Interaction design is one of the most critical facets of user experience design. It makes the product’s interface respond to user’s action, aiding in human-to-computer interaction.

Key takeaways:

• Interaction design is a multidisciplinary design field that focuses on the interaction between users and digital products, systems, or interfaces.
• It involves designing how users engage with and experience a product, with the goal of making that interaction intuitive and efficient.
• It’s often abbreviated as IxD.

It’s one of the most challenging stages of UX design process. UXPin’s code-based design tool reduces those challenges by allowing designers to build functional prototypes with extreme fidelity and interactivity. Deliver better customer experiences today. Sign up for a free trial.

Build advanced prototypes

Design better products with States, Variables, Auto Layout and more.

Try UXPin

What is Interaction Design?

Interaction design is a process of making human-to-computer interfaces (HCI) feel human-like. Interactive digital products create this “human” connection by giving feedback to the end-users. The feedback can be through a scroll-provoked animation, clicked state of a button or transition to another page.

Often shortened to IxD, interaction design uses appropriate interactive elements, such as transitions, microinteractions, animation, but also text, color, visuals, and layout impact users’ feeling and behavior–allowing them to design interactions strategically to elicit the appropriate response.

A good use of interaction design successfully leads to positive user experiences, including:

• Greater product satisfaction
• Deeper usability comprehension
• Faster learnability
• A deeper personal connection
• Increased likelihood of repeated use

Interaction Design vs UI Design

Interaction design focuses on human-computer interaction, including animations, microinteractions, transitions, search, and other motion-based designs. They decide, for example, what happens when a user taps an element.

User interface design focuses on visual design and aesthetics, including color, fonts, iconography, layouts, etc. They decide what a user interface must look like.

To summarize:

• Interaction design is about Interactions and movement
• UI design is about visual design and aesthetics

In smaller companies and startups, a UI designer is often responsible for both tasks, while the roles are separate in larger organizations. Like anything in digital product design, the roles and responsibilities can synergize. It all depends on the company, product, and organizational structure.

Interaction Design vs UX Design

Interaction design is a specialized discipline within UX design. Where UX looks at the entire user experience and how everything ties together, interaction designers focus on user interactions and motion.

User experience designers apply UX fundamentals like design thinking, human-centered design, and user research to make decisions. They’re specifically concerned with a user’s tasks, actions, and environment, while interaction designers focus on making the digital product respond to user actions in an appropriate way. They tend to think about what happens when a user clicks a button, types a phrase into a search bar or hovers over an image.

Interaction Design Principles

We’ve chosen our favorite IxD principles from Don Norman’s (co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group) book, The Design of Everyday Things.

Visibility

With many features and limited space, prioritizing visibility is a significant design challenge. Don Norman’s theory is that the more visible something is, the more likely a user sees and interacts with it. Interaction designers must balance visibility prioritization based on user needs and business goals.

A typical example of visibility is prioritizing navigation links on mobile devices. What links are visible via the app bar, and what do designers place in the navigation drawer behind a hamburger menu?

Feedback

Feedback is how a digital product or system communicates with users. Interaction designers have several ways to express this feedback, including motion/animation, tactile, audio, copy, etc.

They must also consider accessibility and how products relay feedback to all types of users and assistive technologies.

Constraints

Cluttered UIs with too many possibilities confuse users and create usability issues. Good interaction design limits (or constrains) user actions to guide them through the product more efficiently.

We see these constraints most commonly with landing pages. Designers strip away navigation, links, and anything else that might tempt users to leave the page, leaving only a prominent CTA or form. Constraining users to a single action allows them to focus on the content that leads to a conversion.

Mapping

Interaction designers must create a clear relationship between controls and their effect on a digital product. The idea is to map these relationships to feel natural to users.

For example, the top button on an iPhone increases the volume while the lower one decreases. This intuitive layout means users don’t have to think about which button performs which action.

The more intuitive and obvious a product is to use, the easier and more enjoyable the experience.

Consistency

Consistency is vital for interaction and UI design. Inconsistency can confuse users and create usability issues. Designers not only have to design consistent UIs and interactions but also consider consistency across multiple screen sizes and devices.

Many organizations build a design system or adopt an open-source component library to increase consistency with approved UI patterns and interactions. When designers don’t have to think about these choices, they can focus on the user experience and apply the appropriate pattern to help users achieve the desired result.

Affordance

Affordance tells users how to use something or perform an action. It’s an interaction designer’s job to ensure that it’s obvious to users how to complete tasks using UI elements.

For example, a submit button’s disabled state tells users to complete a form’s required fields before submitting. Using a different color and underline for links tells users which text they can click.

Cognition

Interaction designers must have a basic understanding of cognitive psychology in UX design–attention and perception, memory, problem-solving, and creative thinking. The aim is to design products and experiences that don’t overload these mental processes.

Cognition deals with several design psychology principles, including:

• Gestalt principles: how the human brain perceives visuals to create familiar structures.
• Von Restorff effect: predicts that in a group of objects, the one that differs stands out or is most likely to be remembered.
• Hick’s Law: the more choices you give someone, the longer it’ll take them to make a decision.
• The Principle of Least Effort: users will make choices or take action requiring the least amount of energy.
• The Serial Positioning Effect: humans are most likely to remember the first (primacy effect) and last (recency effect) items in a list, sentence, or piece of content.
• The Principle of Perpetual Habit: people rely on familiar routines and habits–which is why it’s crucial to use universal design patterns.
• The Principle of Emotional Contagion: humans will mimic or empathize with the emotions and behaviors of others, including animals and animations–which is why designers use faces (even emojis) to emphasize feeling and emotion.
• Fitts’s Law: the time required to move to a target area is a function between the distance and the target’s size.

Dive deeper into cognition in this article: UX Design Psychology Tricks for Design Excellence and this one: A UX Designer’s Guide to Improving Speed of Use. These principles apply to all UX disciplines.

Interaction Design Checklist

We found this helpful interaction design checklist from the US Government’s Technology Transformation Services website, usability.gov. The checklist includes several questions to consider when designing interactions.

• Define how users interact with the interface – click/tap, push, swipe, drag & drop, keyboard controls, etc.
• Give users clues about behavior before they take action – correct labeling, different colors for links, using consistency for clickable UI elements, etc.
• Anticipate and mitigate errors – how do you prevent errors while providing helpful messages to correct problems?
• Consider system feedback and response time – what happens after users complete an action, and how soon does that feedback appear?
• Strategically think about each element – have you chosen the appropriate element/pattern? Is there enough space between clickable elements to avoid errors? Have you followed design psychology principles (mentioned above)? Scrutinize every decision from a user’s perspective.
• Simplify for learnability – make user interfaces and tasks as simple as possible, use familiar patterns, and minimize cognitive-draining tasks and features to simplify the user experience.

Also, check out the IxD Checklist from Aaron Legaspi and Amit Jakhu.

Interaction Design Resources

• Interaction Design Association
• Interaction Design Foundation
• 50 Best Interaction Design Programs

UXPin–The Ultimate Interaction Design Tool

A lack of fidelity and functionality is a significant problem for interaction designers when prototyping and testing using traditional image-based design tools.

Interaction designers must create multiple frames to replicate basic code functionality, which takes considerable time and effort. With UXPin’s code-based design tool, designers can achieve significantly better results with less effort. Here’s how:

States

UXPin enables designers to create multiple States for a single component. For example, you can build a button with default, hover, active and disabled states, each with separate properties and triggers.

UXPin’s States also allows designers to create more complex UI patterns like carousels, accordions, dropdown menus, and more using a single frame. These UI patterns behave like code, giving interaction designers accurate results and feedback during testing.

Interactions

With UXPin Interactions, designers can build immersive, code-like experiences far beyond the capabilities of image-based design tools. UXPin offers a wide range of triggers, actions, and animations to create fully functional, animated prototypes.

Conditional Interactions allow designers to take prototypes a step further with Javascript-like “if-then” and “if-else” conditions to create dynamic user experiences. 

Variables

In UXPin, form fields look and function like the final product. Variables allow designers to capture user inputs and use that data elsewhere in the prototype–like a personalized welcome message after completing an onboarding form.

Expressions

UXPin Expressions take prototyping to another level with code-like functionality, including form validation and computational components (updating a shopping cart). When combined with States, Interactions, and Variables, Expressions allow designers to build prototypes that function like the final product.

These powerful features mean interaction designers don’t have to learn code or rely on engineers to build fully functioning prototypes for accurate testing. With UXPin, designers can build, test, and iterate faster and achieve significantly better results.

Tired of asking usability participants and stakeholders to “imagine” something happening? Switch to UXPin and start prototyping with the world’s most advanced code-based design tool. Sign up for a free trial today.

The post What is Interaction Design? appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

Data tables are essential components for many enterprise UX projects. UX designers must find the best UX table design solution to visualize and sort data according to user needs.

This article explores table UI design best practices with examples to solve common content and usability issues. We also provide links to resources to help research specific topics further.

Key takeaways:

• Data table UX design involves organizing and presenting data in a way that allows users to easily find, understand, and interact with information.
• Effective data table design involves layout selection, data organization, legibility, and user task functionality.
• Data table designers should prioritize readability, create visual hierarchy, ensure responsiveness, order columns sensibly, and focus on accessibility for a better user experience.

Data table UX design and prototyping are challenging for designers using image-based design tools. These tools lack features to create basic table functionality like sorting, search, scrolling, actions, etc. 

With UXPin Merge, designers can sync a fully functioning data table or use a component library like MUI to design, prototype, and test table UX.

Reach a new level of prototyping

Design with interactive components coming from your team’s design system.

Discover UXPin Merge

Data Table Design

First, let’s break down the data table anatomy and how these elements fit together so users can visualize information.

• Table Header: The labels for each column in the data table
• Rows: Each entry from the database
• Toolbar: Tools to work with the data (search, edit, delete, settings, etc.)
• Pagination: A UI pattern for displaying multiple pages of data
• Row checkbox: Used to select one or more rows to complete tasks, i.e., delete, copy, process, etc.
• Sorting: Allows users to sort a specific column, i.e., ascending or descending
• Horizontal rule: A horizontal line (the <hr> HTML element) separating each row

What Makes a Good Data Table?

There are four primary ingredients to designing good data tables:

1. Use the correct data table UI for the content you want to display
2. Prioritize table layout and content correctly
3. Make content legible
4. The data table provides users with the functionality to complete tasks

First and foremost, your table must be sufficient to display all the data users need. UX designers must also prioritize data correctly, with the most crucial information starting from the left.

A good data table has a clear header and description, so users know what they’re viewing. Designers must also use legible typography and adequate spacing between columns and rows to make it easy for users to read and absorb content.

Lastly (and most importantly), your data table must be user-friendly. It must solve users’ needs and be intuitive to use. There should be little or no learning curve, so users can focus on analyzing data rather than learning how to use the data table. 

How to Design User-Friendly Data Tables?

Here are some best practices for designing user-friendly data tables. 

Data Table Readability

Readability is crucial for data table UX. Designers must assess several elements to make data tables readable, including:

• Reduce visual noise: Only display content and UI elements necessary for users to read and manipulate data.
• Use legible fonts: The data table’s typeface, sizing, white space, and letter spacing must be adequate for users to read content–even if this means using a different font from the rest of your application.
• Create separation: Padding, spacing, alignment, and lines can help create separation so users can differentiate and absorb data easily.
• Consistency: Using fonts, spacing, sizing, etc., creates consistency and familiarity so users can scan tables faster to find what they need.
• Fixed headers: Keeps headers visible even when users scroll so they always have context.

Create Visual Hierarchy

Linked to readability is creating a visual hierarchy–where designers use typography, sizing, spacing, and other elements to differentiate data and make tables scannable.

• Use bold and slightly larger font sizes for column and row headers
• Use shading to differentiate between headers and table content
• “Zebra stripes” help create divisions between rows, making them easier to read
• Use a contrasting color for links, so users know what content is clickable

Data Tables Must be Responsive

UX designers must understand how users use these tables while completing day-to-day tasks to create a consistent and cohesive user experience across the organization.

Data tables must be responsive so users can analyze data anywhere in the business. The sales team might want to access the data from their mobile device on the go, while warehouse employees primarily use tablets.

Order Columns According to Data Relevance

An article from the NN Group recommends, “The default order of the columns should reflect the importance of the data to the user and related columns should be adjacent.”

UX designers must arrange and group columns according to their relevance. For example, location details like address, city, country, and zip code must be together. Placing these apart would create more work for users as they scroll or scan the table to compare columns.

Data Table Accessibility

WebAIM offers several tips for Creating Accessible Tables, including:

• Table Captions: An HTML element <caption> placed after the opening table element provides context for screen readers. While HTML falls on engineers, UX designers must provide the appropriate caption description based on user research and testing.
• Identify Row and Column Headers: UX designers must use appropriate row and column headers so screen readers can identify content correctly.
• Associate the Data Cells with the Appropriate Headers: The scope attribute tells screen readers whether a header belongs to a row or column. For example, <th scope=”col”>Name</th> and <th scope=”row”>Jackie</th>. The scope attribute makes it easy for screen readers to jump around the table like a user would scanning it visually.
• Use Proportional Sizing, Rather than Absolute Sizing: Using percentages rather than fixed pixel cell sizing allows tables to automatically adjust to a screen’s dimensions, making it easier to read for visually impaired users.

More resources for data table accessibility:

• Creating Accessible Tables by WebAIM
• Accessible Tables by the University of Minnesota
• Tables Tutorial by Web Accessibility Initiative

Atomic Design for Complex Data Tables

Smashing Magazine outlines an atomic design approach to designing complex data tables. Atomic design is a technique for designing from the smallest UI element and progressively building to create more complex components, patterns, and entire user interfaces.

Smashing Magazine breaks down data tables using this methodology as follows:

• Atoms: Fonts, colors, icons
• Molecules: Cells, headers, and accessories
• Organisms: Rows, columns, pagination, toolbar
• Templates: The entire table

6 Great UX Tables Examples

Here are six examples of UX tables and the problems they solve for users.

Horizontal Scrolling for Large Datasets

Large datasets require horizontal scrolling to accommodate many columns. UX designers must decide which content is most important to users to prioritize what is always visible and what users must scroll to view.

This preference may change across an organization, so allowing users to personalize what’s visible by rearranging the columns is crucial for creating a good user experience.

It’s advisable to place identifiers in the first column and fix it so users always have a reference as they scroll. Allowing users to fix multiple columns can help when comparing different data.

Expandable Rows and Columns

Expandable or resizable columns serve two purposes for users:

1. Allow users to view cells with exessive content
2. Allow users to minimize cell widths for the content they deem less important

UX designers might also consider making rows and columns “hideable” to reduce visual noise and make it easier to read the content that matters most for the task at hand.

Expandable rows allow UX designers to include detailed information only visible when users need it. This example from CodePen shows a series of job cards with a brief description and status. Users can open the accordion to display additional notes and job costs.

Row Focus Data Table

This hover effect allows users to focus on a single row at a time. If you have multiple columns and data points, this effect enables users to highlight a row, making it easier to read. 

UX designers could also blur the other rows, making picking out a single row easier. 

In a similar example, this data table highlights a specific cell with a raised hover effect.

Infinite Scroll Data Table

Infinite scroll is helpful for tables with lots of data. It’s an excellent alternative to pagination, where instead of having to click, users only have to scroll to see more content.

Column Sorting

Column sorting is essential for users to reorder data according to their preferences. For example, a warehouse manager can sort orders from the earliest first to monitor progress and address issues early. They can also sort by shipping preference and ensure that same-day orders are on track to leave before the deadline.

Inline Filters

Data table filters help users narrow their preferences to only display relevant entries. This data table example allows users to apply multiple filters to find exactly what they need. These inline filters are especially helpful for large datasets where users can eliminate irrelevant content.

How to design a table in UXPin

UXPin is an advanced prototyping tool for building interactive, high-fidelity prototypes. Instead of creating multiple static artboards to simulate one interaction, UXPin enables designers to utilize States, Variables, and Conditions to design functional components using just one artboard (‘Page’).

To insert a table in UXPin, click on the “Search All Assets” search icon (command + F / Ctrl + F), type “table” into the input field, and then click on “Table” under the “Components” heading.

Importing data into a table component

To populate the Table Component with real data, connect it to an external data source such as a JSON file, CSV file, or Google Sheet. It’s best to do this before styling the table to get a better idea of the content that you’ll be designing for.

First, you’ll need to ensure that the Layer names match that of the JSON/CSV/Google Sheet table headers. See the image below to understand how this would work with a Google Sheet.

To sync the data, select the Layers that you’d like to populate, click on the “Fill with Data” icon in the horizontal toolbar, navigate to “JSON / CSV / Sheets”, and then either click on “Browse File…” (to import data from a local JSON or CSV file) or paste a URL to an external JSON, CSV, or published-as-CSV Google Sheets file into the “Import from URL” input field.

After that, the data will appear in the Table Component (if the structure matches up correctly).

Adding sorting functionality to a table component

It’s also possible to make the data sortable using States and Interactions.

First, select all of the Layers that would be different in the new State (which in this case would be all of the Text Layers from a specific column). After that, click on the “Add state” (command + shift + S / ctrl + shift + S) icon in the horizontal toolbar and then give the new State a name using the “Set state” input field.

Next, reorder the table cells (e.g. numerically, alphabetically, or however you want). The best way to do this is by creating an alternative external data source (Google Sheets would be best in this case) and then repeating the previous steps to pull in the new data.

After that, switch back to the original State (which should be called “Base” by default).

Finally, select the relevant table header, click on the “New Interaction” icon (“+”) in the “Properties” panel, choose “Set State”, choose the relevant element under “Element”, and then choose the State that you created under “Set state” (plus any additional settings that you’d like to specify).

Styling the table component

Next, you’ll want to style the Component. It’s already structured and styled in a way that commits to the UX design best practices outlined in this article, however, you can still use the Properties panel to adapt it to your design’s visual aesthetic.

If you’re using Design Systems in UXPin, you can speed up this step by reusing your Design System’s Color Styles and Text Styles. To do this, select the Layer that you’d like to style, navigate to your UXPin Design System Library by clicking on the “Design System Libraries” icon (⌥ + 2/ alt + 2), and then selecting the Style you’d like to apply.

Design Better Data Tables With UXPin Merge

UXPin Merge allows you to sync your company’s design system or an open-source component library so designers can use code components to build prototypes that look and function like the final product.

Traditionally, UX designers would need programming skills or have to rely on engineers using HTML, CSS, and Javascript to build functioning data tables. Merge puts UX designers in control, and they don’t need to write a single line of code to use components. They can also make changes and iterate without input from engineering teams.

The post Table UX Best Practices – What Makes a Good Data Table? appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

Creative scrolling patterns let you adjust the pace, delivery, and interactivity of the content. Considering that our attention span on the web has dropped to about 8 seconds, a delightful scrolling experience certainly prolongs user interest.

In this post, we’ll examine the most common and time-tested scrolling pattern. As explained in the free e-book Web UI Patterns 2016 Vol.1, each pattern is creative yet proven usable through years of refinement.

UXPin helps you build interactive, scrollable prototypes even on trial. Try UXPin and all its advanced features for free. Sign up for trial.

Build advanced prototypes

Design better products with States, Variables, Auto Layout and more.

Try UXPin

What are Scrolling Patterns?

