing imagery to convey the prime purpose of your page
  • Use the imagery as a guide to the call-to-action button
  • Make signup buttons large, simple and straightforward.
  • Write powerful copy to entice and engage users.
  • Use hover effects on your buttons 
  • Use animated exit popups to re-engage visitors who are on the verge of bouncing off

2. The Rule of Thirds

One of the key web design principles is to follow the famous photography principle – The Rule of Thirds. To apply this rule, you’re supposed to visually divide an image (in this case, your website page) into thirds, both vertically and horizontally, giving you nine equal squares. The rule says, the four middle intersections are key, strategic places of interest. It creates the most impressive image or design when objects are placed at these points.

Remember that you don’t need to design your entire website strictly by the rule of thirds. Only use it as a tool to help you perfectly place crucial elements. Take a screenshot of your website, only above the fold part or just your header section; divide it into nine equal squares. Analyze it according to the principle and take a call if you want to make any changes or not.

3. The Hick’s Law

Hick’s Law is a famous theory cited by many individuals for various purposes; it is also frequently referenced in web designing. The law is named after a British psychologist, William Edmund Hick. The law states that the time it takes for an individual to decide is directly proportionate to the possible choices they have. In other words, by decreasing the number of choices, the decision time is also decreased and vice-versa.

Using this principle in web design, you can boost conversions by restricting the number of choices users have. And, where do you offer the most number of choices on your website? In the navigation bar. Don’t offer too many links to the users; it makes it challenging for them to choose. The user will lose interest in them altogether. 

4.The KISS Rule

This one is a common rule, being applied in several fields. It means Keep It Short And Simple and applies to web designing too. Simplicity is super essential when it comes to improving conversions. pThe moment you create a page, ask yourself whether you can make it more simple or the simplest. The results are more aesthetically pleasing, and conversions are increased.

It is similar to the earlier discussed Hick’s Law. However, simplicity is more than just limiting the options. The aim is to create a clean overall design that is uncluttered and minimizes distractions. Like Hick’s Law, people can only handle a limited amount of information at one time. Visually stuffing the website will overwhelm and bother users. Creating a great user experience on your website requires you to eliminate everything that unnecessary to the design.

Apple is one of the most significant examples of simplicity in web design. Countless other brands have followed their style for its effectiveness.

5. Negative Space

Whitespace is often referred to as negative space in web design. Positive space includes all the elements on your site, while negative space is the empty space in between. Don’t go by the name. Negative space is actually a good thing in web design; without negative space your website would be unusable and unreadable.

Negative space doesn’t just refer to the space between your page’s larger elements, such as the space between your header and your content or space between your sidebar and your content. It also refers to the space between all the more minor elements on your page – the space between lines of text, the space between paragraphs, and even the space between letters. Pay attention to the negative space on your site, in all forms, to keep everything legible, scannable and easy on the eyes. All of this leads to increased conversions.

Conclusion

Now that you understand these five web design principles, put them to good use by taking a hard look at your existing design. A thorough evaluation of your website will let you know the strengths, shortcomings, and areas of improvement. Need an expert opinion? Talk to our team.

READ MORE: Here are 5 pro tips that will come in handy while designing a visually stunning and user-friendly website

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Brand & Identity Design UI Design Web Design

Web Designing For Accessibility: Tips And Guidelines To Follow

Web Designing

The world is evolving faster than ever, and humans are becoming more and more dependent on technology. The Internet has changed the world, and today all of us depend on the internet for almost everything. Be it searching for a job, ordering a pizza, booking a dentist appointment, learning, and whatnot? The internet may be an ever-present resource for most people, but connectivity to the resource is a challenge for people living with disabilities. Although there are programs and devices, like screen readers, that make it possible for people with disabilities to access websites, web designing for accessibility is still a practice less followed.

According to data from 2012, almost one in five Americans live with a disability of some kind. Close to one billion people in the world, or 15 percent of the world’s population, lives with a disability. Out of all kinds of disabilities, conditions like visual impairment, autism, difficulty grasping objects, and deafness, just to name a few, can severely limit an individual’s ability to use a computer or smartphone without assistance and support.

