UI Web Design

Why is having a good user experience necessary when designing a website? For starters, it is the deciding factor of whether a user will stay on your website. Creating a website with a simple UI is essential to enhance the user experience and attract customers.

UX & UI

When designing a website, two terms come into play; UX and UI. UX is known as user experience, and UI is known as the user interface. The UI is crucial to the UX because, without the UI, the UX wouldn’t be great.

User Interface

UI, also known as the user interface, has come a long way. Simply put, the UI is the aesthetical design of a website. It is the way a user interacts with your webpage. In the 1970s, the graphical interfaces used today didn’t exist. A user would have to input lines of code to complete an easy and simple task.

GUI

However, this all changed in 1980 when computer scientists at Xerox PARC invented the first GUI (Graphic User Interface). This breakthrough innovation allowed users to interact with their computers through buttons, menus, and icons. This alteration in technology ultimately meant that a user could use their computer without coding.

In 1984, the first successful home computer to use a GUI was released by Apple. The Macintosh featured a point-and-click mouse that allowed the user to interact with the computer. Fast forward to our time now. We see many different interfaces everywhere. We ranged from our mobile phones to our desktop computers.

User Experience

UX, which is short for user experience, is what users experience while interacting through the UI. Don Norman, a cognitive scientist, coined the term ‘user experience.’ He defined it as “‘User experience’ encompasses all aspects of the end user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products.” (Norman).

To better understand what causes a good experience, Peter Moreville, a designer and information architect, created a visual representation of what makes a user experience design.

UI Web Design (User Interface) undoubtedly ensures that visitors can effectively browse a website with virtually no issues, thus creating a seamless user experience. A well-laid-out website development process will certainly provide the correct front-end and website functionality. Thus resulting in a better seamless experience and categorizing your website under “best websites.” Common sense dictates that ease of use enables products to have a broader appeal to a large audience. On the one hand, some argue that the functionality of a product should dictate its design. Hence, from this perspective, a product’s primary focus is to get the maximum output out of its input.

By looking at web development, specifically in U.I. design, it is possible to see the trade-offs that web developer faces when they try to balance design with functionality.

UI Web Design & UX

Although the terms UI/UX designer is often used together, U.I. stands for user interface, and U.X. stands for user experience. They are often used together because the user interface often contributes to how the consumer uses the website and contributes to their experience on the website. According to the question-and-answer site Quora, Digital Marketing Specialist Mridul Kumar acknowledges that user experience design is “the process of increasing overall customer satisfaction and loyalty by focusing on the ease and pleasure in the interaction between the product and the customer.” Whereas U.I. design “refers to the look, feel and interactivity of a product with the user.” This is a broad definition; an example would be the menu bar on a web browser.

The menu bar allows a user to perform simple tasks such as going backward on a page, refreshing the page, and accessing the menu button. These buttons enable users to quickly carry out their desired tasks, improving their overall experience with the chosen web browser.

Arrangements of I/O

Product Strategist Ryan Singer defines U.I. as “the arrangement of inputs and outputs that enable people to apply the computer’s functions to create the outcomes they want.” Singer says that the arrangement of buttons or layouts can help consumers use the website and tell it what to do via the user’s interface. For example, if I am using a calculator web application, the arrangement of the numbered buttons and the buttons that has the +, -, ÷, ×, would be the user’s interface because those buttons tell the computer that I want a specific number to do an operation with another number.

Functions, Inputs, Outputs, and Navigation

In addition, the ingredients of the user interface can be boiled down to four items. These four items are “functions, inputs, outputs, and navigation.” These properties are important because they define the functional aspects of U.I. design. I mentioned earlier that U.I. design is a combination of functionality and form. Therefore, the four properties I mentioned are the essential bare bones of a good U.I. Although the four essential ingredients may seem basic, they should, in fact, concern anyone who cares about web development. After all, this is one of the reasons why Facebook and Instagram have such a broad appeal. Their simplistic U.I. makes it easy to input new photos, navigate the user’s friend list and perform a primary task.

Minimalistic UI Web Design

Minimalistic UI Web design is one of the most popular styles nowadays. There are more people on the world-wide-web now than when the internet started, this means that those people have a wide range of technical abilities with computers. Therefore, if businesses want to attract more customers, they must have a U.I., allowing users to navigate their websites easily.

Good UI Web Design

So what makes a good U.I., and how does one test it? A way to test out the U.I. is to research user habits. For example, if the web developer discovers that the user wants to buy a product. However, for some reason, the buy button requires five clicks instead of two clicks, like most items. This would require a U.I. redesign because the user’s habits of buying most items significantly differ from those requiring five clicks. The change in users’ habits could also result in a loss of sales because buyers are afraid of unfamiliar environments.