Scrolling patterns are the various ways content is presented to the users as they scroll down a web page. Scrolling patterns influence how users engage with the content and how they feel about it.

Choosing the right scrolling pattern depends on the nature of the content, the user experience you want to create, and the specific goals of your website or application. A thoughtful selection of scrolling patterns can enhance engagement, guide user navigation, and contribute to a positive overall user experience.

Types of Scrolling Patterns

Here are some common scrolling patterns:

1. Traditional or Sequential Scrolling – This is the most common scrolling pattern where users scroll vertically through content in a linear manner, one section at a time.
2. Infinite Scrolling – New content continuously loads as users scroll down. It’s often used in social media feeds and content-heavy websites.
3. Parallax Scrolling – It creates an illusion of depth by moving background and foreground elements at different speeds as users scroll.
4. Fixed or Sticky Elements – In this pattern, certain elements, such as navigation menus or headers, remain fixed in place as users scroll.
5. Carousel or Slider – They allow multiple pieces of content to cycle through horizontally as users scroll. They’re useful for presenting a variety of information in a limited space.
6. Full-Page Scrolling: Each scroll action takes users to a new full-page section, often with unique visual designs or interactions. It’s often used in portfolios or promotional websites to create a visually impactful experience.
7. Scroll Snap: Scroll snap ensures that the page automatically aligns with defined points or sections as users scroll, creating a more controlled scrolling experience.
8. Minimal Scrolling: In this pattern, the content is presented on a single screen without requiring users to scroll. It’s often used for landing pages with minimal content or single messages.

Long Scrolling

Le Mugs

Take It

Beoplay

Flickr

Problem

A site has so much eclectic content that a multi-page format would be too difficult to navigate.

A site wants to tell a story in a smooth, linear fashion.

Solution

Create a single-page, long-scrolling site to consolidate your content in a single place. This works great for social media sites and others with user-generated content, where part of the fun is browsing through everything all at once, and the content is diverse and difficult to categorize because it’s always updating.

The prominence of mobile browsing supports the long scrolling pattern since smaller screen sizes call for more scrolling.

Combined with the infinite scrolling pattern described below, long scrolling can create a completely immersive browsing experience. If users are searching for something in particular, a more structured navigation system like Amazon’s works better — but for explorability, long scrolling is the fastest and most fun for users.

Tips

• Use sticky navigation. Disorientation and the inability to go back are the innate drawbacks of long scrolling, but a fixed menu allows users to move freely.
• Long scrolling can have a negative effect on SEO.
• Don’t autoplay heavy media like videos, since in abundance they drastically slow down loading.
• You don’t have to commit to a single-page format with long scrolling: often sites feature a central long-scrolling home page that links out to traditional secondary pages, like Facebook and Twitter’s separate profile pages.
• For one-off long scrolling on specific page sections, try the fixed technique described below.

Fixed Long Scrolling

Squarespace

UXPin Tour

Problem

A site could benefit from the advantages of long scrolling but doesn’t want to convert entirely from a multi-page structure.

Solution

Fixed long scrolling sites display information that might otherwise require multiple sections within one long-scrolling section. The effect feels like a “scroll within a scroll”.

Tips

• When deciding what to include in a fixed scroll section, make sure you only choose content that fits within a unified theme or category. Each part of Squarespace’s fixed scroll section, for example, focuses on explaining how to “Create a beautiful website” for different business types.
• Place CTAs in at the end of each of each fixed-scroll frame.
• As the UXPin product tour page shows, you can also consider adding a “scroll progress bar” to the top navigation. The pattern helps add a greater sense of pace if you have more than 3-4 frames.

Infinite Scrolling

True Tube

Tumblr

By Kato

Imgur

Problem

Content is better organized on a single page, but there’s too much to load all at once.

Solution

With the infinite scrolling pattern, content is loaded as needed to provide a more paced experience. Infinite scrolling proves useful for single-page sites with more than a few screens worth of content, especially with multimedia galleries.

Infinite scrolling creates a rhythm for social media sites, where users are continually entertained with new content without clicking or waiting.

The problem with infinite scrolling is when users lose their place, though there are ways around this. Sticky navigation is the best way to give your user mobility in a near-infinite sea of content.

Tips

• In addition to sticky navigation, there are other methods to help infinite scrolling’s disorientation. A jump-to-section option, as with Tumblr, lets users return to the start if they become lost.
• Infinite scrolling can be combined with pagination for more accurate searches. For example, Facebook allows users to search timelines by year.
• Don’t be constrained by the traditional loading circle — your choice of icon is an opportunity to deepen your site’s identity. Facebook, Tumblr, Imgur, and others all have custom loading signifiers.

Tasteful Parallax Scrolling

The Walking Dead

Oakley: Airbrake MX

The Boat (SBS)

McWhopper

Problem

Users are not engaged enough in long scrolling formats.

Solution

Give your long scrolling site more impact with a parallax effect. Known to the video game industry for decades, this pattern refers to the layers of a two-dimensional image moving at different speeds when scrolling, i.e., the foreground and background moving at different speeds, or differing layers of the background. The effect creates a mesmerizing three-dimensional feel.

The parallax effect unlocks the more creative aspects of scrolling, especially when combined with scroll-triggered animations. This style lends itself to storytelling sites, building a more immersive and stimulating experience with better visuals.

The Walking Dead uses parallax and other scrolling techniques (i.e., atypical direction since the frames move left to right as you scroll down) to deepen their narrative. While not necessary, the differentiated backgrounds make just watching the scroll more enjoyable. It also makes sense for the context of the site since the character react to the scroll.

Tips

• For help on coding for parallax sites, read Dave Gamache’s piece on Medium.
• Be careful of loading times. A simplified fast site is still better than an extravagant slow site.

Create scrollable prototypes in UXPin

Apply what you’ve just learned in practice and build an interactive prototype that works like a real product. Use UXPin, build prototypes up to 10x faster, share them with your team, and streamline developer’s handoff by having them easily translate your design into code. Try it now.

The post The 4 Types of Creative Website Scrolling Patterns appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

There are many software and web development roles and responsibilities–from initial concept to design and delivery, QA, and lifecycle management. UI design and UI development are two crucial roles that impact how users engage and interact with a user interface.

This article compares the practice of UI design vs. UI development, the people behind these roles, and how they work together to deliver digital products.

Key takeaways:

• UI design is the process of designing user interface of a product while UI development is the process of programming this design.
• UI design and UI development appear on opposite ends of the software development process.
• UI designers and UI developers work together to create products that are feasible, desirable, and viable.

Build designs of user interfaces that can be quickly developed. Use React, Storybook or npm components in UXPin’s design editor and create production-ready prototypes on the fly. Discover UXPin Merge.

Reach a new level of prototyping

Design with interactive components coming from your team’s design system.

Discover UXPin Merge

What is UI Design?

UI design (User Interface Design) is the process of designing user interface elements, layouts, and interactions–everything users see and interact with. These elements include images, animations, sliders, text fields, buttons, etc. Like user experience design, UI design decisions are based on user needs and testing.

UI Designer Skills & Responsibilities

UI designers are responsible for the UI design process. Their role includes:

• Product aesthetics: branding, visual design
• Research: design research, user analysis
• Testing: UI prototyping (high-fidelity prototyping)
• Design: wireframes, mockups, interaction design, animations, viewport layouts (responsive design)

UI Designer Qualities & Skillset

• Visually creative
• Web design
• Graphic design
• Design principles and design thinking
• Interested in visual design
• User journeys and personas
• User research
• Typography
• Balances form with function
• Looks at user interaction and behavior
• Task orientated

UI Design Process

UI designers follow the same design thinking process as other UX professionals but complete different activities within the framework:

• Empathize: focuses on the user’s environment, movements, and actions
• Define: focuses on each step users need to take to achieve their goals
• Ideate: looks at the elements and components users will need to navigate a product
• Prototype: designs mockups and interactivity for high-fidelity prototypes
• Test: tests how users interact with the product and ask practical questions

Further reading: UX vs. UI Design – The Differences You Need to Know.

What Software does a UI Designer Use?

UI designers generally use the same tools and software as other UX designers. These tools allow them to design, prototype, and test user interfaces.

The goal for any UI designer is to create high-fidelity prototypes that look and function like the final product. Code-based design tools like UXPin have revolutionized how UI designers prototype and test digital products.

Some of UXPin’s advanced prototyping features include:

• States: Create multiple states for a single component with separate properties for interactions and system changes.
• Conditional Interactions: Create dynamic user experiences with Javascript-like “if-then” and “if-else” rules that respond to user and system actions.
• Variables: Store user inputs and take actions based on that data–like displaying a customized welcome message from the user’s name input.
• Expressions: Write Javascript-like functions that perform complex tasks, like form validation, computational formatting, and more.

Discover these and more advanced UXPin features with a free 14-day trial–no payment details necessary!

What is UI Development?

UI development is the process of programming client-facing interfaces. Like UI design, the UI development process includes writing code for images, animations, sliders, text fields, buttons, etc.

UI Developer Skills & Responsibilities

Depending on the product and org structure, the UI development role might fall on a front-end developer, UX engineer, or full-stack engineer. Their responsibilities include (these will vary depending on the engineering team’s structure):

• UI component development
• UI maintenance
• Styling architecture
• Implementation
• Technical feasibility
• Backlog management
• Performance
• Query architecture
• Search engine optimization

Front-End Development vs. Back-End Development

Engineers divide programming into two separate disciplines, front-end, and back-end development.

• Front-end development: Focuses on developing “client-facing” interfaces using HTML, CSS, and Javascript.
• Back-end development: Write server-side code to connect front-end interfaces to databases, APIs, authentication, etc. Some programming languages include Java, Ruby, Python, and Javascript, to name a few.

Further reading: Front-End vs. Back-End: What’s the Difference?

What Software does a UI Developer Use?

Like any engineer, UI developers use an integrated development environment (IDE) to examine and write code. Modern IDEs feature various extensions to interface with engineering tools like Git, package managers, repositories, APIs, etc.

Further reading: The 7 Essential Tools for Frontend Web Development.

UI Design vs. UI Development

With UI design and UI development defined, it’s clear to see these disciplines appear on opposite ends of the software development process. UI design happens during the design process, while UI development occurs during the engineering process. 

While these are separate disciplines, UI designers and UI engineers must work together to deliver a successful final product.

It’s important to note that not every organization has a UI designer and UI engineer role. Here are some positions that might fulfill these UI roles and responsibilities:

• UI design: UX engineer, visual designer, graphic designer
• UI development: Front-end developer, UX engineer/UX developer, full-stack engineer

How UI Designers and UI Developers Work Together

Here is a typical workflow demonstrating how a UI designer and UI developer would collaborate on a project:

1. UI designers start a design project with various forms of UX research to understand users, competition, the market, product, etc. They use user-centered design processes to understand the problem from a user’s point of view.
2. UI designers will meet with UI developers early in the design process to discuss technical limitations, design handoff procedures, and documentation requirements.
3. UI designers work with other UX designers to design, prototype, and test user interfaces, layouts, and components. In some instances, the UI developer might collaborate with the design team to build basic code prototypes to test complex UI components.
4. Once the design process is complete, UI designers prepare prototypes and documentation for the design handoff.
5. UI designers and UI developers might meet to discuss designs and ensure engineers understand everything correctly during the design handoff process. 
6. UI developers work with the rest of the engineering team to convert designs into functioning code.
7. UI designers work with the design and product teams to complete the QA (quality assurance) process to ensure the final release meets design specifications.

The Importance of UI designer-UI developer collaboration

Modern software development relies on exceptional UI design and development. 

Designers ensure the product meets users’ needs and thoroughly test user interfaces and UI components to ensure they meet usability and accessibility standards. Without this prototyping and testing phase, usability issues impact the product, resulting in a poor user experience resulting in avoidable costs on multiple fronts–customer service, rework, losing customers, etc.

UI developers also play a crucial role in delivering successful software releases. They must ensure the final UI meets design specs and test code for bugs and performance. They’re also responsible for managing code, including updates to packages, APIs, security, etc., to ensure the product maintains its integrity and consistency over time.

To achieve this, designers and engineers must collaborate throughout the software development process–which can be challenging in large organizations where silos and poor communication are common.

UI designers and UI developers often work with DesignOps and DevOps to help bridge the gap between these disciplines to improve operational processes and collaboration.

Better Designer-Developer Collaboration With UXPin Merge

The Drift Challenge

One of the challenges designers and engineers face is that they speak different languages. 

• Designers = image-based static mockups and prototypes
• Engineers = code, browsers, operating systems, databases, etc.

Without in-depth knowledge and experience of one another’s disciplines, it’s hard for designers and programmers to understand the other’s limitations, constraints, and other challenges. Bridging that gap is crucial for organizations to deliver products successfully, on time, and on budget.

The Code-Based Solution

UXPin Merge has revolutionized the traditional UX workflow with a code-based design solution allowing orgs to sync a component library from a repository to UXPin’s editor, so designers build prototypes using fully functioning UI elements and components.

Merge components retain exactly the same properties as those in the repository, including interactivity, so designers can simply drag and drop to build UIs. Engineers can also set various props (for React or Args for Storybook) to allow designers to customize components in JSX or via UXPin’s Properties Panel. Any changes to these props render JSX, which engineers can copy/paste to begin development.

This Merge-powered workflow enhances collaboration and understanding between UI designers and UI developers because they’re speaking the same language with the same constraints–a truly single source of truth for your org’s component library.

UXPin has also recently announced the upcoming release of Merge Component Manager–a tool that reduces developer involvement in importing and managing coded UI components. Less reliance on engineers means designers can get up and running with Merge much faster.

“It used to take us two to three months just to do the design. Now, with UXPin Merge, teams can design, test, and deliver products in the same timeframe. Faster time to market is one of the most significant changes we’ve experienced using Merge.” Erica Rider, UX Lead EPX @ PayPal

Discover how UXPin’s Merge technology can revolutionize your design processes. Get access to UXPin Merge.

The post UI Design vs. UI Development – What’s the Difference? appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

Mobile-first design is an approach to designing UIs that prioritizes small-screen experience.

Given that different devices need different layouts based on their screen size and orientation, it makes sense to design multiple arrangements for your users. This article will show you how to create a mobile-first prototype of a product and transform it into tablet and desktop screens.

Make your own responsive or adaptive variations right in UXPin. Create a mobile-first design and scale it up for tablet and desktop views in UXPin – an advanced prototyping tool. Go ahead and create a free trial and follow along below.

Build advanced prototypes

Design better products with States, Variables, Auto Layout and more.

Try UXPin

What is Mobile-First Approach?

The mobile-first approach is exactly as it sounds: designing for the smallest screen and working your way up. It is one of the best strategies to create either a responsive or adaptive design.

• The mobile-first approach is a tenet of progressive enhancement. It is the ideology that mobile design, as the hardest, should be done first. Once the mobile design questions are answered, designing for other devices will be easier. What it boils down to is that, the smallest of the designs will have only the essential features, so right away you have designed the heart of your UX.
• The opposite approach is graceful degradation. This incorporates all of the complexities right from the start, then strips them away later for smaller devices. The problem with graceful degradation is that when you build the all-inclusive design right from the start, the core and supplementary elements merge and become harder to distinguish and separate. The entire philosophy runs the risk of treating mobile design as more of an afterthought since you’re “cutting down” the experience.

We, along with others, strongly recommend progressive enhancement with a mobile-first approach. In this post, we’ll explain tips & techniques, then finish off with a hands-on lesson in which we build a hypothetical website with the mobile-first workflow.

Mobile-First = Content-First

If your site is good on a mobile device, it translates better to all devices. More important, though, is that a mobile-first approach is also a content-first approach. Mobile has the most limitations, screen size, and bandwidth to name a few, and so designing within these parameters forces you to prioritize content ruthlessly.

The mobile-first approach organically leads to a design that’s more content-focused, and therefore user-focused. The heart of the site is content — that’s what the users are there for.

One caveat, though, is that mobile users sometimes require different content than desktop users. Device-specific content can be gauged by considering context — what, in a given situation and a given environment, will your user appreciate more. The best way to plan ahead for these is by creating user scenarios.

Another advantage to the mobile-first approach is that the small-screen breakpoints can better fit around the content. Again, the alternative is worse: having to squeeze an already plump design into a tiny framework. But with the mobile-first approach, the breakpoints develop naturally around content, so you don’t need any awkward edits.

The Mobile-First Design Process

We’ll describe a process that helps our designers at UXPin.

As usual, wireframing is a recommended early step to most efficiently structure your layout. When wireframing or prototyping, we use the responsive breakpoint menu to streamline the process of moving to different screen sizes, starting with the smallest.

These presets layout the proper screen size for you, so you can wireframe keeping only the content in mind.

Our procedure follows these steps:
1. Content Inventory — This is a spreadsheet or equivalent document containing all the elements you want to include. Learn more about doing an inventory of content.

Source: Maadmob

2. Visual Hierarchy — Prioritize the elements in the content inventory and determine how to display the most important elements prominently. Learn more about visual hierarchy.

3. Design with the smallest breakpoints and then scale up — Build the mobile wireframe first, then use that as the model for larger breakpoints. Expand the screen until there’s too much negative space.

4. Enlarge touch targets — Fingers are much wider than pixel-precise mouse cursors, and so need larger elements on which to tap. At the time of this writing, Apple recommends 44 pixels square for touch targets (read about mobile design for iOS and Android). Give hyperlinks plenty of space, and slightly enlarge buttons, and make sure that there’s enough space around all the interactive elements.

5. Don’t count on hovers — It almost goes without saying, but designers often rely on hover and mouseover effects in their interactive work. If you’re thinking mobile-friendly, don’t do that.

6. Think “app” — Mobile users are accustomed to the motion and a modicum of control in their experience. Think about off-canvas navigation, expandible widgets, AJAX calls, or other elements on the screen with which users can interact without refreshing the page.

7. Avoid large graphics — Landscape photos and complex graphics don’t display well when your screen is only a few inches across. Cater to mobile users with images that are readable on handheld screens.

8. Test it in a real device — Nothing beats discovering for yourself how usable a website is (or isn’t). Step away from your desktop/laptop computer and load up your product on a real phone or tablet. Tap through pages. Is the site easy to navigate? Does it load in a timely fashion? Are the text and graphics easy to read?

This is just a basic outline. For the complete guide to our process, download the free Content Wireframing for Responsive Design.

A Mobile-First Design Tutorial

Set your content priorities

A “mobile-first approach” differs from “desktop-first” in that we add information to each progressively larger layout rather than cut away as we design smaller. Thinking mobile doesn’t mean eliminating information. It means sorting information into primary, secondary, and tertiary content.

In this example, we know that the home page should have certain elements, like the company’s name and links to products. A blog post wouldn’t hurt either. But like we said, not everything will fit into a smartphone view, so we set priorities based on what will achieve the site’s goal: selling bikes.

1. The newest model bike

2. The best-selling bike

3. “Find your perfect ride” CTA

4. Company name and hero image

5. Navigation

6. Search

7. The second-best-selling bike

8. Gift certificates

9. A testimonial

10. The latest blog post

Based on that ordered list, we can create with the confidence that our work will solve a design problem of getting sales.

Smartphone View

How much do users need?

Thinking mobile-first forces us to think about what’s really important. In this smartphone view, the top-selling bike and newest model will lead directly to sales, so can we leave other items — such as gift certificates, a less-popular model, the latest news — for inside pages. The final call to action is especially prominent and easy to hit with a single tap of the finger.