There’s a myth that web designing for accessibility is difficult and expensive; it’s not true. Making your website more accessible doesn’t mean adding extra features or content; therefore there shouldn’t be an additional cost and effort.

Here are a few tips that will help you in web designing for accessibility in accordance with the AA level of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0), and will allow your website to work on the most commonly used assistive technologies — including screen readers, screen magnifiers, and speech recognition tools.

Maintain a Proper Contrast Ratio

Color contrast is an important aspect of web designing. But, it is often neglected as a web accessibility problem. People with low vision could find it difficult to read text from a background color if it has low contrast, whether on a plain background or text embedded within an image. A movie with subtitles is a good example. The text often appears without anticipating the background. It happens when white text appears in a brightly lit scene. It is unreadable, and the audience is left not knowing the dialogue.

It is critical to consider the sufficient contrast between text and background. According to the W3C, the contrast ratio between text and its background should be at least 4.5 to 1 (conformance level AA.) The ratios become more forgiving with larger and heavier fonts since they’re easier to read at lower contrast. If your type is at least 18 pt or 14 pt bold, the minimum contrast ratio drops to 3 to 1. You can use tools like Contrast Checker to see how your planned font and background colors work together.

Don’t Just Rely On Colors 

When you’re communicating something important, showing an action, or prompting a response, don’t use color as the only visual cue. People with low visual acuity or color blindness will have a hard time understanding your content. Try to use an indicator other than colors such as text labels or patterns.

Elements with more complex information like charts and graphs can be especially hard to read when you only use color to distinguish the data. Use other visual aspects to communicate information like shape, labels, and size. A good trick is to print your graph in black and white and see if you can still understand everything in it.

Keep Your Navigation Predictable

The navigation system your website uses should be consistent across its pages. This includes the icons you use and the way visitors get to different pages within the site. if your homepage has a top header bar with drop-down menus, each of your other pages should have this arrangement, too. Similarly, the icons you use across your website need to be consistent.

You should also stay away from any kind of automatic navigation and auto-playing music and videos. not only are they annoying, but it’s also difficult for a user with a screen reader to determine how to pause them. And when a slideshow or carousel scrolls through content at a rapid rate, users can become confused and frustrated.

Support Keyboard-Only Navigation

Web designing for accessibility is not restricted to the elements on the screen. Keyboard accessibility is one of the most critical aspects of web accessibility. Especially for the ones who are blind and rely on screen readers. Also, for people who don’t have precise muscle control; they can’t grasp a mouse or keep their hand steady on a laptop’s touchpad. These users rely on their keyboards to navigate websites. 

These users typically use the Tab key on the keyboard to navigate through interactive elements on a web page – links, buttons, or input fields. The order of the interactive elements is essential, and the navigation must be logical and intuitive. The tab order should follow the visual flow of the page – left to right, top to bottom.

Add Appropriate Alt-Tags To Images

Alt tags are brief descriptions of the images you use that get buried in the site’s HTML. Most users never see these descriptions, but site visitors using screen readers rely on them since they “hear” the content. These tools convert text to speech so that the person can hear the words on a site. Alternative text, or alt tags, can be presented in two ways –  within the <alt> attribute of the image element, or within the context or surroundings of the image itself. 

Alt tags aren’t just useful for your visually impaired audience; they’re for your benefit too. Well-crafted alt tags improve your site’s SEO, drawing more relevant site traffic and improving conversions.

Use Labels Or Instructions With Form Fields And Inputs 

Using placeholder text as labels are one of the biggest mistakes when designing a form. Placeholder text is usually gray and has low contrast, so it’s hard to read. People who use screen readers usually navigate through a form using the Tab key to jump through the form controls. The <label> elements are read for each form control. Any non-label text, as placeholder text, is usually skipped over.

Always help people understand what they should do and write in a form. It’s best if labels don’t go away, even when the person is filling an input. When designers hide descriptions or directions in their forms, they’re sacrificing usability to attain simplicity. That said, we don’t want you to clutter your design with unnecessary information, just make sure to provide essential cues.

Web designing for accessibility is a new and growing trend. While these tips will certainly help you in creating websites that are much more accessible for people with disabilities, there is still a lot of scope in terms of improving the user experience for this set of audience. As designers, we all need to grow and master the art of accessibility since technology is usable for all – regardless of their abilities. Looking to improve your web design? Talk to our experts.

