Do you love Apple products? Do you use Facebook daily? If you’re nodding yes to these questions then it is because these products or services had been designed before they’ve been developed. It is the nature of a good product that oozes good design thinking. Everything around us, that we use in our daily lives, have been designed by someone for a reason.
UI/UX or Interaction designing is no different from other forms of designing like the industrial design or textile design. But the thing that makes interaction designing unique from other disciplines is that it connects humans with an interface of a computer. With an ever-increasing presence of computer screens in our lives, it has become quintessential that the data we consume through computers makes legible and contextual sense.
That is why companies like Apple and Facebook follow the golden process of designing their products and services. You can also develop a product which leaves an ever-lasting impression on your customers by incorporating the following points in your development life cycle.
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Establish a design process:
First and foremost step is to establish a design process. Now, there is no one design process that has been accepted by our industry which fits all software needs and requirements. Multiple factors and parameters are weighed in before zeroing-in on the design process. Few of those factors are time limit, resources, expertise, budget, tools at your disposal, etc.
You and your design team have to work together and evolve your own design process which fulfills your needs and requirements and suits your workflow and company environment. Brainstorm on some ideas and establish a good design process.
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Choose your tools wisely:
Whoever says that a bad crafts-person blames his/her tools is wrong. No doubt, that you must acquire the skills required to efficiently use your tools. But better tools not only enhance your capacity to reach the ultimate expertise in your work but they also help you in doing so in lesser time. There are good tools available in the market which will amplify your design knowledge and also help you and your team in establishing a design process. Just to name a few, Sketch, Invision, Balsamiq, Flow and Adobe XD have become industry standards in designing.
We, at Apporio, have adopted all these tools in our designing process and they’ve really helped us in delivering quality products to our clients.
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Go through platform-specific design guidelines:
Like developers follow the certain syntax of a particular language, we designers also must follow platform-specific design guidelines. Both Google and Apple have released guidelines which should be followed by an app/website which plans to go live on their platform. Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines and Google’s Material Guidelines make the lives of designers really easy in the long run. These guidelines meticulously specify each and every piece of information that you should know before getting your hands dirty in designing.
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Do more with white space:
Space is important for design, be it a positive space or negative space. Positive space is the one which is viewable by a human. But contrary to popular belief, negative space can also be viewed by a human. It speaks as much as positive space does. Negative space bolsters positive space and allows the human to easily scan each and every element on the screen. You must cleverly use white spaces in your design and let every element speaks for itself.
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Organize your work using sticky notes:
Designing cannot be done in a vacuum. Every designer needs space to work. Organizing designing work is as much necessary as the design itself. This is because thoughts can strike your mind anywhere and anytime. This is where sticky notes come in handy. They exponentially simplify your life and unburden your mind from extra thoughts that you may require in the upcoming projects. So grab a dozen sticky notes from the nearest departmental store and better organize your design workflow and process.
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Make. Show. Learn. Repeat:
Designing can be hard when done in solitude. It leads to “design ego” which basically translates to ‘my design is good in my head’. But most of the designers don’t end up using the products designed by them. So you must always keep the requirements, likes, dislikes, needs, and environment of the end-user in mind. Never forget the user!
In order to mitigate this problem, you should include other people, like developers, user researchers, information architects, and project managers in your design process. Ask for their help whenever possible. By showing your designs to other people removes any ambiguity from them and adds value and hierarchical perception, thus validating your design decisions.
The design team at Apporio Infolabs religiously follow all the above-mentioned principles while designing the products for our clients. You can also incorporate these principles into your design workflow and enhance your output. If you’re looking to get your next product designed or increase the usability of your current product then contact us. Our design team will leave no stone unturned in doing so.
Happy designing!