Tablet View

As we design for a tablet-sized view, we’re better able to add secondary information like additional products (e.g. “The Capacitor”). We can also expand the navigation at the top of the page and add content that encourages sales without actually leading to them — namely, the testimonial.

Because more options are available, this can be surprisingly more difficult than deciding what to include in a smartphone UI. The difference between secondary and tertiary elements is a blurry line, and temptation is strong to include everything.

Resist the urge. Use the ordered content list. Like smartphones, space is still limited.

Desktop View

Finally, the desktop view can support as much information as you decide is important. This is where the home page can accommodate all of the information you see fit, whether or not it fits. Notice some of the additional content we’ve included:

• Gift certificates
• Customer testimonials
• Blog post exploring the newest Lightning Bolt bike

Design device-appropriate layouts yourself

If you’re using UXPin, it’s fairly easy to create different layouts for these views.

1. Open a UXPin prototype.
2. Tap “Add new adaptive version” at the bottom right of the UXPin editor
3. Choose a preset size or enter your own dimensions.
   
4. You don’t have to recreate everything from scratch. Choose a size from which to copy your design’s elements.
   

And that’s it. Switch between breakpoints by tapping the different sizes above your canvas, and adjust each to suit your needs. If you’d like to try prototyping mobile-first yourself, go ahead. Start a free trial in UXPin.

The post A Hands-On Guide to Mobile-First Responsive Design appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

Accessibility testing evaluates digital products or services to ensure they can be accessed and used by individuals with disabilities. It involves assessing various websites, applications, or content aspects to identify and address barriers that hinder users with disabilities.

UX teams aim to identify and rectify issues related to visual, auditory, motor, and cognitive impairments, making their digital products more inclusive and usable.

Accessibility testing is crucial because it helps ensure equal access and usability for all individuals, regardless of their abilities. It plays a vital role in creating inclusive digital experiences that comply with accessibility standards and guidelines, such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) and Section 508.

Test your designs without leaving the canvas with UXPin’s built-in accessibility features. Sign up for a free trial to explore the world’s most advanced UX design tool.

Build advanced prototypes

Design better products with States, Variables, Auto Layout and more.

Try UXPin

Understanding Accessibility Guidelines

The most widely recognized and adopted guidelines are the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It covers various aspects of accessibility, including visual design, multimedia, navigation, forms, and assistive technologies.

WCAG uses four principles: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust (POUR), to categorize accessibility, accompanied by specific success criteria. These criteria outline the requirements that digital products must meet to be considered accessible. 

WCAG has three conformance levels:

• A (basic)
• AA (intermediate)
• AAA (advanced)

Achieving a higher conformance level indicates a higher level of accessibility.

This article focuses on accessibility tools. You can learn more about accessibility and testing here:

• Things Every Designer Needs to Know About Accessibility – We outline the basics of accessibility to help you get into the topic.
• Design System Accessibility: Check What You Need to Know – Some teams need to have accessibility built into their design systems. Learn how to do it.
• Accessibility UX Best Practices – 8 Tactics for Web Design – We recap some of the best practices that you can find in our eBook about web accessibility.
• Web Accessibility Checklist – 28 Points You Must Comply With – Need an easily skimmed piece of content? Here’s an accessibility checklist ready to be printed out.
• Web Accessibility Guide: Everything Designers Should Consider and Implement – A great piece of content about user interface design for accessibility.

Types of Accessibility Testing Tools

Accessibility testing tools fall into three primary categories:

• Automated testing tools
• Manual testing tools
• Hybrid testing tools

What are automated testing tools?

Automated Testing Tools are software applications designed to scan and evaluate digital products for accessibility issues automatically. These tools use algorithms and predefined rules to analyze web pages or applications, identifying potential violations of accessibility standards and guidelines.

They can detect common issues like missing alternative text for images, improper heading structure, and color contrast accessibility problems.

While Automated Testing Tools are valuable for identifying specific types of accessibility issues, it’s important to note that they have limitations and cannot fully replace manual testing and expert judgment.

What are manual testing tools?

Manual Testing Tools are tools that require human intervention and evaluation to assess the accessibility of digital products. Unlike automated testing tools, which rely on algorithms and predefined rules, manual testing tools involve direct interaction with the product, thorough inspections, and expert judgment.

Teams use manual testing tools to conduct in-depth evaluations of various accessibility aspects, such as keyboard navigation, screen reader compatibility, and cognitive accessibility. These tools often include checklists, guidelines, and testing methodologies to guide testers through the evaluation process.

What are hybrid testing tools?

Hybrid Testing Tools are a combination of both automated and manual testing approaches in accessibility testing. These tools leverage the benefits of automation to streamline the testing process while incorporating human evaluation for a more comprehensive assessment.

Teams use hybrid testing tools to take advantage of the efficiency and speed of automated testing, which can quickly scan and identify common accessibility issues. These tools often integrate with automated accessibility testing engines or APIs to analyze code (HTML, CSS, Javascript), markup (ARIA, alt text, etc.), and design elements.

Hybrid testing tools also provide room for manual inspection, allowing testers to conduct deeper evaluations, assess user interactions, and identify complex accessibility barriers that may require human judgment.

Automated Accessibility Testing Tools

axe by Deque

Developed by Deque Systems, axe offers a comprehensive set of features to identify and address accessibility issues, helping to ensure that digital products are usable by individuals with disabilities. The automated accessibility testing tool evaluates the accessibility of web pages and applications.

Pros:

• axe provides extensive automated accessibility testing capabilities, scanning web pages and applications for various accessibility issues.
• You can integrate axe into various development workflows and environments, including popular web browsers and frameworks.
• axe generates detailed reports highlighting accessibility violations and provides guidance on how to fix them.
• You can customize axe’s rulesets to fit your specific accessibility requirements and preferences, allowing for more targeted and tailored testing.
• axe has an active and supportive community, offering resources, documentation, and ongoing updates to stay aligned with evolving accessibility standards.

Cons:

• axe’s automated analysis may not fully understand the context and intent of specific design elements or interactions, leading to potential limitations in identifying nuanced accessibility barriers.
• axe’s accuracy and effectiveness relies on the quality and accuracy of the underlying code and markup. axe may not capture issues related to poorly structured code or incomplete implementation.

WAVE

WAVE (Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool) is a widely used automated accessibility testing tool developed by WebAIM. It helps evaluate web content for accessibility issues and provides visual feedback for identifying potential problems.

Pros:

• User-friendly interface and intuitive visualizations make it easy to understand accessibility issues.
• Provides detailed reports with clear explanations of accessibility errors and warnings.
• Offers a browser extension for quick on-page accessibility testing.
• Supports testing of both live websites and local development environments.
• Available as a free browser extension and an online tool.

Cons:

• Limited to automated testing and may not detect all accessibility issues.
• Requires manual interpretation of results for accurate assessment.
• The tool may not fully capture some features, such as dynamic content or complex web applications.

Pa11y

Pa11y is an open-source automated accessibility audit tool that helps identify accessibility issues in web pages. It allows developers and testers to automate accessibility testing and integrate it into their development workflow.

Pros:

• Supports multiple testing standards, including WCAG and Section 508, providing comprehensive accessibility evaluation.
• Offers a command-line interface for easy integration with build processes and continuous integration tools.
• Provides detailed reports with specific accessibility errors and warnings.
• Allows customization of testing rules and thresholds to match project requirements.
• Available as a free and open-source tool, allowing customization and community contribution.

Cons:

• Requires technical knowledge to set up and configure.
• Pa11y relies solely on automated testing, which may not capture all accessibility issues.
• Requires manual interpretation of results for accurate assessment.
• Limited support for dynamic content and complex web applications.

Manual Testing Tools

UXPin

UXPin provides designers with two built-in accessibility tools to test UIs on the fly, including a contrast checker and color blindness simulator.

Pros:

• Enables designers to test colors without leaving the design tool.
• Automatically identifies text colors with insufficient contrast.
• Displays results for all types of color blindness and allows designers to preview interfaces as a user with each visual impairment would see it.
• Doesn’t require plugins or external tools when testing designs in UXPin.

Cons:

• Limited to testing color only.
• Only works with UXPin designs (but you can import Figma and Sketch files).

NVDA

NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access) is a free accessibility tool and open-source screen reader designed for Windows. It enables users with visual impairments to navigate and interact with digital content by converting on-screen information into synthesized speech or Braille output.

Pros:

• A free and open-source screen reader for Windows, making it accessible for users with visual impairments.
• Supports various web browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Edge), applications, and document formats, allowing comprehensive testing across different platforms.
• NVDA is actively maintained and regularly updated, ensuring compatibility with the latest technologies and accessibility standards.
• It offers customizable settings and options, allowing testers to simulate different user experiences and preferences.

Cons:

• NVDA is limited to the Windows operating system, so it may not be suitable for testing on other platforms like macOS or Linux (you can use VoiceOver in conjunction with NVDA to cover all platforms)
• There may be slight differences in interpretation and rendering compared to other assistive technologies, so it’s important to conduct additional testing with multiple tools.
• NVDA requires some level of familiarity and training to use effectively, particularly for accurately interpreting complex web content and interactions.
• Support resources are limited, and users may need to rely on community forums or documentation for assistance.

Hybrid Testing Tools

Storybook Testing

Storybook is a web-based open-source tool primarily used for developing UI components in isolation. The free tool offers a built-in accessibility toolkit that helps developers identify and address accessibility issues within their components.

Pros:

• Storybook’s accessibility tool seamlessly integrates into the component development workflow, allowing developers to catch accessibility issues early in development.
• By testing components in isolation, developers can focus specifically on their accessibility and ensure they meet the required standards.
• The tool provides visual feedback on accessibility violations, making it easier for developers to identify and understand the issues.
• Integrates with UXPin Merge to provide product teams with design and development accessibility testing capability.

Cons:

• Storybook’s accessibility tool focuses primarily on the accessibility of UI components and may not comprehensively evaluate the entire website or application.
• The platform requires developers to manually check and address accessibility issues, which may require some accessibility expertise.
• While Storybook offers customization options, it may require further configuration to align the tool with specific accessibility requirements.

Google Lighthouse

Google Lighthouse is an open-source web accessibility testing tool. It includes an accessibility auditing feature that evaluates a website’s adherence to accessibility standards.

Pros:

• Google Lighthouse thoroughly evaluates accessibility issues, covering a wide range of accessibility best practices and guidelines.
• Lighthouse’s accessibility tool is part of a suite of performance audits, allowing users to assess multiple aspects of their website simultaneously.
• The tool generates detailed reports highlighting specific accessibility issues and suggestions for improvements.
• Chrome extension allows you to test user interfaces on the fly.

Cons:

• Using Lighthouse effectively may require technical knowledge and familiarity with web development tools.
• Lighthouse focuses specifically on web accessibility and may not be suitable for evaluating accessibility in native mobile apps or other digital products.
• While Lighthouse automates some aspects of accessibility testing, manual testing is still necessary to evaluate specific interactive or dynamic components.

Accessibility Insights

Accessibility Insights is an open-source accessibility testing tool developed by Microsoft. It provides automated and manual testing features to help identify and fix accessibility issues in digital products.

Pros:

• Accessibility Insights offers automated tests to quickly identify common accessibility issues and manual testing capabilities for evaluating more complex interactions.
• The tool integrates seamlessly with popular web browsers and developer tools, making it convenient for developers and testers to incorporate accessibility testing into their workflows.
• Provides detailed guidance on how to fix identified issues, including code examples and best practices.

Cons:

• While the tool offers extensive features, there may be a learning curve for users new to accessibility testing.
• Accessibility Insights primarily focuses on web accessibility and may not be as suitable for evaluating native mobile apps or other non-web digital products.
• Some features have compatibility limitations with specific browsers or development environments.

Streamline your accessibility testing with UXPin. Sign up for a free trial to explore UXPin’s advanced design and prototyping features.

The post 3 Types of Accessibility Testing Tools that You 100% Need appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

Web design basics help you get a grasp of what web design is and how it affects user experience. Let’s learn all of that in today’s article.

Start your web design journey and impress clients and employers with interactive prototypes from UXPin. Sign up for a free trial and discover how UXPin’s advanced features can enhance your design projects.

Build advanced prototypes

Design better products with States, Variables, Auto Layout and more.

Try UXPin

What is Web Design?

Web design is a multidisciplinary craft that crafts visually appealing, intuitive, and functional digital environments. It goes beyond aesthetics. Designers must create interfaces users can easily navigate, leading to satisfying and efficient interactions.

Web design aims to enhance user experience through the thoughtful arrangement of elements–colors, typography, images, and more–to drive engagement and fulfill the website’s purpose, be it a news publication, eCommerce store, or online community.

Website Design vs. Web Development

There are two distinct disciplines within the web development process. People often use web development as the all-encompassing end-to-end process of building a website, but there are two separate phases within the web development process:

• The web design phase includes research, user interviews, ideation, prototyping, and testing.
• The web development phase must develop the solution into a functioning website or web application based on the design team’s designs, prototypes, and documentation.

The design process creates a plan and roadmap for developers, including the look and feel of the site, navigation structure, information architecture, and interaction design. Without a solid design, developers lack direction, resulting in a poor final product, bad user experience, rework, and designer/developer friction.

To use a restaurant analogy, the design team creates a recipe and sources the ingredients based on what users and stakeholders need. And the engineering team prepares and serves the final dish.

User Interface vs. User Experience Design

There are two roles within web design, each with a slightly different focus:

• User interface design (UI design): Focuses on creating the visual design elements users interact with when using a digital product or website–i.e., buttons, color, icons, typography, images, forms, and other elements and components.
• User experience design (UX design): Encompasses the broader user experience and how people feel when interacting with a product–including user interfaces. UX designers also focus more on navigation and user flows to optimize the product’s experience and make it more enjoyable and user-friendly.

In large organizations, you may have other design roles, including:

• Interaction design
• Content design
• UX research
• DesignOps

Further reading: UX Team Structure – How to Plan Your Career in Product Design

Web Design Basics

Here is a broad overview of the basic web design elements.

• Layout: The arrangement and structure of elements on a webpage. Layout influences how users interact with a site, guiding their eye from one point to another. An effective layout ensures a smooth user journey, promoting a positive user experience.
• Typography: The typefaces and styles used on a site convey a brand’s personality and facilitate readability. Good typography uses fonts, sizes, and arrangements that complement the overall design, enhance readability, and maintain visual harmony.
• Colors: Colors evoke emotions and can drive user behavior. An effective color scheme is consistent with a brand’s identity and the target audience’s preferences. Contrasting colors can highlight essential elements like call-to-action (CTAs) buttons.
• Images and Graphics: Visual content like photos, illustrations, icons, and other assets can elevate a website’s appeal and reinforce the brand message. Supporting graphics must be high-quality, relevant, and optimized for fast loading.
• Navigation: Navigation is the roadmap of a website. Clear, intuitive navigation makes it easy for users to move around a site, improving user satisfaction and engagement. A user-friendly navigation system includes a logical page hierarchy and clickable buttons.
• Content: Content design incorporates text, images, maps, videos, etc., to provide information, tell a brand’s story, and drive user action. Content must be relevant, valuable, and engaging to users, as well-structured content can boost SEO rankings (search engine optimization) and user engagement.

Principles of Web Design

• Balance: Balance in web design refers to the distribution of visual elements across the layout. A balanced design helps maintain stability and harmony. Designers can achieve balance by using appropriate proportions in size, colors, and textures.
• Contrast: Contrast uses shapes, sizes, and colors to make elements stand out. It aids in highlighting key points and guiding users’ attention to essential areas, such as call-to-action buttons or key messages.
• Emphasis: Emphasis is the technique of making a particular element or feature stand out more than others. Designers can achieve emphasis by using color, size, or animation. Emphasizing specific elements helps guide users’ attention to the most essential parts of the site.
• Consistency: Consistency in design helps create a coherent and predictable user experience. Using consistent fonts, colors, and styles across a website ensures a smoother user journey and strengthens brand recognition.
• Unity: Unity refers to how well all the parts of the design work together. It’s about ensuring that all elements on the page appear harmoniously and create a cohesive user experience, reinforcing the overall design theme and purpose.

Responsive Web Design

Responsive web design provides an optimal viewing experience across a range of devices and viewports. Whether a visitor accesses a site on a desktop computer, tablet, or mobile phone, the user interface must look and function consistently and seamlessly.

Importance of responsive web design

Responsive web design is critical to provide consistent user experiences across the multitude of devices people use worldwide. Websites that aren’t responsive can appear cramped, unreadable, or skewed on mobile devices, leading to a frustrating user experience and a high likelihood of user abandonment.

Impact on user experience

Responsive design significantly enhances user experience by ensuring that no matter the screen size or orientation, users can easily read and navigate your site with minimal resizing, panning, and scrolling.

A responsive design isn’t just about fitting the screen; it’s about applying a user-centered mindset to create a cross-platform environment that accommodates users’ preferences and circumstances. Responsive web design is no longer optional; it’s vital to creating an inclusive, user-friendly website.

Understanding Web Accessibility

Web accessibility considers how a web design impacts users with disabilities. It’s a critical aspect of inclusive design, and in some countries, web accessibility is a legal requirement.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are a set of recommendations that designers should follow to make their web content more accessible. These guidelines cover visual, auditory, cognitive, and physical accessibility to ensure that all users, regardless of their abilities or disabilities, can interact with and benefit from the web.

3 Steps to Getting Started in Web Design

Get learning resources

Platforms like Coursera, Udemy, and Khan Academy offer extensive online courses, some of which are taught by leading experts in UX design. For example, Coursera offers a UX design course taught by former and current Google employees. There are also many free tutorials and courses available on YouTube.

Books such as “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug and “The Elements of User Experience” by Jesse James Garrett provide valuable insights into user-centric design.

Get our book recommendations: Best books about Product Design.

Build a portfolio

Most UX design and web design courses teach you how to create a portfolio. A portfolio showcases your work and understanding of design principles, including design thinking, user experience, research, wireframing, prototyping, etc. Your portfolio must evolve; regularly updating it with your latest work is vital to showing your growth and versatility as a designer.

Seek networking and mentorship

Networking and mentorship are critical for a career in web design, especially if you plan to climb the ladder to a Design Leader or launch a startup. These relationships help you grow as a designer and professional, exposing you to more opportunities and earning potential.

Web Designer Skills

Hard skills

1. Understanding of Design Principles: Proficiency in design principles, like balance, contrast, and typography, is fundamental to creating aesthetically pleasing and practical web designs.
2. Proficiency in Design Software: Mastery of various design tools is essential for web designers. These tools help to create and edit visuals, develop prototypes, and design user interfaces.
3. HTML/CSS Knowledge: Though not always required, understanding HTML and CSS is advantageous for web designers. It lets you know how devs will implement your designs, facilitating better collaboration with engineering teams.
4. Responsive Design: Understanding how to design for various devices and screen sizes is critical. Familiarity with media queries and fluid grids is vital in creating responsive designs.
5. User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) Design: UX design focuses on creating a smooth and enjoyable user journey, while UI design concentrates on the look and feel of the website. Both are crucial for creating user-friendly designs.
6. SEO Knowledge: While often associated with content creation, SEO is also important in web design. Knowing SEO best practices can help a designer create a more effective and easily discoverable site.