Looking for 2020 Design Trends? Click Here to Know More

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Brand & Identity Design Technology Web Design

When And How To Redesign Your Website?

Redesign Your Website

Design trends change at a fast pace, and you need to keep yourself abreast of the changing trends. A timely analysis of your website design will help you in taking the call if you need to redesign your website or not. If your design looks straight out of the ’90s, with functionality from the stone age, its time to redesign.

But the big question is – how to get started and from where? Therefore, we created a website redesign checklist to help you through the redesigning process.

First things first, put your website under a design microscope and analyze if it’s time for a change. When was the last time you changed your web design? With the internet evolving all the time, it’s challenging to keep your website modern without updating it regularly. If you can’t easily remember the last time your website had a makeover, it’s time to take a look at our website redesign checklist.

Is your website mobile-friendly?

Mobile-friendly websites mean offering a consistent experience for visitors across all devices and screen resolutions; whether they access your site via desktops, tablets, or mobile devices.

Everyone has a mobile these days, even the kids. Mobile searches are higher than ever. A study revealed that in 2018, 52 percent of website traffic came from mobile phones. It means that more visitors come to your website via a mobile device, rather than on a desktop. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, you’re missing out on a substantial amount of leads and revenue.

Not to forget, in November 2016, Google rolled out its mobile-first index, which changed the Google ranking system altogether. Google now primarily looks at the mobile version of a website for indexing and ranking. 

Read More About Mobile Indexing Here

Is your website not driving revenue?

The core objective of a business is to generate revenue. Your website should be a lead-driving, and revenue-increasing machine. If that’s not happening, you likely need a website redesign. Well, one may argue that low revenue can be because of many reasons, but lack of website traffic and leads is a significant cause. And, even if your website design isn’t the main cause of your low leads and traffic, it won’t hurt upgrading the design.

Has Your business changed?

Your website should be an accurate representation of your business. If you have changed your business or modified some part of it, then redesigning is a good option. If you offer new products, or you’ve changed locations, or changed your branding, your website should reflect that.

Read More About Startup Business Branding Here

Now, if you decide to redesign your website, you need to follow the below-mentioned process:

1. List down what’s wrong with your site

It is the foundation of the redesigning process. You’ll want to make a list of everything that you feel is wrong with the current version of your website. The list should be comprehensive, covering everything from the design to the verbiage, and everything else. This step will not only help you in uncovering all the design shortcomings, but it can also help you discover other site performance issues. 

For example, you may find that your page upload speed is sluggish. This may not be a design issue, but it’s a problem nonetheless, which could repel visitors from your website.

2. Create a plan

Once you have made a list of all the aesthetic design issues, you need to come up with a game plan. Brainstorm some aesthetic elements that you’d like to implement instead of the present ones. Like, if you have listed that the color of your text doesn’t stand out against the background, write a suggestion against it of how you might want to fix it.

Or maybe you’ve decided that your navigation bar is overcrowded with too many components. You could make a note suggesting streamlining the navigation.

3. Take services of a web design agency

Not everyone is proficient in web designing, or has web designers on board. If you have experience with web designing, nothing like it; however, if you don’t have the resources and knowledge, it’s best to take the professional services of a reputable design agency. 

Not only will they create a stunning website for you, but they can elevate the user experience of your website to the next level. Not only they will do a great job, but they will also do it much more quickly than a fairly new and inexperienced team.

When you’re looking for a website agency to redesign your website, find one that has been in the business for a decent amount of time. Review their portfolio and list of clients to get an idea about their work. A couple of meetings can set the right expectations, and will help the design house to offer a custom quotation to you, based on the requirements.

4. Communicate your brand, goals, and taste to the design team

If you don’t communicate your brand, your thinking and what you wish to achieve, you will never reach your dream design. Sit down and talk to your website designer about the lists you’ve made and let them know how you’d like to go ahead with the changes to better fit your style.

Web designers have tons of ideas floating in their head; keep an open mind and explore all possible options, tailored for you. After all, they are experts. Ensure that you share your current style guides with them. This will help them to implement your existing color scheme, fonts, and styles in the new design.