So what is minimalism?

Minimalism is a “simplicity of style…achieved by using the fewest and barest essentials or elements to maximum effect” with designs that have “white space, better typography, grid layouts, and fewer colors.” Admittedly, in an average consumer’s eyes, minimalism looks easy to create even though to master minimalist design means to master the technique. It’s harder to pull off because you can’t hide behind ornament and decoration. Minimalism looks easy to create because a master designer can make any design look effortlessly.

Overall, minimal design can look like child’s play because a master designer can make it look easy. However, how did this minimal trend arise from a long history of computer technology development? U.I. Industry Writer Daniel Rounds writes that one of the first batch computing computers did not have a graphical display similar to modern-day laptops/desktops.

Graphical Display History

A graphical display is important because it allows real-time interaction and correction with the computer. This reduces processing time and helps fix errors in the code. However, the first computers “consisted of the input of a punched card…”.

The subsequent integration of user interfaces is to have a video display terminal that can modify the screen data instead of “having them printed. It also made economic sense by removing the need for ink and printing materials.” According to Daniel Rounds, the first GUI was “developed by researchers at Xerox Palo Research Center in the 1970s,” which eventually led to the first “fully integrated desktop computer was the Xerox Star released in 1981.” This led to many other computer companies copying the feel of the graphical GUI, such as the Mac OS System 1 that was released in 1984. It wasn’t until Windows 95 that computers had a “small close button and a resize thumb on each window.”

Graphical Innovations

The transition from punch cards and a monitor display had a tremendous impact on computing power efficiency. The effect of these graphical innovations allows a more intuitive approach to using the computer. Furthermore, a punch card had to be verified and checked for any mistakes on the card. This would increase work time and frustrations among employees because the punched cards had to be retyped and rechecked. Additionally, a standard workroom would have many very loud Batch computers, and the lack of real-time interaction with the console created an inefficient work environment.

UI Web Design Gradually Improves

The standard way of thinking about UI web design is that it gradually improves over time; a computer monitor with windows and a mouse pointer that can interact with the screen is much easier to use than typing commands into a terminal. Also, UI web design stems from trial and error, and certain principles are the backbone of good UI web design. According to the book Software for Use: A Practical Guide to the Models and Methods of Usage-Centered Design by Larry L. Constantine and Lucy A.D., the six design principles of U.I. are structure, simplicity, visibility, feedback, tolerance, and reuse principles.

The structure principle demonstrates that the layouts of a website need to be consistent and have a uniform feel to each other.

The simplicity principle states that the design should simplify everyday tasks and provide shortcuts to lengthy procedures. This is a bad example because the text boxes have different sizes and colors. This lack of color cohesion leads to an inconsistent design.

U.I. Examples

The visibility principle claims that a website or a product should present the options and materials to the user without confusion or distraction to the consumers. This U.I. exemplifies the simplicity principle because the app has three options on the screen. The Facebook and Twitter buttons allow users to share the weather status on their accounts. Whereas the top screen allows a user to check what the weather is like.

The Amazon website shows that a website can be easy to navigate with various options an Amazon buyer would need access to.

The feedback principle states that one’s design should keep the user informed of their actions or errors. Amazon has a cart icon to show users how many items are in their carts and if they have successfully put them into their carts.

UI Web Design should be Memorable.

The reuse principles acknowledge the user’s need for familiarity and argue that the user’s interface should be easy to remember. Also, the user should not need to memorize new menu buttons or layouts. These properties say that when the user visits the website repeatedly, there should be a sense of familiarity with where each button is and how to navigate the website. This familiarity establishes trust between the user and the website because human beings tend to gravitate toward things they are familiar with. For example, Facebook has gone through many updates. However, their website still feels friendly to use for most users. This is a good use of the reuse principle because Facebook can capture the feel and likeness of its website and still implement new changes and updates.

Future Enhancements of UI Web Design

The improvements in voice recognition software will enhance the U.I. aspects of web design. For example, Apple’s Siri can “set appointments, search the internet, set timers and other simple tasks. The potential of this type of human-computer interaction is huge, but we’ve still got a long way to go.” Just as the first Batch computer did not have a graphical display.

A similar trend will happen with computers and voice recognition software. Within the next five years, the adoption rate of voice recognition will be over 80%. This is because the current trend in technology is to have things getting smaller. However, with a smaller screen interface will become much hard to navigate. However, voice certainly promises a more profound and ubiquitous method for interacting with our devices. This is similar to how in the past after the Xerox Star was released with a graphical display interface, many other computer manufacturers followed suit. Speech recognition will undoubtedly be the next significant improvement, similar to how visual display was a game-changer in 1981. You see it with Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home.