Soft Skills

1. Communication: You must often articulate your ideas to clients and stakeholders, understand their requirements, and collaborate efficiently with other team members.
2. Problem-Solving: Web design has many complex challenges, from usability issues to client/stakeholder demands. Being able to identify problems and find creative solutions is an essential skill.
3. Versatility: Web design trends and technologies are constantly evolving. Adapting and learning new skills is crucial in this ever-changing field.
4. Time Management: Web designers often juggle multiple projects simultaneously. Good time management skills help to meet deadlines and manage workloads effectively.
5. Empathy: Empathy is fundamental to understanding user needs and creating designs that offer a great user experience.
6. Attention to Detail: Even minor details can impact the overall user experience in web design. An eye for detail can help a designer create a polished and efficient design.
7. Receptiveness to Feedback: Design is subjective, and critiques are part of the job. Being open to feedback and criticism–and using it constructively–can help you grow as a designer.

Interactive Prototyping With UXPin

One of the biggest challenges designers encounter with traditional image-based design tools is the lack of fidelity and functionality, making it nearly impossible to create a prototype that looks and feels like the final product.

UXPin’s biggest differentiator is that instead of producing vector graphics when a designer draws or places an object on the canvas–like other popular design tools–it renders HTML, CSS, and Javascript behind the scenes.

This code-based design approach enables designers to achieve prototyping fidelity and functionality indistinguishable from the final product. Higher-quality prototypes improve testing, giving designers meaningful, actionable feedback to iterate and improve.

Enhance your design skills with the world’s most advanced user experience design tool. Sign up for a free trial to build your first interactive prototype with UXPin.

The post Web Design Basics that Will Kick-Start Your Career appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

User flows are integral to the UX design process. These valuable UX artifacts help product teams visualize flows and processes from users’ perspectives to reduce errors and enhance the user experience.

This article takes a deep dive into user flows, their importance, the principles that guide them, the visual representations, and the various types of flows.

Create user flows and design advanced prototypes with UXPin, an all-in-one design tool that covers every part of your design process, from ideation to design handoff. Build your first prototype today. Sign up for a free trial.

Build advanced prototypes

Design better products with States, Variables, Auto Layout and more.

Try UXPin

What is User Flow in UX?

A user flow is a graphic visualization representing the sequence of steps, decisions, and actions users perform while navigating a digital product, app, or website.

Product teams typically focus on one task or goal at a time, such as an onboarding sequence or eCommerce checkout. Designers build prototypes of these user flows to test the user experience with usability participants and stakeholders, iterating on feedback until they have a product ready for development.

Importance of User Flows in UX Design

User flows help product teams visualize the paths users take through an application or website to complete a specific task or achieve a goal. This visualization enables teams to identify friction points and opportunities within user flows and design solutions to fix them. 

Additionally, designers can look at optimizing flows to create more efficient and satisfying user experiences.

Benefits of a well-designed UX flows

A well-designed user flow offers many important benefits for users and the organization:

• Improves usability: optimized user flows feel intuitive, simplifying decision-making while reducing cognitive load, resulting in a user-friendly experience where users don’t get lost or frustrated. 
• Better retention: when a digital product meets user needs, allowing them to complete tasks and achieve goals, they’re more likely to keep using it and share their positive experience.
• Higher conversions: streamlining user flows removes roadblocks and obstacles for tasks that generate revenue for the business, like signups, purchases, subscriptions, etc.
• Reduce costs: optimized user flows remove redundant screens and features, resulting in many cost-savings, including design, development, maintenance, server requests, API usage, etc.
• Improved accessibility: design teams can visualize and optimize user flows to meet accessibility requirements, making user interfaces more inclusive while increasing the product’s user base.
• Data-driven design decisions: analyzing user flows provides valuable insights into user behavior and preferences, allowing designers to make informed decisions based on actual data rather than assumptions. Data-driven design decisions deliver products and experiences that meet user needs, making them more intuitive, enjoyable, and user-friendly.

UX Principles of Effective User Flows

Successful user flows incorporate UX principles that guide design concepts and decision-making. Here are some fundamental UX principles to consider when designing user flows:

Clarity and simplicity

Your user flows must be easy to understand and navigate. Avoid complex designs or features that people must learn before using them. Navigation and interaction elements must be consistent, predictable, and straightforward. When you force people to overthink a process or interaction, they’ll abandon it for an easier option, even at a higher cost.

Consistency

Maintain a consistent design language, layout, patterns, and interaction design throughout your product and user flows. Design consistency increases familiarity resulting in a more intuitive, user-friendly experience.

Flexibility

Design flows that cater to different needs, preferences, and abilities by offering multiple ways to complete tasks–for example, providing alternate paths, shortcuts, or input methods.

Feedback and communication

UI feedback guides users and manages expectations as they navigate user flows–for example, progress indicators, visual cues, status information, messages (success, error, etc.), and alerts. This communication informs users of the system status, whether their action was successful, and what to do next.

Anticipate user needs

Designers can utilize user research to predict and address user needs to prevent obstacles and roadblocks. Adding helpful tips and error prevention features enables users to solve problems faster for more efficient and streamlined flows.

Minimize steps

Designers can streamline user flows by eliminating unnecessary steps, actions, and decision points. Minimizing these points of friction increases efficiency while reducing errors and drop-offs.

Focus on user goals

Would you rather use a product that helps you achieve your objectives efficiently or one inundating you with business value proposals and other irrelevant content? Design user flows that prioritize the user’s goals and desired outcomes with features that enhance efficiency and success.

Accessibility and inclusivity

Ensure that users with diverse abilities, preferences, and devices can use your products, navigate flows, and complete tasks. Designers must consider how factors like font size, color contrasts, keyboard navigation, language, and screen-reader compatibility impact user experiences. Read more about accessibility here: Web Design Accessibility Checklist.

Types of User Flow Visualizations

Before we explore the user flow types, it’s important to explain the visualizations design teams use to map these journeys. 

Flowcharts

User flowcharts (user flow diagrams) are a diagramming technique used across many industries to represent the information flow, decision points, and user actions. These visualizations use symbols, arrows, and other shapes to depict elements, processes, decisions, and data input/output.

Wireflows

Wireflows combine wireframes and flowcharts to provide a detailed view of a user’s journey through an interface. These visualizations describe each screen’s layout as well as how users and information flow between them. 

Wireflows help visualize user interactions with specific elements and understand the context of these interactions. Designers and engineers can use these wireflows to visualize information architecture and navigation in greater detail.

Screen-flows

Screen-flows are annotated screenshots or mockups illustrating a user’s path through a product. These high-fidelity versions of wire-flows allow designers and stakeholders to visualize user flows in greater detail with screens that accurately represent the final product.

Storyboarding

Designers use storyboarding similarly to the film industry, using a series of illustrations, images, or screens to show a user’s journey. Storyboarding is helpful as it allows design teams to zoom out from the user flow and visualize a user’s environment and circumstances.

For example, if you’re designing an app for food delivery drivers, you’ll need to visualize the user flow from multiple perspectives:

• Walking
• Cycling
• Scooter/motorbike
• Car
• Van

Storyboard combined with user flows helps design teams empathize with users better to deliver more relevant solutions.

Types of User Flows

Here are seven common user flow categories. Design teams can use the techniques and mediums above to visualize these user flows.

Task flows

Task flows represent the steps users must follow to complete a specific task. These flows focus on sequential user actions and decision points, often visualized using a flowchart. Task flows are particularly helpful for identifying pain points and optimizing user journeys.

Onboarding flows

Onboarding flows allow product teams to visualize and design the product’s initial setup and introduction. These flows incorporate account creation, tutorials, feature highlights, and personalization options to familiarize users and get them started quickly.

Conversion flows

Conversion flows are crucial for generating revenue and growth. These flows represent the steps toward a desired action or outcome–for example, newsletter signups, purchases, plan upgrades, etc. Designers typically aim to minimize friction and distractions for these flows to maximize conversion rates, upsells, and other revenue-generating activities.

Navigation flows

Navigation flows outline the structure and architecture of a digital product. These visualizations help design teams understand how users move between screens, sections, and features. They can use these insights to prioritize features and content so users can find things faster and complete tasks more efficiently.

Account management flows

Users often need to update account information like addresses, passwords, billing details, app preferences, subscriptions, etc. Account management flows allow designers to simplify these administrative experiences so users can return to more important tasks.

Error flows

Error flows allow design teams to simulate issues and design solutions to fix them. They can use these insights to improve the user flow and eliminate errors from occurring or create appropriate feedback for users to correct problems.

Offboarding flows

Offboarding flows guide users through discontinuing a product or service, like canceling a subscription or deleting their account. These flows must be as efficient as onboarding to minimize frustration, increasing the chances of winning back customers.

How to Create a User Flow in 8 Steps

Here is a step-by-step framework for creating user flows.

Define the goal and entry points

Identify the task or goal you want to analyze–this could be one of the above user flows or something specific to your product. This goal will help determine the scope and focus of your user flow and which visualization is most appropriate.

If you are designing a website user experience, another good practice before creating your flows is to determine and map out where your users are coming from. Based on Morgan Brown’s advice in Stop Designing Pages and Start Designing Flows, we’d recommend you consider the following sources for your web or mobile prototype:

• Direct traffic
• Organic search
• Paid advertising
• Social media
• Referral sites
• Email

Identify personas

Your product may have many user personas. Determine which of these is most relevant to the user flow. You may assess the user flow for multiple personas to ensure it meets everyone’s needs and expectations.

For templates and helpful tips on creating personas, check out the chapter “Analyzing Users Before Diving Into Design” in the free ebook The Guide to UX Design Process & Documentation.

List user actions and decision points

Break down the user journey into a list of individual actions and decision points. Consider each step a user must take to achieve goals and their choices. For example, a signup screen might have several options, including email signup and multiple social logins. Each option will have a different path to completing the signup process.

Map the flow

Start by sketching your flows on paper or in a digital tool to iterate on many ideas fast. This should be a collaborative effort where team members share ideas and suggestions.

Once you have a basic outline, you can create your user flow in a design tool. UXPin offers five built-in design libraries, one of which is aptly named User Flows. UXPin’s User Flows library includes everything teams need to create and share user journeys, including:

• Flow lines for every conceivable direction
• Action blocks
• Icon blocks
• Labels
• Devices (mobile, tablet, desktop)
• Gestures

Here are a couple techniques for outlining your flow.

Writing-first Approach to Outlining a Flow

You can use the writing-first approach, which Jessica Downey writes about in her article Jumpstarting Your App Conception Without Sketching UI. This outlining method helps flesh out ideas and build a “common understanding” of each page of your app or site.

Let’s create one for, say, a banking app. The scenario: someone wants to turn on auto deposit. Note in the outline below, content in [brackets] represents action buttons/links.

Step 1: Would you like to set up auto deposit?

[Set auto-deposit]

Step 2: Select Deposit Frequency

[Once per month][Twice per month]

[Every other week][Every week]

Step 3: Deposit Once per Month

[Select calendar day]

Step 4: Set Amount

Display amount field

[Set auto-deposit]

Shorthand Approach to Outlining a Flow

You can also try  a shorthand approach used by Ryan Singer at Basecamp. Ryan’s approach treats flows as ongoing conversations.

For our banking app example above, we can create a shorthand for Steps 2 and 3 that looks something like this:

To see how Singer demonstrates shorthand for Basecamp and how he can illustrates complex flows with this outlining process, check out A Shorthand for Designing UI Flows.

Add screens

If you’re designing a wireflow or screen-flow, you can add relevant wireframes, mockups, and screenshots depending on the level of fidelity you need for your user flow.

Include system feedback

Add system feedback and responses such as error messages, success notifications, or loading indicators. This detail will help designers and engineers create the appropriate UI components and content to guide users.

Review and iterate

Analyze the user flow for potential improvements, pain points, or friction. Share the visualizations with team members and stakeholders for feedback and iterate until you have a flow ready for prototyping.

Prototype and test

Create a prototype of your user flow in a design tool. UXPin’s built-in design libraries (iOS, Material Design, Bootstrap, and Foundation) provide designers with UI components and patterns for web and native applications. Drag and drop UI elements from the Design Libraries panel to create high-fidelity mockups you can test in the browser or use UXPin Mirror for mobile app testing.

Create fully interactive prototypes using advanced UXPin features to achieve results that accurately replicate the final product:

• States: allow designers to create multiple states for a single UI element and design complex interactive components like accordions, carousels, steppers, and more.
• Variables: capture data from user inputs and create personalized, dynamic user experiences–like a welcome message using data from the name field in a signup form.
• Expressions: Javascript-like functions to create complex components and advanced functionality–no code required!
• Conditional Interactions: create if-then and if-else conditions based on user interactions to create dynamic prototypes with multiple outcomes to accurately replicate the final product experience.

Enhance your user flows with high-quality prototyping and testing from UXPin. Start designing the user experiences your customers deserve with the world’s most advanced design tool. Sign up for a free trial.

The post Creating Perfect User Flows for Smooth UX appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

No matter how incredible the design is, 404 pages can frustrate your users. The UX design team’s goal is to provide the fastest solution to fix the error with minimal effort.

404 pages are an interesting facet of website design. Some designers choose to be creative, while others clearly have better things to do–like this example from the blogging platform Ghost. 404 error page. 5 minutes. Done.

This article reviews 404 pages from some of the world’s leading brands, including tips and best practices.

Design, prototype, and test your web design with the world’s most advanced design tool. Start designing incredible user experiences with UXPin Sign up for a free trial.

Build advanced prototypes

Design better products with States, Variables, Auto Layout and more.

Try UXPin

What is the Purpose of a 404 Page?

A 404 error occurs when someone types the wrong URL, or the page doesn’t exist. They may have entered the address incorrectly or clicked a “broken link.” A 404 page informs the user of this error.

404 error history

The earliest models of personal computers had 64k RAM or less. Programmers needed to keep things simple. They developed a classification system for program functions. Input errors got assigned to class 400.

There are four class 400 input errors (status codes).

1. 400 Bad Request. The input is in the wrong syntax.
2. 401 Unauthorized. The user cannot access without a username and password.
3. 403 Forbidden. The user doesn’t have permission to access the file.
4. 404 Page Not Found. The user entered or linked to a URL that doesn’t exist.

In these early days, the computer gave no solutions, just an error code–not very helpful. Many websites still don’t offer much help or explanation other than the title “404 Page Not Found,” resulting in a poor user experience and missed opportunity.

Why do you need a 404 page?

If you don’t have a dedicated 404 page, the user’s web browser will generate one. This example is what they might see:

Browser-generated 404 web pages provide a terrible user experience, resulting in lost visitors and potential conversions. The only way to fix it is by editing or retyping the URL–which many people won’t do. This process is particularly frustrating and time-consuming for someone using a mobile device.

A custom 404 page allows designers to take control of the error and provide a smooth user experience to fix it.

How to Design a 404 Page?

A 404 landing page design must be simple and helpful. Here are four key design elements to include.

• Header navigation: allows users to find the content and features they are looking for.
• 404 error title: explicitly describes the error type so users immediately know what has happened.
• Error message: summarize the error in a sentence. Unfortunately, with a 404 error, it’s difficult to determine what went wrong other than the page doesn’t exist.
• Links: the link or links on your 404 error page will depend on your website and content. For example, Google’s 404 error page provides one link to the homepage via the company’s logo.

The news publisher BBC provides several options:

• A purpose-built header navigation with popular content categories
• A link to the homepage
• Search box

Custom 404 Page Best Practices

Error prevention

The first step must be 404 error prevention. While it’s near impossible to control human error–i.e., entering the wrong address–there are steps webmasters can take to prevent 404s from occurring.

While some of these tasks are beyond a designer’s responsibility, as advocates for user experience, designers must ensure the relevant team monitors and addresses these issues.

• Broken internal links are links from one page to another on your website, which are easy to fix and prevent 404 errors. Regular UX audits will ensure these broken links are identified and fixed.
• It’s essential to use 301 redirects when deleting pages or changing URL structure. These redirects provide a good user experience and help with SEO.
• Use tools like Ahrefs, Ubersuggest, and SEMRush to find broken backlinks and contact the publishers to correct the mistake—usually an SEO manager’s responsibility.

Implementing these error-prevention processes will reduce the likelihood of 404 errors, creating a better user experience for your website visitors.

Keep it simple – “Don’t make me think”

404 pages are annoying and frustrating, especially if it’s content you need urgently. Designers must avoid clutter by providing users with the fastest solution to move on. Here are two excellent examples from PayPal and YouTube.

Global payment giant PayPal have a simple 404 page that’s easy to read and understand with minimal thinking. The header and footer navigation are visible above the fold, meaning users can find the appropriate links without scrolling.

YouTube takes design simplicity to the next level on its 404 page with a monkey graphic, short explanation, logo (linked to the homepage), and search field.

With both examples, users don’t have to read and process what has happened; they can simply move on.

The opposite of this example is HubSpot. While we love HubSpot’s products, their 404 page is very busy and confusing. There’s no reference to a 404 or error; you must read the first few lines of text before realizing what’s happening.

Maintain brand consistency

404 pages must maintain brand and design consistency so that users know they’ve arrived at the correct website. Providing a smooth user experience to solve the issue will help strengthen brand affinity.

One of the best 404-page examples we’ve found is from the awwwards website. Awwwards’ designers have created a beautiful 3D-style 404 page that looks fantastic and fits the brand–showcasing the best web design.

Lego’s 404 page is another example where designers have nailed the on-brand experience with humor and business value. The Lego Movie character Emmet, the construction worker, appears concerned, while the call-to-action (CTA) is “Start shopping”–an excellent strategy for eCommerce 404 pages.

Use humor–with caution

The problem with using humor is that it’s subjective. What one person finds funny, another will find annoying for a 404 page. If you’re going to use humor, make sure it doesn’t require too much reading to interpret, or you’ll make a frustrating experience worse, particularly for users with cognitive and learning disabilities.

Our UXPin 404 page features a fun design and caption, but it’s still very clearly a 404 error, and we provide a bright blue button taking users to safety.

IMDB’s 404 is another excellent example of on-brand humor. The page features a large speech bubble with a 404 ERROR in bold and a movie quote, replacing the keyword with “page.”

In this example, it’s “I am Jack’s missing page”–a quote from the 1999 blockbuster phenomenon Fight Club. This quote changes each time, providing users with a link to the movie.

Business opportunities and increasing conversions

Designers can utilize 404 pages to promote products or steer users to revenue-generating opportunities. Like humor, it’s important to approach this design strategy with caution–it must be clear this is a 404 page and that you’re not trying to take advantage of a bad situation.

VPN provider NordVPN provides links to its VPN plans and features. This strategy works well for NordVPN because they only sell one product on this website, so most visitors want to view either of these pages.

Productivity app Monday.com uses a minimal 404-page design. The primary CTA in the center of the screen helps users by directing them to the homepage, while a second CTA lower on the screen encourages visitors to try the product.

Website Design With UXPin

Designing websites and error pages with most image-based design tools is relatively simple, but getting accurate results during testing is nearly impossible. Designers must rely on external tools or get engineers to build code-base prototypes.

UXPin is a code-based design tool that allows designers to achieve the same results with prototypes as front-end devs do with code. The best part. Designers use UXPin exactly as they would with any popular image-based tool and don’t have to write a single line of code.

Interactive prototyping

UXPin’s interactive prototypes respond to user triggers like clicks, taps, swipes, scrolls, etc., providing users with a prototype experience that’s indistinguishable from the final product.