5. Provide feedback to the designer

Your website designer will likely start with a wireframe or a watered-down version of your website. This is the best time to be open with them about what you like and what you don’t like about their design. It will help them to come up with a perfect design in the least number of iterations.

6. Conduct user testing

After users have had a chance to use your website, it’s time to do some user testing. This can help you understand user behavior on your site so that you can determine what users’ perception of your website. 

Conduct click analysis to understand which buttons are getting the maximum number of clicks, and which are the ones hardly getting any traction. The color or verbiage on the button can be the problem. User testing can help you determine the small details that can make or break your design in the eyes of your audience.

7. Ready, set and go

After the user testing is completed, you’re all set to fly high with your revamped design. Continue the analytics for the initial phase to determine the success of your redesigning exercises. Minor adjustments can be made based on these observations.

Need help redesigning your website? Talk to us.

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Brand & Identity Design UX Web Design

Web Designing While Accounting Human Errors

Web Designing
Web Designing

We often hear the phrase ‘To err is human’, and it can’t be truer in every aspect of our lives. We all make mistakes. Users on your websites are no different. Sure, you can’t stop them from making mistakes, but, can you follow some aspects of web designing while designing your website in a way that it leaves a scope of making mistakes?

Even the most careful and diligent users are bound to make mistakes at some point in time; others will make more mistakes. Therefore, it is critical to consider this fact while designing your website. The errors in web designing can be as simple as mistyping a URL, providing incorrect information in a sign-up form, adding info in wrong fields, etc. The mistakes could even be as disastrous as accidentally sending thousands of dollars to the wrong person via PayPal. So, here are a few tips that you can follow to account for human error while designing your websites. 

1. Provide Straightforward Instructions

A lot of times, we assume that the users are by default aware of the most basic instructions. Thus, we don’t feel it necessary to provide these basic instructions to them. Moreover, people often see basic directions as a bit snooty. It’s human to assume you know everything you need to know for a simple-seeming task. This causes errors.

Don’t assume they know what you mean. An imperative when delivering clear instructions is not to assume the recipient knows what you mean. This can be for anything from commonly used acronyms to simple navigation instructions.  Mixed messages, assumptions and multiple options mean that the message received might differ from what we actually meant.

2. Give Clear Warnings During

Just like the instructions, users must get a clear understanding of the consequences of actions taken on the website. And, sometimes they need to be informed and explained the implications, that too in detail. Still, there would be users who would keep ignoring your warnings, but there’s not much you can do for them in any case.

There’s also a second web designing approach which you can proceed with. A majority of people will leave your site when they face a warning message which they don’t fully understand. Else, they may look for help to understand the warning, which again may lead them to bounce off. You’ll have to decide whether you would rather deal with potential inaction from some customers, or more errors. Both approaches have their pros and cons.

3. Always Confirm Actions While

You may think that all users are completely sure of what they are doing on the website, or they may get annoyed with questions asking them to confirm their actions. A confirmation dialog may seem like an irritating and useless extra step; however, the truth of the matter is a quick “Are you sure you want to do that?” message can be invaluable. The user may be taking action for the first time, or the tenth time, it’s irrespective. A confirmation will only increase chances that the user takes the correct, intended action.

4. Validate Forms

Form validation may not be a full-proof solution, but a potent tool, and a great way to gently guide the user in the right direction. While proper form design can help keep users from simply putting the wrong text in the wrong form, form validation is excellent for double-checking information and catching typos and forgotten fields.

Improper validation of form data is one of the leading causes of security vulnerabilities. It exposes your website to attacks such as header injections, cross-site scripting, and SQL injections. It is important to note that client-side validation is beneficial, but it is not enough. If you’re going to implement client-side validation, it would be good to have some of the server-side too, just to be safe.

5. Use Appropriate Form Labels

In our last article, we listed out some essential tips for selecting the right button labels. The labels on the forms are equally important and can lead users to commit an error, if not used properly. There are tonnes of websites on the Internet with so many vaguely-labeled forms. Worse are the forms that use industry jargons on a client-facing website. In some of the sites, the labels and input fields are even misaligned. That’s just a strict NO-NO!

