UI (User Interface Design)
UI or visual design brings ideas to life – high-fidelity website visuals that dictate layout, colour, brand elements and the organisation of on-page content.
Creating effective user-interfaces
The overarching objective of the user-interface is to convey information for people to understand. Although to better understand it can be broken down into the following things:
- Typography
- Symbols
- Icons
- Animation and interaction
- Colour
- Imagery
User Testing
Improve the performance of your website or product through a specific test. Testing provides qualitative research that’s direct, invaluable and actionable.
Why test the users?
It’s no longer good enough to design blindly and launch products without gathering insights from users. Here’s 5 reasons user testing is a good idea:
- Test users in their natural context (using real devices)
- Understand the user’s actions and behaviours
- Validate or question pre-held thoughts and theories you had about your website/app
- Eliminate design guesswork
- Get an outside opinion from those not involved in the website’s production
Approach to User Testing
What do you test?
User testing can be applicable to any scale project, and what’s important is you do at least some level of user testing. Whether it be remote user testing or completed in a user testing lab, test conducted should test key user journey, conversion points, and other fundamental points or scenarios. It’s possible to test either live websites with full working functionality, or interactive prototypes for new designs and ideas.
Deciding who to test
Ideally, you should test either remotely or in person with people who have never used the product before. These people should represent your target audience demographically. A testing agenda should be written with clear instructions as to what the test participant should follow. Participants should be encouraged to speak out lout and project their sticking points and confusion.
Test early and often
It’s important to test early in the design process. When the process develops to a point when you have a clickable prototype you can begin to test your product with a basic prototype and real users. Testing often ensures you iterate the design continuously until it’s well refined. You should never stop testing as design can never be finished, only built upon and improved.
Interpret results and make changes
Results can sometimes be difficult to decipher, so it’s important to test multiple design options and strategise new ideas through further wireframing, prototyping and user-interface design. The most important thing is that issues are highlighted and these areas are iterated and improved to create an overall better user experience.