Aesthetic Design is what leads to excellent user experience. 38% of the people will leave a website if they find the layout unattractive. Besides fabricating an eye-catching and appealing outlook of the user interface, the design should be passed through testing and evaluation phases. In this article, we discuss 11 Heuristics Every Designer Should Follow For Amazing Designs.
The various prototypes of the initial idea will let you come up with the best possible solution based on the requirements. The concept is to create building blocks that lead the user to the intended path. Otherwise, a design pattern not backed by a valid path may drive you to nowhere. Instead, the design heuristics are there to guide you for keeping on track.
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Design Heuristics
It is a problem-solving approach followed by a proven number of steps to solve design issues. If the work environment is changing rapidly, then it is crucial to keep up with design heuristics in order to evaluate the usability of your designs.
Jakob Nielsen is the genius innovator who presented these 10 design heuristics for user interface back in the ’90s. Designers from all over the world are resonating their design components to streamline their workflows. Many world-renowned companies have successfully adopted these to enhance the exposure of their services. Though there are numerous other design models which designer tend to embrace for excellent mobile and web experience those presented by Jakob Nielsen have special significance in the web design world.
Visibility of system status
A user should be well informed about the status of operations that are being executed while he/she has approached a specific web element. The users should not remain skeptical about their interactions with these elements. Instead, a proper point of action should be integrated to make them informed about the current status of their activity.
Match between system and the real world
The designers should focus on the object of the real world while constructing design sequences for the end-users. The user’s inclinations towards realism provoke him/her to appreciate the idea based on real conventions. The manifested information should be based on logic and web elements should appear natural rather than entirely system-oriented.
User control and freedom
Offer users complete control over the actions they performed while interacting with the elements of the user interface. A user should have the liberty to move back from a state or redo it without any hassle.
Consistency and standards
The execution or output from a similar type of web component should be the same all across the web domain. It should not conclude a different meaning or otherwise have a different outcome when approached in a different way. A designer must maintain equal standards and a hierarchy in the visual elements.
Error prevention
While placing information, the users should be provided with a precautionary message if he/she has approached the wrong web elements or the information is ambiguous. The user should be informed prior to submitting the data. Notifying after the execution of command may not be efficient and the user may have to start over.
Recognition rather than recall
To offer more convenience to the users, facilitate them with useful options so he/she doesn’t have to remember information each time he/she interacts with the web element. The intended user information should easily be retrieved from the system.
For instance, an autosuggestion option while typing in the website search bar will generate a great impact on the usability of your website.
Flexibility and efficiency of use
The efficiency of processes execution and fewer interactions during the initiation of actions leads to optimal performance. The tailored user options assist in the acceleration of chores and hence the frequent actions can be performed with ease.
Aesthetic and Minimalist Design
Besides being attractive, each unit of the design should have a defined scope and should be relevant to the other elements of the user interface. The extra design units may reduce the importance of other features, which are foremost for the productivity of web domain.
Error recognition
As a designer, you will be well aware of technical terms but users don’t. Therefore, if you have to generate error against any component the user gets interacted with. You have to manifest it simple plain language.
Help and documentation
Besides convenient and obvious navigation systems you have integrated into the user interface, it is significant to provide a help and documentation section. The complete guidance is necessary for every single unit of content. You never know a user belonging to which background or territory get engaged with your web domain.
Advantages and disadvantages of using design heuristics
After the completion of the web design process, it is recommended to test run it through three resources before the acceptance stage. As the nature of each website is different and the target audience you are trying to approach has own unique interests, so evaluators having multiple skills can identify the issues with the final web design. There are the following advantages and disadvantages of using design heuristics.
Advantages
- The heuristics help designers to focus on the design aspects they may miss out during the designing phase.
- These heuristics have a major role in highlighting usability issues related to each segment of the design.
- It’s easy to identify and generate bug fixes, as it’s a principle method to find major and minor problems instantly.
- This design evaluation system propels to look for design issues in the early phases of the design life cycle, so problems get fixed early and everything gets streamlined.
Disadvantages
- An individual planning to work on these principles should have some knowledge about integrating them into the design elements. A novice can’t handle them perfectly.
- It sometimes becomes difficult to find out professionals having expertise in setting up design sequences and have knowledge about the technical limitations of the design.
- The heuristics don’t point out issues intricate design issues that are loosely structured and besides other issues, it indicates low-priority issues alongside.
Conclusion
These rules of thumb are designed to inform designers about the technical aspects of a user interface design. However, these set of rules are not specific to each design pattern as each one comes with its own constraints and styles. Therefore, an organization should fabricate its own principles, which could be a blend of these heuristics with advanced ones to identify potential issues that are lacking in this model.
We hope this article about 11 Heuristics Every Designer Should Follow For Amazing Designs has been interesting and of value to you and be sure to leave your comments below.
Author Bio
Hamza Riaz is a Digital Marketing Executive at FME Extensions, a leading Magento Design and Development agency. He manages digital marketing of top-notch Magento extensions developed by FME. Also, he likes to express his thoughts and experiences in the form of write-ups.