6. Improve Usability Through Color and Contrast

The colors and contrast are often used on a website most simplistically. People only go as far as using red and its shades to portray bad, and green and its shades to show good. But that’s not enough. It doesn’t necessarily help differently-abled users. A website should be usable by everyone, so various disabilities should be kept in mind. Disabilities can include but are not limited to, the inability to use a mouse or see the screen.

When someone has low visual acuity, specific color palettes on websites may make it difficult for that person to see and understand the website content fully. You must find a way to add contrast to your elements, in such a way, that they’re clearly and easily distinguished from each other. Pay special attention to this if two options use similar text, but do radically different things.

7. Provide ‘Undo’ Option Where Possible

We all know how handy the ‘Ctrl+Z’ option comes in every day while performing various tasks. The ability to undo an action is such a boon to everyone. We wish we had an undo button for our lives. Coming back to reality though, if you’re building a web app, you might seriously consider implementing some sort of “Undo” function for just about every action with permanent consequences.

You cannot ensure error-free browsing on your website; neither can you take a generic call on the abilities of your users. But, considering human errors while web designing, will increase the chances of good user experience and fewer errors. Speak to our experts to discuss more on it.

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Design UX Web Design

Top 5 UX Myths Busted

UX Myths

The world of UX design is full of terms, trends and principles. However, often the things which we consider to be true, or the principles which we believe in, are mere myths or UX Myths which we will be discussing. These can be hurtful to your overall user experience. In this article, we will highlight some of the top UX myths that must be busted for good.

Myth 1: Simplicity and Minimalist Design are the same

Simplicity is the key to exceptional and innovative product design. However, it is often considered similar to minimalist design, which is not the case. Simplicity is the reduction of complexity, while a minimalist style is more of reducing the elements. As a matter of fact, simple looking, minimal product UIs often bring hidden complexity. In a quest to reduce, a lot of design decisions can easily add more friction and cognitive load, leading to a much more complicated user experience.

Like icons without text labels are difficult to understand, non-standard gestures provide no obvious affordance. There are proven instances, not one but many, where the hamburger menu has performed poorly.

Striving for simplicity is must, but we must refrain from overdoing it, just for the sake of minimalism.

Myth 2: White space is wasted space

White space or negative space refers to the empty space between and around elements of a design or page layout. A lot of times designers undermine its importance and neglect it. Their argument is that this space is wastage of valuable screen estate. That’s absolutely not true. White space is an essential element in web design and must be considered as an active element, rather than a passive background.

White space is responsible for readability and content prioritization. It plays a vital role in the visual layout and brand positioning. It guides users on a page by enhancing readability and scannability.

Space around graphics and images, line-spacing and letter-spacing within text content, Margins, paddings and gutters, space between columns are few of the important elements of White Space.

Myth 3: You can design a website without content

A lot of designers create wireframes and comps with “lorem ipsum” filler text. Using dummy text often results in an aesthetically pleasing design, but the design is often an unrealistic one. Moreover, it creates the impression that content is secondary and has no major impact on the user experience, which is false.

The fact is that users come to the website, and stay on the website, for content and not the design. Content is by far the most important element in user interface design. A webpage with a simple structure but superior quality content is likely to perform far better in terms of usability in comparison to a visually pleasing page with subpar text.

Using dummy content or fake information in the web design process can negatively impact websites; it leads to unrealistic assumptions and potentially serious design flaws.

Myth 4: People don’t normally scroll

Gone are the days when people don’t use to scroll on websites. The scenario and user pattern have changed drastically over the last decade. Nowadays it’s absolutely natural to scroll. Specifically, for websites with lengthy content, like an article or a tutorial, scrolling provides better usability than dividing the text to several separate screens or pages.

You don’t have to squeeze everything into the top of your homepage or above the fold. That said, it is important to follow certain design principles to ensure that people scroll down. The utmost important thing is to provide appealing and intriguing content to readers; content that keeps your visitors interested.

But let’s not forget that the content above the fold will still get the most attention. Therefore, it is necessary to that piece of content to get people engaged. The quality of that content will decide whether your page is worth reading at all or not.

Myth 5: People read on the web

Not a lot of reading takes place over the internet. Users are always in a hurry. The time span of their attention is minimal. If you want users to read word-by-word, your content must be interesting.