UXPin also connects to APIs via IFTTT, allowing teams to import live data, send emails, sync calendars, send a Tweet, or link to IoT devices from a prototype built using a design tool.

These interactive prototypes allow designers to increase prototyping scope, thus solving more issues while identifying more business opportunities.

Advanced code-based features

UXPin has four key features that set it apart from other popular design tools. These features allow designers to create complex user interfaces and components that look and feel like the final product.

• States: allow designers to create multiple states for a single UI element and design complex interactive components like accordions, carousels, steppers, and more.
• Variables: capture data from user inputs and create personalized, dynamic user experiences–like a welcome message using data from the name field in a signup form.
• Expressions: Javascript-like functions to create complex components and advanced functionality–no code required!
• Conditional Interactions: create if-then and if-else conditions based on user interactions to create dynamic prototypes with multiple outcomes to accurately replicate the final product experience.

With UXPin’s advanced prototypes, designers can test form error handling, error pages, and other usability issues during the design process, ensuring users have the correct information to fix problems fast.

Start designing better websites and digital products with the only design tool built for accurate user experience prototyping and testing. Explore UXPin’s advanced features. Sign up for a free trial.

The post 404 Page Best Practices – Top 5 UX/UI Design Tips appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

There’s more to the website that meets the eye! Beside the layout, colors, fonts, there are also technical factors such as site speed, indexing, and metrics that UX designers need to consider when working on a website experience.

We invited Tomasz Niezgoda, Head of Marketing at Surfer, a platform that merges content strategy, creation, and optimization into one smooth process to write an SEO guide for UX designers. If you need a tool that will support your content marketing efforts, try Surfer. For designing a website, app, or any other digital product, try UXPin, an end-to-end design solution that will improve your design process from start to finish. Try UXPin for free.

Build advanced prototypes

Design better products with States, Variables, Auto Layout and more.

Try UXPin

Why Understanding SEO is Important?

Contrary to popular belief, SEO is not only about keywords and content. Search engines started understanding users’ needs and considering them in ranking pages. So, although it may not seem so evident, SEO and UX influence each other interchangeably, and it is undisputed.

UX metrics such as page speed and mobile friendliness have become primary ranking factors for Google. Therefore, it’s crucial to consider user experience in terms of SEO because search engines rank websites based on how users interact with them.

From this article, you can learn how SEO and UX influence each other and what you can do to improve your website to rank higher in search engines.

Interrelation between SEO and UX

Search Engine Optimization strives to improve a website’s visibility in organic search results and, as a result, increase organic traffic. A strong SEO strategy boosts a website’s visibility on the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) and improves ranking for relevant search queries. Many people use dedicated SEO tools (like SEO tool–Surfer) to help them improve their site’s visibility in Google.

To connect users with the information they’re looking for, search engine algorithms assess the pertinence of a page’s content to the user’s search query by analyzing topics and relevant keywords. Sometimes it’s helpful to use paraphrasing tools to implement as many keywords as possible without overstuffing the content.

Search engine algorithms also gauge the authority of a page by analyzing backlinks and other off-page factors that indicate a site’s trustworthiness. Finally, search engine algorithms measure how users interact with a web page to determine the quality of user experience it provides. That’s where SEO user experience comes into play.

The purpose of search engines is to provide a rich user experience, which means directing users to web pages that can provide it. Google algorithm evaluates user interaction with a site by assessing UX signals, such as clicks and dwell time. They are a sign to Google that a website has a high level of user engagement and great UX design. 

In summary, to create an effective SEO strategy, you need to make your website user-friendly, and to achieve that, you need to consider UX design.

How Can UX Metrics Affect SEO?

As you can see, user experience is an influential ranking factor. So, keeping an eye on some UX metrics that can make or break your position in search engines is essential.

When it comes to SEO, behavior metrics measure user engagement and how content aligns with search intent. You need to optimize your website for these markers if you want to be a user-friendly resource and appear higher in search engine rankings.

Some user engagement metrics that matter for SEO include: 

• dwell time; time spent on the page before navigating back to the SERP
• bounce rate; how many people exit the website after seeing one page
• user engagement; where people go after navigating to your website
• pages per session; how many pages people browse through during one session

If you look out for these metrics, you can make adjustments to your content and website design to help people find the information and encourage them to stay longer on your website. Below, we go over the specific steps you can take to improve UX SEO on your site.

4 UX SEO Best Practices

Now that you know the importance of UX and SEO, here are some actionable tips you can implement in your website.

Improve the page load time

Improving page load time is the first and most important thing you should do to improve SEO rankings. Not only does slow site speed cause a higher bounce rate, but it also directly correlates with search rankings. 

Most people want to find information quickly, and if your page takes forever to load, they will simply leave the website. Moreover, Google regards page speed as a ranking factor.

It’s also essential to boost the load of different page elements. It’s not only crucial for improving UX but also for preventing layout shifts. It happens when page content unexpectedly moves; the most common reason is that resources are loaded asynchronously.

There are several things you can do to make sure that your page with all of its contents loads fast and simultaneously; here are some of them:

• Make sure the images you use have defined dimensions
• Use images in the right format (Google recommends WebP)
• Identify the problems using Google’s PageSpeed Insights 
• Conduct a Core Web Vitals assessment

If you make sure your page loads fast, you can be sure that both search engines and users will favor your content.

Simplify your site navigation

Intuitive site architecture and easy navigation help people find what they need fast. It also helps boost engagement with other parts of a website.

Remember that often users won’t enter your website through your homepage. This means you must make your site easy to navigate wherever users or search engine crawlers land.

Moreover, the way you structure and organize your website’s content helps Google understand which pages are most important. This way, you can also show Google how each page relates to others and what is your website’s topical domain authority.

Additionally, clean site navigation and structure can make sitelinks show in Google search results. Sitelinks can help you cover more real estate on search engine result pages, which means less room for your competitors.

If you’re deciding on the type of website structure, the best one for SEO UX is a flat hierarchy. In this type of website hierarchy, every page is 3-4 clicks away from the home page and can be discovered through internal links. 

So every page should have an internal link pointing to it. Not only does flat architecture help users and Google identify the relevance of your website, but it also helps pass link authority from one page to another. 

Optimize your website for mobile

People access Google on mobile devices every day in various situations, so it’s crucial to optimize your website to be easily accessible. And because the majority of users now search for information using a mobile device, Google started to crawl and index pages optimized for mobile as a priority.

To make your website accessible to mobile users, leverage a responsive web design. It enables websites to resize and adjust to mobile phones, tablets, and other devices and prevents rendering issues. 

In mobile layouts, the emphasis should be on simplicity and clarity. So make sure your content is easily readable, eliminate unnecessary pop-ups, and make calls to action clear and easy to tap on.

A mobile-friendly website should also include the following:

• Reasonably big buttons
• Pinch to zoom 
• Simple menus
• Visible search box 

When it comes to text content, remember that the font shouldn’t be smaller than 16, and the text blocks should be smaller, so divide the content into more paragraphs.

The image above shows an example of a terrible mobile version of a website. As you can see, there is a part of the headline that didn’t adjust to the size of the window. That makes for a poor user experience.

Create a User-Friendly Web Page Layout

As mentioned above, creating clear navigation paths makes your content easily accessible. To support the website’s straightforward navigation, you also need to use a layout that reflects that—usually, the simpler and more visible, the better. 

Don’t use too many elements. Also, pick only two or three contrasting colors that will catch users’ attention. 

Another thing you can do is place the most important website elements in familiar locations and make them highly visible. These elements should be evidently interactive and easy to manipulate. 

If your website has a lot of content, for example, it includes a blog or other sections, display lower-level content with drop-down navigation menus. 

Moreover, use visual communication, for example, in the form of CTA buttons, to boost user comprehension and website engagement.

Think About SEO When Designing Websites

SEO has changed over the years. It’s no longer about keyword stuffing anymore. If you want to attract traffic to your website, you also need to focus on delivering a positive user experience.

If you want to create a user- and Google-friendly website, follow these tips for an impeccable SEO user experience:

1. Improve the page load time
2. Simplify your site navigation
3. Optimize your website for mobile
4. Create a user-friendly web page layout

Moreover, use responsive design, focus on simplicity, and ensure your most important website elements are highly visible. Additionally, use layout tricks like contrasting colors and visual communication to boost user comprehension and engagement. 

By following these steps, you can optimize your website for SEO UX and improve your chances of appearing higher in search engine results pages.

Build a web design prototype in UXPin, an all-round tool for improving your design process, from basic wireframing to fully interactive prototyping that’s easy to develop. Try UXPin now.

The post UX and SEO – An SEO Guide For UX Designers appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

ReactJS is the most popular front-end library in the world. The library’s component-based methodology allows the development team to build and reuse components throughout a project, resulting in less programming from scratch and faster development.

We’ve put together 15 ReactJS websites and web apps to demonstrate what’s possible with this versatile framework. We also showcase tools product developers use to achieve specific outcomes or optimize ReactJS website performance.

Key takeaways:

• Facebook
• Repeat
• PayPal
• Netflix
• Product Hunt
• Puma Campaigns
• TeamPassword
• BBC
• AirBnB
• Shopify
• Pinterest
• Skyscanner
• Uber Eats
• Cludflare

Use ReactJS throughout the product development process–from early-stage prototyping to final front-end development. UXPin Merge is a revolutionary design technology that allows you to bring React-based components to a design tool. Learn more about Merge.

Create beautiful layouts without designers

Take UI components directly from Git repo, Storybook, or through NPM and design production-ready prototypes.

Bring code to design

What Can You Build With ReactJS?

React developers use the framework for everything from simple landing pages and websites to complex games, social networking platforms, and enterprise applications. React’s flexibility and versatility make it the preferred choice for many projects, including responsive websites and cross-platform apps.

The component-based web development approach makes it easy for developers to build user interfaces and move elements around to make changes and iterate faster than using a standard HTML, CSS, and Javascript workflow.

React is written in Javascript, the most widely used programming language, so it’s relatively easy to learn and boasts one of the biggest developer communities in the world.

When you should and shouldn’t use React

React works best for single-page applications and complex web-based projects–for example, social media platforms, news publications, and SaaS products.

Landing pages, native applications, and small websites are instances where you might want to choose a different front-end technology. For example, React Native and Flutter are better for native iOS and Android apps. 

15 Examples of ReactJS Websites

We’ve included a mix of enterprises, startups, SaaS companies, small businesses, and others that use React in their tech stack. This list demonstrates React’s versatility for websites and web applications built using the powerful Javascript library.

Facebook

Facebook is the most famous React website example because parent company Meta developed the front-end library in 2012 and still maintains it as an open-source project.

Meta initially used React for the Facebook newsfeed but now uses the library across its product ecosystem. React was a game changer for Facebook because when someone liked a post, only the component changed rather than a full page reload, resulting in significantly better performance and fewer resources.

Meta uses React Native–the mobile version of React–for Facebook, Facebook Ads Manager, and Oculus’ iOS and Android apps.

Repeat

SaaS platform Repeat uses NextJS for its website and web application. NextJS allows you to create fullstack web applications, extending what’s possible with “vanilla React.”

Repeat’s homepage is full of motion and immersive animations made possible by NextJS’s powerful features, like rending, routing, and asset optimization.

PayPal

PayPal uses a React version of Microsoft’s Fluent Design for its 60+ internal products. These products include a lot of dashboards and data visualizations necessary for daily operations.

PayPal also uses UXPin Merge, allowing the company’s design teams to prototype and test using React components. This code-to-design workflow bridges the gap between design and development, so designers and software engineers work with the same component library.

Netflix

Netflix uses React and React Redux for state management. According to the official Netflix Technology Blog, “React enabled us to build JavaScript UI code that can be executed in both server (e.g., Node.js) and client contexts.”

Performance is crucial for Netflix as users expect HD videos to load fast. Developers use the virtual DOM to reduce latency from live DOM manipulation. 

Netflix also uses React’s Component and Mixin APIs to “create reusable views, share common functionality, and patterns to facilitate feature extension.” This functionality enables Netflix to A/B test components to determine the best solutions during user testing.

Product Hunt

Product Hunt is another React/NextJS user. Like Facebook, Product Hunt must handle microinteractions for each post, including upvotes and comments.

Puma Campaigns

Gatsby is a front-end technology built on React which makes it possible to develop high-performing websites and landing pages. Puma uses Gatsby for its campaign landing pages, including this one for the Velocity running shoes.

Gatsby allows devs to build React websites and applications using popular CMS platforms like WordPress, Netlify, Drupal, and Contentful, to name a few, for content management. This framework gives developers the versatility of React with the convenience of their content team’s preferred CMS.

SEO is a big problem for single-page application frameworks like React and Angular. Gatsby helps to solve this problem with its SEO Component, which enables search engines to index the website’s content and individual pages.

Puma also uses React Native for its iOS and Android applications.

TeamPassword

Password-management startup TeamPassword uses a customized version of the MUI design system–an open-source React component library developed using Material Design used by many B2B enterprise and SaaS providers.

TeamPassword’s developers chose React as it was easier to maintain than their old framework. The 2-person engineering team also uses UXPin Merge, which allows them to import their React library from its private repository into UXPin’s design editor for prototyping and testing.

BBC

The British Broadcasting Association (BBC) was an early adopter of React and even hosted a workshop in 2015 introducing people to the front-end library and its capabilities.

In 2022, with the help of Vercel, the BBC rebuilt its website using NextJS and Vercel. The rebuild resulted in significant performance benefits, with HMR (Hot Module Replacement) reduced from 1.3s to 131ms–a staggering achievement for a website as large and complex as the BBC.

Airbnb

Airbnb uses React for some of its product ecosystems, including Airbnb.io, its open-source project famous for developing Lottie–an open-source animation tool for Android, iOS, and React Native mobile applications.

Airbnb.io is a website developed using Gatsby featuring the company’s blog posts and details about its open-source projects with links to the GitHub repos.

Cloudflare

Cloudflare migrated from Backbone and Marionette to React and Redux in 2015 to develop its cf-ui design system. The multi-brand design system serves Cloudflare’s internal and external websites and products.

Since Cloudflare had to rebuild its component library, the team focused on accessibility, creating three open-source projects in the process: 

• react-modal2,
• a11y-focus-store,
• a11y-focus-scope.

UberEATS

Uber uses React Native for its UberEATS web-based restaurant dashboard. The team needed to develop a web application restaurants could access via a tablet and decided to use React Native. The single-page web application communicates with three parties in the UberEATS marketplace and connects to restaurant receipt printers.

Uber also developed Base Web, an open-source design system for building ReactJS websites and web apps. The highly customizable design system boasts an extensive UI component library with theming capabilities.

Related content: Learn about design operations at Uber.

Shopify

Shopify uses React for its website and web application and React Native for its mobile applications. Developers can build React apps for Shopify using its famous Polaris Design System.

Skyscanner

Skyscanner is one of the most widely used travel websites, with over 40 million monthly visits. The website connects to hundreds of airlines and thousands of hotels to show users trip data in seconds.

Skyscanner uses React and React Native for its website and product ecosystem. The company’s Backpack design system features an extensive UI library with web and native components.

Pinterest

Pinterest is another social media platform using React. The company’s Gestalt design system features components for its React web app and React Native mobile applications (iOS and Android).

Pinterest is another example where React provides massive performance benefits for single-page applications. The website’s famous infinite scroll uses lazy loading to display six columns of images and video with impressive speed.

Cuckoo

Cuckoo is a UK-based broadband supplier that uses React and NextJS for its website. The website has a fair amount of animations, including a large revolving sequence in the hero. These animations do not impact the website’s performance, a product of using NextJS.

Prototyping React Websites & Web Apps With UXPin Merge

Prototyping and testing are crucial for any digital product, including websites and web applications. Designers must determine whether their designs solve user needs while providing business value. To get accurate results, designers must use quality prototypes that replicate the final product experience.

Merge is a code-based design technology that imports React components into UXPin so designers can build interactive prototypes. These Merge components have the same fidelity and functionality as the final product because they come from the same repository–the designer’s workflow doesn’t change; they just work with better-quality UI elements.

UXPin Merge doesn’t only benefit design teams. Because Merge creates a drag-and-drop design environment, it makes prototyping and testing accessible to developers and other non-designers.

Startup TeamPassword’s 2-person engineering team uses Merge synced with their custom MUI design system to prototype and test new products. Before switching to Merge, TeamPassword prototyped in code, which made time-to-market slow, reducing the company’s ability to compete.

Since switching to UXPin Merge, TeamPassword ships features much faster, and using a design system has increased UI consistency. TeamPassword also used its React library to redesign its website.

Design your React website faster by using real React components. Discover UXPin Merge.

The post 15 Examples of Reactjs Websites appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

Deciding between launching a mobile app vs. web app isn’t always an easy decision. There are many factors to keep in mind before making the call – from user experience and technical constraints to cost-effectiveness and scalability.

We’ll explore web design vs mobile app design. All so that you can make an informed decision about which approach is best for your project. Follow along our tips and sign up for a free trial at UXPin. It’s an end-to-end prototyping tool that allows you to build advanced prototypes that look and behave like a mobile or web app you’re about to develop. Try UXPin for free.

Build advanced prototypes

Design better products with States, Variables, Auto Layout and more.

Try UXPin

What Is a Mobile App?

Mobile applications are tools designed specifically for portable, mobile devices. They come in various forms. From small, single-function applications to more complex, multi-functional mobile platforms, each should provide users with a quality experience.

Apps vary significantly in their purpose and scope, allowing people to engage in activities ranging from gaming and leisure to business and professional pursuits. 

When it comes to developing an app, product development teams often need to consider the screen size and operating system of the device they are creating the app for. As mobile technology advances rapidly, many apps are now built with cross-platform compatibility in mind so users across various devices and platforms can enjoy them.

The types of mobile apps available today include:

• Native – native mobile apps are usually developed for one platform or operating system (iOs or Android apps),
• Hybrid – hybrid apps leverage reusable code to provide a native-like user experience for less effort and money,
• PWAs – it’s short for Progressive Web Apps, PWAs are mobile web apps built with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other frameworks. they should function on desktop and mobile, standards-compliant browsers.

Pros of mobile apps

• They work efficiently (they’re created natively for mobile devices)
• They can work offline, without the Internet connection
• They offer better analytics, i.e., more accurate data collection and conversion tracking.

Cons of mobile apps

• They’re expensive to design, more so to maintain
• You need to build a separate app for iOS and Android 
• You’re in charge of maintaining privacy and security.

What Is a Web App?

A web app is an application that users can access through the web on any device with an internet connection. It runs in a browser, reducing users’ need to install and keep track of a separate application on their PC, which increases its accessibility.  

What’s great about using web apps is that you can create more interactive user experiences in comparison to traditional websites. All thanks to powerful front-end frameworks such as AngularJS or ReactJS. They allow app developers to quickly build dynamic single-page applications, which provide smooth transitions between different views and respond quickly when user input is received.

Web apps are a popular solution since they offer incredible performance and scalability without compromising security. 

Pros of web apps

• They work on any platform – a web application is hosted on a server and delivered over the internet through a browser interface.
• Since it’s stored on a remote server and supplied online via a browser interface, users don’t need to install updates.
• Easy to maintain by web development team

Cons

• They require internet access to be used
• They might be slow to load – if a server is overloaded, the contents of your app won’t appear quickly, which can severely affect the user experience. Or, worse yet, cause the user to leave the app before it loads.
• Not as easily discovered by target audience – web apps are not promoted in app stores because they are not listed there. Product Hunt, Capterra, and app review sites can be a decent way to promote your web apps, but their discoverability is nowhere near as robust as in Apple and Android app stores.

