Let’s face it. Most of us code slingers have no innate understanding of what makes a great user experience (UX) design. We spend so many hours in front of multiple user interfaces that navigating and using software becomes virtually intuitive, instinctual. But we are not “normal” users.
I’ve just finished reading and mean to re-read Whitney Hess’s “25 Guiding Principles for UX Designers” on Inside Tech. It’s a great piece with some very good references. I recommend you read the entire article multiple times. Here are some of my favorites (my number is not the same as Whitney’s):
1. Understand the underlying problem before attempting to solve it.
How often do we just begin coding and throwing a user interface together without having spent much, if any, time with the target audience to understand their needs, challenges, skill level and approach to solving the problem currently?
2. Make things simple.
How often do we try to put every feature we can pack into a single view thinking to make the software powerful and reduce round trips to the server or some other resource?
3. Provide context.
How often do we place controls or information in a user interface that we consider convenient but in reality is out of context and will confuse a user who does not understand what is going on “under the covers” so to speak?
4. Be consistent.
How often do we design one page in a certain way only to bounce the user to another page in a web application that uses a different design paradigm, making the user spend some time just to figure out where the OK or Cancel button or link is now?
You can read about these and the 21 principles at Whitney’s article (see link above). I also recommend the following resources, a selection from those Whitney recommends:
UX Principles and Design Guides
If you have some favorite principles of your own, please share them here.