They usually skim the pages looking for specific keywords, meaningful headings, short paragraphs and scannable list. Since they’re in a hurry to find the very piece of information they’re looking for, they’ll skip what’s irrelevant for them. So avoid long text blocks, unnecessary instructions, promotional writing and small talks. Get straight to the point and offer the relevant information as quickly as you can.

To conclude

When you’re flooded with a plethora of old-school design principles, and new ones getting added to the list every day, it gets difficult to duck the myths. Hopefully, this list will be of help for you next time you start a design project. For more info and insights on web designing, speak to our experts.

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Design

Evolution Of UX Design Principles Over The Years

UX Design Principles

Since the early 70s, designers and developers are working hand in hand to make screen-based user interfaces. At that time, actual user experience(UX Design) was least recognized and making everything work with a limited amount of processing power and a monochromatic screen was the sole goal. Slowly and gradually the hardware evolved which led to the growth of design possibilities.

Whether its a simple text on a screen or a fully-functional Graphical User Interface (GUI), its the UX designer who helps people to understand and draw sense from the technology. The early period of computing restricted the learning process to how to use windows, tabs and icons. While in the contemporary era, learning focuses more on making the most out of a tiny screen and touch gestures.

The iPhone Revolution

It all began with the iPhone which started a revolution and changed the principles of UX design. It was the iPhone which shifted our focus towards user experience and made it one of the most critical elements of any design. The use of button-free gesture control is iPhone’s best-known innovation and is the biggest contributor to its success.

iPhone Revolution

With the iPhone, users could control everything from the screen and there were no buttons like the other smartphones of that age. The iPhone looked clean, elegant and consistent. It completely transformed the use of smartphones. This design innovation made a smartphone more of a fully-functional computer. Although iPhone was not a leader in camera quality, memory, connection speed etc., it sure was a fully capable computer operating system.

Parallelly, UX design also evolved owing to faster processors and extended memory and in conjunction with that the iPhone suddenly opened up thousands of new possibilities for designers.

Responsive Design

Designing was much simpler when you knew that most of your users were accessing your interface on a desktop computer. That was changed with the growth of smaller screens like a laptop, a tablet or a smartphone. A UX designer had to make sure that the interface looks good across every platform. Responsive design has changed the way companies think about UX design. A Responsive Design enables the different elements to act according to the size and configuration of the device.

Responsive Design

A menu can widen out across the desktop screen, giving users more choice, then shrink to essential navigation elements on a smartphone. Moreover, it has driven us towards a unification of user experience across devices and modes. Companies take extra efforts to ensure that their browser-based UX has the exact same workflow and feel as their app does. With a change in how people access the web now, mobile-first has dominated both web design and software development.

Data-Based Design

The design revolution posed new challenges which weren’t on the surface previously. Designers required to make complex user interactions clear and intuitive on both smaller and bigger screens. A list of tasks which previously required a 17-inch screen, keyboard and mouse must now be accessible with a 4-inch screen and a thumb. User demands were increasing day by day and designer had to live up to the expectations. This pushed the companies towards data-based design which involved user testing to get everything right.

It became common for companies to implement user testing in order to address issues like flow, accessibility and user design preferences. User testing allows a trial of multiple versions simultaneously, get user feedback and suggestions, make changes and retest without actually programming and reprogramming the app.

Data-Based Design

Not every company implies UX design testing in the best ways and can draw false conclusions or data. For example, many companies don’t really watch users while interacting with the software, so all they get is self-reported data. Another good example – users may be testing the app prototype sitting down at a desk, but in real time they are likely to use the actual finished app while walking around. This can lead to developers thinking their UX design principles are sound when they actually are flawed. Moreover, untrained testers can draw wrong conclusions from user data.

For UX designers it’s important to learn how to effectively integrate testing and other data sources into design decisions. Usability testing has already driven a refinement in UX design principles. Companies like Apple or Google carry out lots of testing and use their findings to create their own style guides, both for in-house work and apps carried in their store.

The pace of design evolution has been on an increase since past few decades and it wouldn’t be a surprise if the design principles which are trending today completely fade out in a few decades. It’s important for a designer to understand the changes in user experience fundamentals and incorporate it in the design. Talk to our design gurus for more insight.