Discussing the Differences Between a Mobile App and a Web App

Let’s now take a quick look at how mobile apps and web apps differ.

• While web apps can be accessed via virtually any browser, mobile apps must be downloaded from the app store.
• Differences in screen size requirements. Mobile apps can’t be accessed on desktop, and are created solely for smaller screens. This, in turn, implies lesser pixels. Meanwhile, web apps can be accessed on both mobile and desktop.
• Mobile apps can be used without internet access, while web apps can’t. 
• Since web apps need access to internet connection and rely on web browsers, they tend to be slower than mobile apps. 
• Most people use computers while sitting. App users may be commuting to work or even jogging while using their phones. As a designer, you must account for these different scenarios to ensure high usability and accessibility standards.
• Mobile apps have more advanced security than web apps. Therefore, mobile app development should cater to this by creating two-factor authentication or other means that improve safety. 

Effective Ways to Help You Choose Between a Mobile App and a Web App

Here are the top considerations while deciding between a mobile app vs. web app.

Determine user context and purpose

The web offers an abundance of resources and information to users, who typically access it from a comfortable seated position. Mobile devices offer a unique opportunity for users to search for and quickly obtain information on the go.

When designing for mobile UX, navigation should be simple and easy to follow, with well-structured code written concisely, and visually prioritized. The goal is to ensure maximum accessibility of the desired information in the least amount of time.

User experience designers must pay close attention to design elements such as:

• natural gestures, which are most intuitive for users on small screens

• simplicity in menu selection options
• clear visual pathways
• consistent user interface elements like fonts and colors
• easily clickable and accessible buttons and links
• and other interactive elements that make user navigation easier.

This must also be paired with relevant accessibility standards, to ensure that all users can use the app to its full advantage and functionality. 

Verdict: Web apps are great for longer user sessions and don’t compete with mobile apps. A mobile app may be suitable if your product can be used regularly in shorter periods, such as habit or meal tracking app, mobile eCommerce app or social media app.

Assess your product or service’s required screen size

Many B2B tools are now web-based, allowing users to access them from their phones, tablets, or other mobile devices. This is advantageous for several reasons:

• It enables the user to access information quickly and conveniently regardless of their device.
• It allows them to view content more clearly and in more detail on a larger screen.
• If any PDF downloads or exports need to be done regularly, it’s much easier and more efficient for the user to do this on a desktop computer than on a mobile device. This is because PDFs can take up considerable amounts of data space on mobile devices, and saving them frequently could result in the device becoming bogged down. Not to mention, it’s not exactly the most convenient screen size to peruse these files.
• Users may prefer their files to stay on one machine rather than having them spread across multiple devices. For businesses to get the most out of their B2B platform, providing web-based access is essential since it gives customers both convenience and flexibility when interacting with the company.
• By allowing users to access the app on a larger screen rather than solely on mobile – where content may not always be visible clearly – companies can ensure that their clients always have a good user experience.

Verdict: Web apps are suitable for complex (often work-related) apps, where there are plenty of charts and analytical data. These types of apps usually require a lot of jumping back and forth between screens.

List device-specific features

If you sell beauty products, for example, it is much more beneficial to develop a tailored beauty app for mobile devices since that’s where people tend to spend most of their day.

This platform provides you with a larger audience and allows you to take advantage of multiple features not available on computers, particularly the higher-resolution phone cameras. When it comes to these kinds of products, image quality is essential for market success. 

Although designing a web-based application that is accessible via mobile view can enable the use of the device camera, some other features are only accessible through mobile hardware and functionalities. Think of things like your phone’s built-in gyroscope or GPS, which would have been essential if you were to create a runner’s app, for one.

Also, when designing the UX/UI design for a mobile app, make sure to always include device-specific elements like larger interactive buttons and simple navigation. Furthermore, make sure to work hand in hand with your software development team to ensure all third-party apps integrations work flawlessly. The types of integrations depend on your product – these can be those with social media, online payment methods, and push notifications.

Verdict: Mobile apps come with the added value of device-specific hardware and features like GPS and high-resolution cameras.

Check your competitors’ choices

Businesses should analyze the competitive landscape prior to launching a new product or app to make an informed decision as to what to develop.

If it turns out that many of the top players in the market are web-based solutions, it’s probably the best way to go. They’ve created a solution for a platform users find convenient to use, and the UX they’ve created allows them to complete their goals (after all, otherwise these apps would not have had this level of market success).

Let’s not forget that users appreciate familiarity in products from the same category – it will make it that much easier for them to start using your app, if they were to switch to you from a competitor. Thoroughly researching competitors can help identify opportunities and potential risks before investing in a project. 

Verdict: If your app’s goal isn’t to revolutionize your category, it’s worth going with the platform others are finding success with. That’s where your target audience can be reached.

Mobile or Desktop App? Design it in UXPin

It’s our hope that after reading this piece, you can now pick a winner in your mobile app vs web app dilemma. Use the considerations above to understand how user context, screen size, and your competitor landscape can contribute to your app’s success.

With UXPin, you can create advanced prototypes and quickly share them with stakeholders or developers – regardless whether you’ve decided to go with a web app or mobile app. Ready to take it for a spin? Try our tool on a free trial.

And with our free trial, nothing is stopping you from trying it out for yourself today. So what are you waiting for? Try UXPin and streamline product design and development process. Start your trial.

The post Mobile App vs. Web App – What to Design? appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

When it comes to web design, the concept of contrast is often discussed in terms of aesthetics and visual appeal. However, the truth is that contrast plays a much more important role in the overall usability and accessibility of a website. We’ll explore the basics of contrast in web design and show you how to use it to improve the user experience for all visitors, regardless of their abilities. 

Test website design tips right away. Design a website using contrast advice from this article in UXPin, a tool for building advanced prototypes that simplify design-development workflow. Try UXPin for free.

What is Contrast in Web Design?

Contrast in web design refers to the relationship between two or more design elements, such as text and background that stand out in relation to one another. It is about emphasizing the differences between these elements rather than their similarities.

The degree of contrast is inversely proportional to the level of similarity. The less similar two items are, the greater the contrast between them. High-contrast elements are very different from each other, while low-contrast elements are more similar.

Contrast plays a crucial role in making the design elements on a website stand out and be more easily noticed by the viewer, making the design more aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly.

Types of Contrast in Web Design

There are several types of contrast that can be used in web design to enhance the visual appeal and user experience of a website.

• Color contrast is the difference in light between the font (or anything in the foreground) and its background. This type of contrast is essential for ensuring that text is easily legible and that other design elements stand out.
• Size contrast relates to the multitude of different sizes in a graphic interface. By leveraging it, you can emphasize certain elements, as well as generate a visual depth and create a sense of hierarchy.
• Space contrast, also known as negative space, is the emptiness around an element, whether created by white space or any other type of visual spacing. This type of contrast highlights the contrast between the element’s background and the design details surrounding it.
• Foreground and background contrast refers to the visual relationship between an element in the foreground of an image and the background behind it. In web design, this type of contrast is unique in that the background can change dynamically as the site visitor interacts with it.
• Shape contrast is achieved by making things notable by their difference in physical shape compared to other things on the page. This type of contrast can be used to create interest and to guide the viewer’s eye.
• Elements contrast refers to the different types of media that can be used in web design, such as photographs, illustrations, or hand-drawn sketches. The choice of media can have a significant impact on the overall look and feel of a website. It should be chosen based on the website’s goals and the type of content being presented.

Why is Contrast Important in Web Design?

Contrast affects more than just aesthetics. It has strategic and usability purposes.

• Supports visual hierarchy. Emphasizing the difference between two design elements supports intuitive design. It also helps users hone in on the important actions and elements.
• Ensures accessibility. Heavily contrasting colors or elements can be very helpful in making your design more accessible. The goal is to make sure no one – particularly those with visual disabilities – is blocked from using a website.
• Compliance with local & international web regulations. There is an international standard, which outlines these rules for contrast accessibility in web design – the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). There are also governmental ones, like compliance with the USA’s Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Lack of ADA-compliance has resulted in thousands of federal lawsuits against non-accessible websites. So, it’s imperative to adhere to best practices for accessibility.

Contrast in Web Design – 7 tips 

Contrast in web design is a crucial element in creating visually appealing and user-friendly websites. However, it’s not always easy to know how to effectively use contrast in your designs. Here are a few tips you can follow. 

Check your text contrast ratio 

This is an important step in assessing the overall contrast in your web design. One of the best ways to do this is to use a contrast ratio calculator.

The golden rule is to keep the 4.5:1 ratio for text and text-based images. However, there is an exception for logotypes and large text, such as headings. In these cases, using contrasting typefaces for headlines versus body copy can help create hierarchy and improve readability. This helps readers skim or search through your page for the information they need.

One tool for this is the UXPin built-in contrast checker, which you can try out for free.

Create large spacing to bring attention to detail

Creating large spacing, also known as negative spacing, is a powerful design technique that can be used to bring attention to specific elements on a website. This is achieved by strategically placing large amounts of empty space around a particular element, which serves to highlight the contrast between the element and its background.

By creating a sense of emptiness around a design element, you create visual tension and the element will stand out more. The viewer’s attention is naturally drawn to the element that stands out in the emptiness. Negative spacing is also effective in creating a sense of hierarchy within the design, which can make it easier for the viewer to navigate and understand the content.

This technique can be achieved by using white space, or by using other types of visual spacing such as margins, padding, or line spacing. It is also highly useful when creating call-to-action buttons, separating different sections of your web page, and creating visual interest.

Look at these two examples from Apple’s announcement of the iPhone 14. Notice how both images have a copious amount of space around them, bringing the visitor’s attention to underline the key message, i.e., the phone has a great camera and superb battery life.

Use sufficient color contrast 

When text contrasts poorly with its background, it makes reading more difficult, especially for people with impaired vision, or even strained/tired eyes. The same goes for icons and situations where highlighting is used to draw attention (such as the hover effects on links).

This example shows two color combinations: one that has a low contrast ratio and one that has a high contrast ratio.

Here, in the case of text, make sure that the contrast ratio between text color and background color is at least 4.5:1. There are color-contrast tools that can help you test color pairs for contrast and adjust the values as necessary.

Such a contrast checker is built into UXPin, so you can easily check the values as you work on your prototypes. It also features a color blindness simulator – so, you can make sure that the color contrast you put the effort into building out is genuinely seen by all user groups.

With that in mind, it’s advisable to avoid very high contrast. Be aware that for some people, especially people with dyslexia, a very high contrast color scheme can make reading more difficult. It’s a good idea to choose an off-white background color rather than a white background to aid on-screen reading.

Use a background with vivid imagery 

If you are creating a page for a travel agency, for example, you can always choose to put a background that represents some of the travel destinations where you offer tours to.

Always keep in mind how the different background types will affect such other important factors as loading speed and site performance. Awesome video backgrounds might have a huge impact on the overall design, but if they take too long to load, they may defeat the sole purpose of engaging the user.

With UXPin, you can fill your prototypes with real data. Make your prototypes look and feel more real. Fill them with auto-generated names, cities, and even images. It just takes two clicks using UXPin’s built-in data. That’s right, no more lorem ipsum or searching for images on stock sites. 

Let the size variation be noticeable

When all elements in a design are the same size, it can be difficult for the user to understand which ones are most important and where to focus their attention. Size contrast can be used to create emphasis on particular elements. 

By making certain elements larger or smaller than others, you can draw the viewer’s attention to specific parts of the design. This technique is especially useful for headings, calls-to-action, and other important information that you want to stand out. Additionally, it can be useful to make sure that the font size of the text is easy to read and accessible, to follow the general design principles.

Scale is also a powerful tool for creating a dynamic and interesting layout. By using different sizes in elements, you can create a sense of depth and movement, which can add drama to a design and make it more engaging for the viewer.

It is worth noting that when using size contrast, it is important to keep the overall design in mind and make sure that the size variations used are proportional to the other elements on the page. Size variations that are too extreme can be distracting, and it could cause issues in the overall readability and accessibility of the website.

Use textures and patterns 

Textures and patterns can help you create high-contrast designs when their characteristics are significantly different from each other. For instance, pairing a rough textured background with smooth foreground text would add contrast to the design.

Textures give designs character. Rough, grainy textures will give your designs vintage qualities whereas a subtle noise texture will help create a natural variation similar to one you’d find on printed newspaper. Similarly, photographic textures give realistic-looking results and are another popular way of adding contrast to your designs.

As it takes trial and error to get the textures and patterns right for your web design project, it’s worth using a prototyping tool that will enable you to save and repurpose the ones that work. UXPin lets you incorporate them into your design system and repurpose the components in your future work – and this means a faster product design process. 

Experiment with shapes: organic vs. geometric, edges vs. corners

Most shapes can be categorized as either geometric (rectangles, triangles, circles, etc.) or organic (fluid, nature-inspired). 

Here, a label design incorporates organic, almost abstract shapes that complement and enhance the straight, clean lines of the typographic choices.

One more way you can subtly use shape in your design is on the edges and corners of your design elements, whether typography, boxes, or buttons. If you use a more rounded shape, you’ll get a softer, more friendly appearance. Sharper shapes, on the other hand, create a more ordered and crispy style. You can contrast these qualities against each other, as in the example below.

Using Contrast in Web Design

Using contrast in web design is a powerful tool for creating visually appealing and user-friendly websites. The types of contrast include color, size, space, shape, and elements. By using them effectively, designers can create designs that are both aesthetically pleasing and easy to navigate.

One important aspect of contrast in web design is ensuring that text and text-based images have a ratio of 4.5:1. The only exceptions are logotypes and large text-like headings.

Creating large spacing is another technique that can be used to bring attention to specific elements. And the use of size contrast can also help create hierarchical relationships between elements, making it easier for users to understand their importance. 

To ensure proper web design contrast, use a prototyping tool like UXPin – not only will you be able to create visually appealing prototypes; you’ll also have access to a built-in contrast checker and real-life interface texts. Create a web design using UXPin. Start a free trial.

The post What is Contrast in Web Design? [+7 Tips How to Use it] appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

From creating high-quality visuals to making sure all the web pages are intuitive and responsive, website design requires a combination of technical know-how and artistic vision.

To ensure your website is successful in both areas, you’ll need to do your due diligence and follow a website checklist. In this article, we’ll describe the qualities of a good website and how to work with a team of web developers. We’ll also outline tasks to follow if you want to make your website functional in addition to being aesthetically pleasing.

If you’re creating a web design, use UXPin. It’s an end-to-end prototyping tool with which you can create an interactive prototype of a website, share it with others, and use it for user testing. It’s the only prototyping tool that allows you to test true experience of a website. Sign up for a UXPin trial.

Build advanced prototypes

Design better products with States, Variables, Auto Layout and more.

Try UXPin

What are the Top Qualities of a Good Website?

A website should be more than just functional; it also needs to look aesthetically pleasing and consistent in portraying your brand. In short:

• It should answer your target audience’s questions,
• The content should be organized and accessible to all users, including those with disabilities,
• It should be optimized for mobile devices,
• It should guarantee the highest security standards (have an SSL certificate and more).

These are just a few of the qualities of a good website that must be taken into account during the web design process. If you are looking for a full list of website design elements, this web development checklist can be very useful for webmasters and web designers.

A pre-launch website checklist for creating effective web designs 

Interview stakeholders

Stakeholder interviews have a major impact on the final product. They help gather valuable insights that would otherwise be difficult to obtain. Here are a few things you need to do to prepare for a stakeholder interview:

• Pinpoint your research objectives: What outcomes are you seeking? It’s best to devise a script or list of questions that will assist in uncovering vital information.
• Identify the stakeholders: Depending on the project you are working on, the people who have a say in it may be from different parts of the company, like management, engineering, marketing, or sales. A stakeholder is anyone whose job will be affected by the product.
• Define the setup: For any stakeholder interview, be sure to have all the essential tools on hand. Understanding the website’s objectives, functionalities, and timeline help you structure the interview.

Stakeholder interviews are a great way to learn about what people want. They help you understand how users behave, what limits them, and what problems they have.

Research competitors

To compare your website to others, you need to first identify who your competitors are. You can find this information in three different sources:

1. Well-known direct competitors in your industry. This complete detailed guide on competitive analysis for UX should help you out.
2. Identify your most relevant keywords and conduct a Google search. Search the results and see which websites are appearing.
3. Take the time to research related companies on Capterra and G2. Arm yourself with knowledge of what potential customers look for to craft the perfect content and structure when planning your website. This information can give you insights into both the features and services that will make it stand out.

An ideal way to kick off an analysis of the competition’s design is by evaluating their website performance. When rating each website, assess its performance using a scale from 1 to 5 (with 5 being the highest score).

• What is the site performance?
• Is the layout easy to navigate?
• Is the font easy to read?
• Are the images properly sized and have alt text?
• Is the website responsive?
• How would you rate your new site’s usability?

Use this scale to make sure each page is graded the same way. This will help ensure that your assessments are accurate. Be sure to take notes as you go along. The goal is to look at each page and see what it has, how it works in different areas, and what’s missing. The most important part is seeing how you can do better than the other pages.

Do user research 

User research is very important in the process of making a website. In short, it helps you design something that your target audience will like, understand what consumers want, and, ultimately, help your business grow. 

Once you’ve gained a rough understanding, do additional research to check if your initial assumptions align with the people you want to reach. They will give you important information about what design to use. You can learn more by doing things like diary studies, interviews, and focus groups. This way you will know if your design meets your users’ needs.

Creating website personas is another helpful way to identify the brand’s tone. By building personas, you can gain a better understanding of the website user. Personas are fictional characters created to represent website users. They help you understand how users behave, how they think, and what website features will engage them. 

Check if there are any functional constraints

Construction of an app or website requires three essential components: desirability, viability, and feasibility. All must be carefully considered to ensure a successful new site launch.

This point centers on the feasibility of this initiative. For example, if you are planning to design and develop a website with Webflow, you must understand the full capabilities of the platform. By discovering what can be accomplished with it, you’ll have greater control over your digital project and create an incredible end result.

Tap into a current design system or craft your own for maximum impact

A Design System is a shared vocabulary for product teams that allows them to communicate more effectively and efficiently.

By having this common language, designers can create consistent experiences across different platforms with clarity and cohesion. It makes the design process go faster and helps teams communicate better so they can make products. This article goes into more depth on Design Systems.

Plan information architecture (IA)

Interaction design, which includes information architecture (IA), takes into account content, context, and users for a more efficient user experience. To create a user-friendly experience, it’s essential to consider users’ needs, business objectives, search engine’s requirements, and the site pages involved.

To start your information architecture plan, you will need a few things from the IA starter pack.

• Craft your content to meet the needs of your audience in an organized manner
• Use headings to create content structure
• Start making a map in your head and planning how people will move around your website.

Ultimately, you want people to convert or take the desired action. By developing website content that caters to your website visitors, you can create an enhanced user experience and increase website conversions. You’ll need to structure website content and create labels that are meaningful, consistent, and user-friendly. 

Build a prototype of a new website

When deciding which prototyping tool to use, it is essential to consider how product teams work, exchange information, and gather feedback.

Here’s where a tool like UXPin will be immensely useful. It allows designers to use coded UI components to create fully interactive prototypes that feel like the end product while removing silos and miscommunication during the design-developer handoff stage. 

Test with users

User testing involves observing real users interacting with homepage, contact page or any other site pages and seeing how they complete certain tasks, such as filling a contact form. It’s best to start running the tests when your design drafts are complete, but also for initial wireframes.

When you are designing something, establish when it’s time to move from sketching to low-fidelity mockups to high-fidelity prototypes. 

UXPin lets you create interactive prototypes filled with real data, and easily share them with all your stakeholders. This makes design testing and feedback gathering more effective.

Iterate

Use a tool that will help you be more productive when you are working on multiple design iterations. The best way is to use one tool for both making a model of your idea and collecting people’s opinions about it.

For example, PayPal’s Senior Manager for UX, Erica Rider, says it used to take her half a day to roll out a new iteration. Ever since she’s turned to UXPin, she can do so in as little as 30 minutes.

Hand your project over to the development team

Now is the time to equip your developer with all of the digital assets they need to begin working. Some tips to make the handoff process easier for you include:

Create templates: To make the handoff process simpler, create a template for each task and all deliverables associated with it. This template will change to match your needs and how you work. That way, when you need to hand something off at a moment’s notice, these templates will be ready.

Prevent clutter: Make sure your designs are easy to understand. This will make it less frustrating for people who are looking at them for the first time. Make sure everything is organized and labeled clearly. This way, you can easily find what you are looking for and won’t have to waste time searching. In addition, you should give developers access to all documents before they start working.

Review your work: Before you hand your work in, review every aspect of the deliverables. Double-check that all of your links are functional and accessible. To ensure that each section is presented clearly, double-check for errors in spelling and grammar as well as the appropriate use of visuals.

Run design handoff meetings: Gather both the design and development teams for a meeting. Demonstrate how each deliverable will be included in the handoff. Be prepared to answer any inquiries that may come up and convey as much insight as possible during this meeting.

Takes notes and explain: When you are done with designing, it’s a good idea to write down why you made each decision. This will help you remember your thought process later on. These annotations explain how the product is supposed to work and what it is supposed to do.

UXPin allows you to work with your team anywhere. No more endless file swapping. You can share your work and collaborate with your team on one prototype. No plug-ins, and no third-party handoff apps are necessary. You can use it to create contextual documentation. 

Leave perfectly detailed descriptions of elements on your designs, down to the smallest detail, for anyone involved – especially developers. Describe when and how certain elements should be used. You can even include accessibility guidance.

What to do post-launch?

Website launch checklist doesn’t end with the first launch. You need to constantly monitor your site using website analytics tools, such as Google Analytics or Google Search Console. Websites are prone to have problems with pagespeed, indexing, or broken links. It’s necessary to monitor your site’s health and SEO.

Plus, the best websites stay on top of their conversion rates. We have a separate article about improving site conversion, but to be brief, you need to test your call-to-actions and implement other best practices that set up your site for success.

Follow this website checklist during web design

Creating website checklists and collecting feedback on a new site design are important steps. Use it to ensure that your website meets all of the qualities of good website design. Iterate your designs with a tool like UXPin to save time and be more productive.

Finally, hand your project over to the development team by creating templates, holding design handoff meetings, annotating and explaining your web design decisions, avoiding clutter, and ensuring that you review your own work.

By following these steps, website design will become a much smoother process for all involved. With the right tools and processes in place, website design can be completed quickly, efficiently, and easily.

Create the prototype of a website right away. Use the steps we outlined in this article and create your website design in UXPin. Sign up for a free trial.

The post A Complete Website Checklist for Quality Web Design appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

We’ve put together some of the best website design ideas to delight and inspire you. We’ve also created a seven-step process to generate ideas based on your target audience’s needs and business goals.

Whether you’re a design agency, startup, small business, or solopreneur looking for inspiration, this article will guide you through the best web design trends and how they solve users’ problems.

Prototype and test your website design ideas with UXPin–the world’s most sophisticated design tool. Sign up for a free trial to explore UXPin’s advanced features and create better user experiences for your website’s visitors.

Build advanced prototypes

Design better products with States, Variables, Auto Layout and more.

Try UXPin

How to Create Website Design Ideas

For most businesses, the goal is to attract customers using your website. While aesthetics and visual design are essential for great website design, a user-centered mindset is crucial for your website’s success.

This seven-step process will help determine which website ideas and features work best for your target audience.

Conduct thorough user research

User research includes gathering data about your target audience, their needs, goals, and motivations. UX designers use various methods to collect this data and create user personas, including interviews, surveys, usability testing, and focus groups.

Identify the website’s main objectives

Use your research to determine your website’s primary goals and how it will serve users. It’ll also help you create the messaging and language. For example, a website targeting a teenage audience will look very different from one designed to attract retirees. These users will have different needs and priorities, which is why step one is so important.

Create a user journey map

A user journey map is a visual representation of the steps users take to achieve their goals on the website. It helps to understand the user’s perspective and identify potential pain points and areas for improvement.

Generate design ideas

Use your user research and journey maps (you may have several user flows) to brainstorm design ideas that can help users achieve their goals and solve any pain points identified. UX designers often use sketches and paper prototypes to generate many ideas quickly.

Refine and prioritize the ideas

Review your ideas and select those that align with the website’s objectives and offer the most value to the users. Prioritize the ideas based on their importance and feasibility.

Create wireframes and prototypes

Use the best ideas to create website wireframes and prototypes. Wireframes help visualize the website’s structure and define the information architecture.

You can use the wireframes as a foundation for high-fidelity prototypes to test your ideas and gather feedback from your target audience, other designers, and stakeholders.

Iterate and refine

Use the feedback to make changes and refine your designs. Repeat this process until you have a final website that meets user needs while achieving your business goals–i.e., more signups, sales, blog views, etc.

5 eCommerce Website Design Ideas

Creative hover effects

Ukrainian-based brand Mr. Pops uses a clever emoji hover effect for its product images. This small design choice surprises users while creating a fun and positive brand impression–perfect for an ice cream store.

Key takeaway: be detail-oriented and find subtle ways to be creative and engage users. These small details help brand awareness and encourage people to buy from your online store.

On-brand color palette

Popcorn eCommerce brand Popcornopolis uses bright colors to increase brand awareness and highlight each page’s most important features. Designers have also done a fantastic job of keeping the most important content and CTAs (call-to-action) above the fold on product pages, enabling users to get to the checkout and complete a purchase fast.

Key takeaway: your color scheme is one of the most critical brand elements, but it must also help users complete their goals. It’s also vital to prioritize content and display the most important design elements above the fold to reduce scrolling–this will get users to complete purchases faster.

Bold minimalist typography

Wukiyo uses bold minimalist typography to make text easy to read. The website also uses oversized buttons with a bright blue for the most important CTA–”ADD TO CART.” The blue stands out from the website’s otherwise muted color palette.

Key takeaway: choose a legible font that’s easy to read. You also want to prioritize content, so you only present enough for users to make decisions. And lastly, always make sure your most important CTA is prominent using size and color.

Shopping cart drawer

Premium soda brand Perfy uses bold colors and UI elements to reinforce its brand and product range. A drawer opens when someone adds a product to the cart, revealing the shopper’s basket with a CTA to checkout.

The drawer also provides important messaging to help alleviate any hesitation, including Perfy’s shipping and refund policy. Below that, there are recommended products to increase business value.

Key takeaway: design ways to get users to checkout effortlessly while anticipating and addressing any hesitations. Make sure you use clear, succinct language so users can comprehend messaging quickly and make a decision.

Above the fold product page

Like Popcornopolis, Verve Coffee Roasters uses an above-the-fold, 3-column product page layout. Ample whitespace surrounds the primary CTA with price and quantity selection to help the most important prominent. The product details use keywords rather than lengthy descriptions so that users can make a decision quickly.

Verve’s cart drawer informs shoppers about free shipping while recommending related products to increase transaction value.

Key takeaway: optimize product pages for scannability and reduce the need to read whenever possible by combining text and graphics. Less is always more–don’t be afraid of using white space to make important content stand out. eCommerce web design must incorporate opportunities to increase transaction value with upsells and cross-sells.

5 SaaS/Digital Product Web Design Ideas

Minimalist pricing page design

11Sight’s pricing page uses a black-and-white design with bright green accents to highlight important content and actions. Designers also use a contrasting layout to draw attention to the product’s premium plan, which offers the most value to users and the business.

Key takeaway: design pricing pages that are easy for 

website visitors to understand with minimal text and distractions, and prominent CTAs.

Draw attention with white space

Agorapulse’s homepage uses a single-column design with lots of white space, instantly drawing your eyes to the title and CTAs. Designers also do an excellent job summarizing the product’s key benefits from a user’s perspective. While there are two CTAs, it’s obvious which one is the most important with its bright background and light text.

Agorapulse uses a sticky header navigation bar to keep these CTAs visible as users scroll, so they can take action whenever they’re ready.

Key takeaway: if you have more than one CTA, always ensure the primary action is more prominent than the other. Highlight your product’s benefits over features as high on the web page as possible so your site’s visitors know precisely what your business can do for them.

Tell your story

Venture capital firm Nordic Eye uses video for its homepage hero to tell its brand story and connect with website visitors immediately. Video and visuals are excellent ways to tell users who you are and what you do. Short product demos, walk-throughs, etc., allow users to explore your product and determine whether it solves their problems.

Key takeaway: video is a powerful medium for creating instant connections and demonstrating your product/company’s strengths. Learn about the video optimization tips for user experience.

Speak to your target audience

Investment app Alinea speaks directly to its target Gen Z audience using relatable, empathetic language. Designers use a clever homepage hero design with a prominent CTA, an app store review widget demonstrating social proof, and leading media publications that have featured the product.

Key takeaway: understanding your target audience and what they value most is critical for successful web design. A homepage hero must describe why your product exists and eliminate any doubts before website visitors will take action.

Cross-functional app website

Many digital products offer web and mobile applications. Weera’s homepage gives users three options to use their family-orientated app–web, iOS, and Android. These choices enable users to try your product using their preferred medium, increasing the likelihood of signing up.

Key takeaway: if you have a cross-platform application, allow users to choose how they want to experience your digital product. Placing these choices as high on the page as possible reduces scrolling while increasing conversions.

Resources for website design ideas

Here are some excellent resources if you’re looking for some web design inspiration.

• Awwwards: a vast collection of some of the world’s best web designs
• Themeforest: the world’s largest marketplace for WordPress themes, website templates, plugins, and digital tools
• Behance: a social network for designers to share UI design ideas
• Dribbble: a Behance alternative

Build Great Websites With UXPin

UXPin’s advanced design technology enables designers to prototype and test their web design ideas with functionality and fidelity comparable to the final product.

With UXPin, designers get meaningful feedback from end-users and stakeholders to iterate with better accuracy, delivering high-quality results.

Whether you’re designing a new website, landing page, eCommerce store, or cross-platform application, UXPin offers the tools and features to create interactive prototypes that look and feel like the final product.

Take your web development to the next level with the world’s most advanced design tool. Sign up for a free trial to explore UXPin’s advanced features.

The post Website Design Ideas for Practicing Design appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

With so many variables to manage, website design problems often creep in, resulting in a poor user experience and adverse effects on SEO (search engine optimization). Designers and engineers must collaborate to prevent these common web design problems so users can find content and complete tasks with minimal effort.

We’ve identified 8 common web design problems in 2023 and the steps designers and developers can take to reduce or solve these issues.

Design better website experiences with the world’s most advanced design tool. Improve cross-functional collaboration and reduce usability issues with UXPin. Sign up for a free trial to explore UXPin’s features.

Build advanced prototypes

Design better products with States, Variables, Auto Layout and more.

Try UXPin

Not Using Responsive Design

The problem

Responsive design is one of Google’s primary ranking factors. The tech giant even has a free Learn Responsive Design tutorial to educate designers and engineers. Why? Because Google wants to deliver the best user experience for every result, non-responsive websites are notoriously difficult for mobile users.

The solution

Designers and front-end developers must follow mobile-first web design principles and progressive enhancement to deliver a seamless user experience across the three primary screen sizes, mobile devices, tablets, and desktops.

Web Accessibility

The problem

Many websites still ignore web accessibility guidelines, resulting in poor user experiences, particularly for those with disabilities and challenges. Accessibility doesn’t only apply to disabilities. Users endure situational challenges, like slow internet, temporary injuries, or navigating the internet when someone only has one hand free.

Not every website must be accessible. There are projects where designers push creative and technological boundaries, but everyone must have access if your website aims to serve your target audience with helpful information and resources.

The solution

Designers can use a web accessibility checklist to ensure designs meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Some accessibility basics include:

• Color: using a color blindness simulator and contrast checker to ensure users with visual impairments can read and interpret content.
• Use plain language: content must be free of jargon and slang so users can fully comprehend information and instructions. The outcomes for links and CTAs (calls to action) must be obvious and never “trick” users–whether that’s intentional or not.
• Header tags: only one H1 title tag per web page. Nested headings must follow the conventional order of H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6.
• Images: use descriptive alt text for every image and never use images to replace text because users with screen readers can’t see them.
• Forms: use the label HTML tag for every field and include helper text for additional instructions. Error messages must provide explicit instructions to fix an input issue.

Additional web accessibility resources:

• Accessibility UX Best Practices
• Web Accessibility Checklist
• Things Every Designer Needs to Know About Accessibility

Poor Website Usability

The problem

Usability is the foundation for user experience. It’s about getting the basics right so users can easily navigate your website and find features. Some common usability issues include:

• Broken links
• Poor navigation
• Too many steps to complete tasks
• Unfamiliar UX patterns–increases the website’s learning curve
• Poor website performance
• Inconsistent UI design
• Cluttered user interfaces with redundant UI elements

The solution

Designers must reduce and eliminate wherever possible. For example, simplifying and minimizing steps in user flows so users can get to the end goal faster.

Optimizing usability means designers must remove roadblocks and inefficiencies. For example, eliminate UI elements, animations, and content that distracts rather than serves.

Poor User Experience

The problem

Usability is one aspect of a website’s user experience. User experience considers how people might think and feel as they engage with a website and its features. UX also extends to the customer experience, which includes brand perception.

Organizations place a high emphasis on UX because if someone doesn’t enjoy a web experience, it’s likely they won’t convert or return.

The solution

Designers must understand users’ needs and priorities to optimize a website’s user experience. Human-centered design and design thinking principles help designers understand website visitors and how they can best solve their problems. For example, placing contact information in the header for a local small business or prioritizing the primary navigation menu to meet common browsing habits.

Poorly Executed Content Strategy

The problem

Most people visit websites to find answers to their questions. Designers have many ways to answer these questions using content, for example:

• Text
• Maps
• Images
• Videos/GIFs
• Infographics

When designers assume what’s best for users, they often use incorrect content. For example, GOV.UK’s old bank holiday page was cluttered and difficult to read.

The content design team conducted user research to understand why people visit this page. They learned that most users wanted to know the date for the next bank holiday. The result was a significantly cleaner user interface with the next date in large highlighted text. The following dates were below this in sequential order.

The solution

Recognizing which content to serve requires a deep understanding of users and their needs.

• Why is someone visiting your website?
• What content will answer their question comprehensively and efficiently?

Your header and hero section (above-the-fold content) are prime real estate for serving content that meets user needs. Instead of an irrelevant hero image and CTA, deliver content that helps people find what they need fast. That might be a link to your contact page or your store’s hottest-selling product.

Outdated Content & Design

The problem

Using a web template or WordPress theme is a quick way to build your new website, but the result is often generic, with outdated features–like a feature-packed sidebar or performance-killing hero carousel. The biggest mistake is designing a website before researching the content.

Another related issue is outdated content which could damage your brand and user trust. For example, if your eCommerce site is still running winter promos on the homepage in summer, customers might think no one is managing the store and fear placing an order in case no one processes it.

The solution

Designers must design around content rather than fit content into a template or pre-made UI pattern. This approach will help eliminate redundant UI patterns while delivering exactly what users need in the appropriate format.

Regular UX audits ensure designers spot usability issues, outdated designs, and content so the website is always relevant while providing the best user experience.

Inconsistent Design Language

The problem

Design inconsistencies cause confusion, making navigating user interfaces and completing actions difficult. For example, using multiple colors for CTAs or applying different styling (fonts, sizing, colors, borders, etc.) to the same UI elements across separate pages.

These minor inconsistencies require a user’s brain to think and relearn a user interface whenever the components change. 

Design inconsistencies also increase development times because engineers must create new components rather than reuse existing ones.

In short, design inconsistencies create problems for everyone, from users to designers, engineers, and stakeholders.

The solution

Design systems help eliminate design inconsistencies and drift. Reusing the same components, patterns, and templates means engineers can copy/paste existing code rather than designing from scratch.

Most website projects don’t have the resources to develop and maintain a design system. But there are tools designers can leverage to build a design system with minimal resources.

UXPin’s Design Systems feature allows designers to create UI libraries to share with other designers. They can create as many design systems as they like–one for each project if needed. The design system owner can set permissions to avoid unauthorized changes and maintain the library’s integrity.

When designers need to redesign a website, they simply apply new styling to the design system’s components in UXPin rather than starting from scratch.

Saving and reusing these components offers several key benefits:

• Less designing from scratch
• Less front-end web development
• Faster time to market
• Less drift and inconsistencies
• Fewer usability issues
• Enhanced brand and user experience

Unhelpful Errors and 404s

The problem

Errors are bound to happen on every website and digital product. Good UX anticipates these issues and provides solutions to solve them. Most 404 pages try to be comical with a short message, “Oops, looks like this page doesn’t exist,” with a link taking the user back to the homepage. If this is someone’s entry to your website via an external link, it’s a terrible first impression, and they’re almost certain to leave.

Forms are another area where errors often occur, causing frustration for users. When error messages don’t provide adequate assistance, users hit roadblocks, unable to complete tasks.

The solution

404s happen for various reasons, but the one that has the most detrimental effect on bounce rates is when you delete a webpage with no redirect. Users will find your 404 instead of the expected content if that page has external and internal backlinks.

It might seem counterintuitive, but when you delete a page, create a new one explaining that this page no longer exists with links to related content. For example, if you delete a t-shirt from your store, create a custom 404 explaining you no longer sell this product with links to related t-shirts or apparel. You can reuse this 404 for all your t-shirt products or create one for specific categories.

This strategy creates transparency with relevant solutions for users while increasing the likelihood they’ll stay on your website rather than exiting and finding a competitor.

Designers must also create helpful form error messages, including:

• Highlighting the field with the error
• Providing helper text with explicit instructions to fix the issue

Solve Common Problems and Reduce Errors With UXPin

UXPin’s sophisticated end-to-end design tool enables designers to build website prototypes with the same fidelity and functionality as developers. These advanced prototypes improve user testing, so designers solve more problems during the design process, resulting in better user experiences and fewer errors.

Solve common issues, enhance designer/developer collaboration, and deliver high-quality user experiences with UXPin. Sign up for a free trial to explore UXPin’s advanced features.

The post 8 Most Common Problems in Website Design appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

With an ever-growing list of devices, operating systems, and technologies, cross-platform experience design is an essential component of the product development process. 

Many organizations have dedicated teams for iOS, Android, Windows, etc., to ensure products meet platform-specific requirements and user expectations.

Create seamless cross-platform customer experiences with the world’s most advanced UX design tool. Sign up for a free trial to discover interactive prototyping with UXPin.

Build advanced prototypes

Design better products with States, Variables, Auto Layout and more.

Try UXPin

What is a Cross-Platform Experience?

A cross-platform experience (also called platform-agnostic design) describes the user experience comparison across multiple devices, including Web, mobile, tablet, and wearables, in addition to operating systems like iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, etc.

The aim for product developers is to create a comparable, seamless user experience across different platforms and operating systems to ensure their products serve all users.

Designers also want to ensure end users can access the same features and complete tasks regardless of device or operating system. For example, the ability to make a payment from your bank account whether you use the bank’s web portal or mobile app.

Responsive design vs. cross-platform design

Responsiveness is one facet product teams must consider when designing cross-platform experiences. Responsive design is specific to web browsers and how user interfaces look across desktop, tablet, and mobile viewports.

Cross-platform design is a broader concept where designers must consider web browsers, devices, and operating systems, in addition to a product’s user experience on a web, tablet, and mobile apps on iOS, Android, Windows, and other operating systems. For example, a simple alert component will look completely different on iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Safari, Chrome, and Edge.

Why Designing Cross-Platform Experiences is Important

Business value

From a business perspective, cross-platform design is crucial. In the United States, iPhone enjoys a 65% market share, but there are 2 billion global Android users or a 71.35% market share. Android makes up more than 90% of the market in some countries where iPhones are unaffordable. Not serving either of these markets means you’re leaving a lot of money on the table!

Companies must also consider responsive design and how their website and web applications render across desktop, tablet, and mobile. Many people only use their smartphones to browse the internet; if they can’t purchase products and services efficiently using these mobile devices, these companies lose valuable revenue.

Competitiveness

People expect products to work comparably across multiple devices. If users can’t complete the same tasks on your Web and mobile applications, they’ll find a competitor that does!

Nowhere is this more apparent than in FinTech. Mobile-first/only banking and investing applications have exploded in the last decade as startups aim to fill the gap left by traditional financial institutions. Many of these legacy institutions have been slow to deliver mobile solutions, allowing FinTech startups like Robinhood, Monzo, Chime, Revolut, and others to capture significant market share.

Inclusivity

If you want your products to be inclusive for everyone, then cross-platform design is essential. Apple products like iPhones and Macs are at the high end of consumer electronics–many people cannot afford these luxuries. 

If your products only serve Apple devices or don’t provide a comparable experience on Android, Windows, and the Web, then you’re excluding a massive part of the global population, including marginalized communities who cannot afford Apple’s products.

6 Key Principles of Designing Cross-Platform Experiences

Consistency

The first rule for cross-platform design is maintaining a consistent user experience across Web and mobile applications and operating systems. This consistency includes user interface design, functionality, features, interaction design, and branding, to name a few key factors.

It’s impossible to get precise UI consistency across multiple platforms and devices, but designers can control messaging, interactions, performance, and timing, which must always be consistent.

Seamless experience

A seamless cross-platform user experience means people can complete the same tasks across multiple devices. Additionally, they can start a task on one platform and complete it on another.

For example, you can create an email on the Gmail mobile app, save it to drafts and finish it on your desktop computer at another time. This seamless user experience gives users the flexibility to work and complete tasks according to their specific schedules rather than structuring their lives around technology–i.e., waiting until they get to a desktop to send an email.

Cross-platform usability (Interusability)

Cross-platform usability or interusability describes the user experience and coherency across multiple devices in an Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem.

Netflix is a familiar example where users can watch on mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and Smart TVs. Within each category are multiple devices, operating systems, and screen sizes. 

Charles Denis and Laurent Karsenty coined interusability in a 2003 publication, Inter-Usability of Multi-Device Systems – A Conceptual Framework, which describes three key components for designing coherent cross-platform experiences:

• Continuity: facilitating a seamless flow of content and interactions across products, tools, and devices
• Composition: organizing functionality across products and devices
• Appropriate consistency: designers must balance UI design consistency with native layouts and patterns

Prioritization and visual hierarchy

Prioritizing content and layouts is crucial for designing cross-platform user experiences. On desktops and Smart TVs, users can see more content and features. On mobile apps and other small screens, designers must prioritize content, often using personalization.

For example, no two Netflix or YouTube accounts look the same. Product developers use personalized algorithms to prioritize content and features to meet each user’s needs and preferences.

Prioritization also includes visual hierarchy. On large screens, there’s space for more content and features. On mobile devices, designers must determine what content is always visible and where they must hide content using accordions, navigational drawers, dropdowns, and other space-saving UI patterns.

Accessibility

Cross-platform accessibility is essential for compliance and ensuring products are fully inclusive. Designers must ensure users can use built-in assistive technologies like voice commands, screen readers, font adjustments, etc.

Designers must also provide dark and light modes to accommodate users with visual impairments. Colors render differently across devices, which impacts contrast and readability.

Adaptability

It’s not always possible to create a product for every device. For example, an enterprise warehouse management system won’t work on smartwatches–the UI and architecture is too complex. But you can create a smartwatch app that receives critical notifications so the user can get to a mobile app or desktop as soon as possible.

While adaptable experiences aren’t always in line with the product’s goals and features, they can provide value and even attract new customers.

3 Tips to Design Cross-Platform Experiences

Design for familiarity

Many apps use native styling and components to create platform familiarity. For example, using the iOS and Android icons instead of your custom set. While these features don’t conform to your brand, they can make the product feel like it was built specifically for the user’s device, thus elevating your cross-platform user experience.

Create design system

Design systems create constraints and solutions for maximizing cohesion and consistency. They also provide product teams with patterns and components to meet platform-specific rules and guidelines.

Material Design’s documentation tells designers how components will look on Android and iOS. For example, this Top App Bar from Material Design provides examples of how each operating system will render the component. The icons, alignment, spacing, and app bar height differ between iOS and Android.

Creating these cross-platform components ensures designers conduct accurate testing during the design process for the operating systems your product supports.

Use a design library

UXPin includes canvases for the Web, iOS (including iPhones, Apple Watches, and Apple TV), and Android so that you can create layouts for each device. You can also use a custom canvas size to meet your platform’s screen width.

UXPin’s built-in design libraries include iOS and Material Design components, so you can build cross-platform experiences without installing plugins or extensions. Drag and drop platform-specific UI elements to prototype products across both operating systems.

Use the UXPin Mirror app (available on iOS and Android) to test your cross-platform apps on multiple devices. You can also preview prototypes in the browser for testing on smartphones, tablets, desktops, Smart TVs, etc.

Building Cross-Platform Prototypes With UXPin

UXPin includes canvases for the Web, iOS (including iPhones, Apple Watches, and Apple TV), and Android so that you can create layouts for each device. You can also use a custom canvas size to meet your platform’s screen width.

With UXPin’s Design Systems, you can create a cross-platform component library and share it across your organization to keep teams aligned and UIs consistent. Use descriptions to include documentation for each platform and set permissions to prevent unauthorized changes to your design system.

Design better cross-platform user experiences with the world’s most state-of-the-art UX design tool. Sign up for a free trial to explore all of UXPin’s advanced features.

The post Cross-Platform Experience – An In-Depth Guide for Product Designers appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

Website scannability is essential for creating a positive, user-friendly experience. Users want to find content that solves their problem and return to their lives. Facilitating that by designing for scannability creates trust, increasing the likelihood that visitors will return or convert.

This article describes the various scanning patterns users adopt for different tasks and best practices to increase your website’s scannability.

Build high-fidelity prototypes that deliver accurate results during usability testing. Learn what your end-users value most and prioritize web content to increase scannability. Sign up for a free trial to discover advanced prototyping with UXPin.

Build advanced prototypes

Design better products with States, Variables, Auto Layout and more.

Try UXPin

What is Website Scannability?

Website scannability describes how easily users can find content by scanning a web page. UX designers use subheadings, white space, bulleted lists, and visual hierarchy to help users find what they need faster.

For example, we use a table of contents and subheadings to make this article more scannable. Our blog generally attracts people interested in product design, so we use eye-catching CTAs to try our design tool for free.

Why is scannability important for web design?

Users are spoilt for choice on the Internet. If your website doesn’t solve their problem, they’ll find one that does! Often you might have the answer users need, but a poor user experience and cluttered user interfaces force them to find a better alternative.

Designers must optimize web design for a user’s attention rather than beautiful look and feel. People want to scan web pages to find what they need and exit. 

Nielsen Norman Group research found that “79 percent of our test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word.”

In another NN Group study, “Users often leave Web pages in 10–20 seconds, but pages with a clear value proposition can hold people’s attention for much longer. To gain several minutes of user attention, you must clearly communicate your value proposition within 10 seconds.”

Your website must not only provide users with the features and content they need but present it in a way that it’s quick to digest and take action if necessary. If you don’t deliver this user experience, a competitor will!

Scanning Patterns–How Users Scan Web Pages

The NN Group’s famous 2009 Eyetracking Web Usability study identified several scanning patterns people use to scan web pages.

• F-pattern
• Spotted pattern
• Layer-cake pattern
• Commitment pattern
• Zigzag pattern
• Exhaustive review

F-Pattern

The F-pattern is the most common scanning pattern, especially for articles or pages with lots of text. Users scan the first few paragraphs from left to right (or opposite for right-to-left languages) and then the beginning of each line as they scroll down the page, occasionally reading a heading or sentence/paragraph of interest–creating an F shape.

To grab these “f-pattern” users, including a summary or table of contents at the top of the page will grab their attention and entice them to read further, increasing the likelihood of action (purchase, lead, etc.).

Spotted pattern

Users adopt a spotted pattern when searching for something specific–for example, a word, heading, address, or date. Different content types and formats can also influence spotted pattern scanning, like bulleted lists, styling (bold, italics), prominent CTAs, typography, etc.

The NN Group eye-tracking study asked users to find information about an individual’s education on Wikipedia. The eye-tracking software found that users scanned around the page searching for relevant keywords, eventually focusing on the word “studies,” where they found the answer.

Layer-cake pattern

The layer-cake pattern describes how users scan a page’s headings and subheadings to find a specific body of text. For example, if someone were looking for information about layer-cake patterns on this page, their eyes would jump from heading to heading, locate this subheading and read the content below.

Commitment pattern

The commitment pattern describes users who read every word on a page rather than scanning. They usually trust the source, are highly interested in the topic, or need detailed instructions (recipes, directions, documentation, etc.).

Zigzag pattern

Users digest two-column layouts using a zigzag pattern. Many websites use these designs to describe their services or how a product works. Designers typically place text in one column and an accompanying image in the next in two styles:

• Alternating layout: images and text alternate from left to right for each row
• Aligned layout: images and text appear in one column (either left or right)

An NN Group study found that “an alternating list layout caused users to stumble.” Conversely, “users scanned efficiently on pages where text and imagery were vertically aligned.”

While the alternating list might keep things interesting, it’s probably not a good option for complex topics or if you’re creating content for users with cognitive disabilities.

Exhaustive review

An exhaustive review describes users who repeatedly scan the same page or content, looking for something–for example, scanning up and down a product’s documentation repeatedly, unable to find an answer to your problem.

But this pattern has some nuances. The exhaustive review may indicate heightened interest. Users interested in something will fixate on it over and over–like an outfit on Pinterest or a dream destination on Instagram.

Users also adopt an exhaustive review of landing pages or high-cost products to decide if the item will solve their problem adequately. They may read parts of the page, returning to specific texts to ensure they make the right decision.

How to Make Websites and Pages Scannable

Visual hierarchy

UX designers use visual hierarchy to attract attention to important content through:

• Size: using larger text, images, buttons, etc., to differentiate from similar UI elements
• Gestalt principles: how UI elements appear related through proximity, similarity, symmetry, etc.
• Color: using a specific color or contrast only for important content immediately attracts attention

For example, our pricing page highlights UXPin Merge’s bestselling plan for companies using a color hierarchy.

Limit choice

Pages with too many options take longer to scan and digest. If you’re trying to get users to take a specific action, limiting their choices will help them focus and decide.

Negative space

Negative space (whitespace) creates separation to make pages more scannable, but designers can also use it to attract attention. We use ample whitespace around our homepage feature boxes, headings, and text, making the content easier to read and digest.

Google’s homepage uses a more extreme negative space design to draw attention to most users’ primary reasons for visiting the page, search!

Headings and subheadings

Headings (h2 elements) create an anchor for a specific topic–in this case, How to Make Websites and Pages Scannable–while subheadings represent sub-topics or provide context, i.e., Headings and subheadings. Users can scan pages easier and only read content relevant to their needs.

Pairing these headings with a table of contents at the top of the page enables users to locate content faster.

Short paragraphs over blocks of text

Blocks of text (walls of text) are difficult to read on screens. Search engine optimization (SEO) experts Brain Dean from Backlinko and Neil Patel advocate using short paragraphs (usually one or two sentences) to optimize for readability and scannability.

Notice how we use short sentences and paragraphs in this blog post. We also create space between paragraphs, headings, and other content to make text, making the page more scannable while increasing text legibility.

Bulleted lists

If you’re making more than two points, using a bulleted list is easier to scan and digest than a paragraph. For example, under the subheading “Visual hierarchy” above, we used a bulleted list for size, Gestalt principles, and color. If we had to write this as a paragraph, we’d have to increase the word count, making it more difficult to scan and read.

Typography

Designers often use different typography for headings and body text. This differentiation creates visual anchors for users to scan a page much faster. Font weights, sizing, and color are also effective.

Prominent Call-To-Action (CTAs)

Users often visit web pages to complete a specific task, like contacting a business, completing an application, or buying a product. Prominent CTAs draw attention, so users save time searching for specific information and get persuaded to complete the task.

Design Better User Experiences With UXPin

Prototyping and testing are the core of user experience design. Designers learn from testing designs with their target audience, iterating until they find a solution that meets their needs.

Unfortunately, most image-based design tools don’t offer prototyping features that allow accurate testing. Designers must rely on external platforms or UX engineers to build prototypes–increasing time and costs!

UXPin’s advanced design tool enables UX teams to build advanced interactive prototypes that look and feel like the final product–allowing designers to identify UI pain points and opportunities during testing.

Increase your design team’s prototyping speed and capabilities with the world’s most advanced design tool. Sign up for a free trial to discover interactive design with UXPin.

The post Website Design for Scannability – 8 UI Tips and Proven Reading Patterns appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

One of the simplest ways website owners can improve user experience is by implementing videos onto their site. Why spend hours revising instructional copy or guides when a video can condense it in a few minutes? Using videos wisely can be a great way to put users first and boost your site’s UX. 

You’re about to read a guest post by Sam Jagger from Website Builder Expert about the tips on optimizing a video for better user experience.

Videos may seem like an unlikely target for optimization, but you’d be surprised at the complexity they carry under the hood. Are they in the right file format? The right size? Do they slow the site down? Are they too distracting? Are you correctly sharing them for the best SEO results? 

I’ve collated a quick rundown of the best optimization techniques for video to improve website UX, so you can be a video whizz and create a smoother experience for your customers than ever before.

Want to see what others think of your site with a video content? Create a prototype of your site with a video in it. UXPin is a prototyping software that will make adding a real video that can be played to the prototype quick and easy. Sign up for a free trial now.

Build advanced prototypes

Design better products with States, Variables, Auto Layout and more.

Try UXPin

The Fundamentals of Video Optimization

Creating videos for your site can be great fun! Who hasn’t wanted to take a seat in the director’s chair and be an auteur for a day? But there are some important technical details that you must see to.

You don’t want to go through the effort (and money) of creating content only to find the video is unusable on your site. And you don’t want to add a video if it risks ruining your site’s UX instead of improving it! 

Speed is key

Videos can be pretty intense on a website’s memory. Slow loading is the bane of all computer users, with Google’s research showing that the chance of a bounce increased by 32% when a page load time went from one to three seconds, and by 90% when the page load time went from one to five seconds. 

The smaller the file size, the less your CPU struggles and the faster your site is for your audience.

On the flip side, you also want your video to look good. You may get a smaller file size but if your resolution is too low then your customers won’t even be able to see what’s on your video. 

An 8K video will probably run your website to a standstill trying to play, while a 144p video won’t be that intensive but it will have that “potato quality” that you should avoid if you want good UX. We recommend a nice solid 1080p video, but you could even go all the way down to 480p and still have quality video.

If you find you just need the best-looking video with the fastest bitrate at 60 FPS, possibly think about upgrading your hosting provider. Providers such as IONOS can offer up to 64GB RAM and 800GB of storage if you’re willing to pay, which is more than enough to even get the most data-heavy videos working like a charm.

The right format

A lot of what was mentioned above comes down to what video format you use. There are many ways to host a video, from embedding a YouTube video to exporting it into a unique format. Let’s go over a few options:

Online Services: Sites like YouTube and Vimeo often use MP4 and are the easiest way to host videos on your site – they won’t slow down your site since they are being hosted on other platforms anyway. 

During the designing process, you should be able to embed a line of code from your video so it appears seamlessly on your site. Additionally, having a presence on YouTube is great for getting your site noticed by others (but we’ll cover more of this in our dedicated SEO section!)

A downside to this is that you are dependent on these services for the upkeep of your video.  If any of them have to go down for maintenance you won’t be able to remedy it. YouTube can be particularly problematic when it comes to copyrighted material, as well as airing ads before videos. 

Ads can really harm your site’s UX, so make sure you have your videos set to “Private”, though that will mean you’ll be unable to collect views and spread your video around YouTube. Vimeo also has an upload limit, so if you plan to use it multiple times you may need to pay a subscription, which begins at $6.75 per month.

WEBM: Using HTML5 is the most popular and safe way of uploading a video to your site, as you have complete control over its design, though it may take some trial and error to get it to the exact size and shape you need for your site.

Luckily, you can insert a video into your UXPin prototype, allowing you to change and alter to your heart’s content without it affecting the live site.

MPEG and MOV: While these formats have their merits, we wouldn’t recommend them if you’re looking to optimize your site. They have great quality for video and are the recommended formats for filmmakers, but they will definitely take a toll on your site’s overall speed. If you are planning to have a load of slick animations and transitions on your page, we recommend going with an embedded YouTube MP4 or HTML5.

Users should get control

An important part of having video on your site is allowing your visitors to control it. Let them pause the video, change the resolution, and increase or decrease the volume. Not doing so will most likely leave your visitors confused and frustrated, which is the last thing you want.

Video SEO Tips For UX

Now that we know how to optimize your videos so they actually work on your site, now comes the fun part! Optimizing your videos for SEO covers how you can use videos on your site to really enhance the UX. Videos can be effective weapons in getting users to your site, but you must learn how to wield them. 

Use YouTube and Google Search Bars

Creating topical, fresh, and relevant videos – and making them easy to find – is a big step to better UX. As we mentioned before, uploading your video to YouTube or Vimeo and then embedding it means you can then market your site through those social platforms. YouTube alone has 2.6 billion active users so it’s definitely worth your time to try and grow on the platform.

The first thing that will get your video seen and shared is the title. Simply try searching for similar content to your video on YouTube and Google and see what comes up. Trends are what keep YouTube as a platform running, so don’t be afraid to take inspiration from the competition. 

Additionally, take note of what appears in the recommended searches, as these will be based on past user activity. They could be the key to giving you the idea you need going forward.

Tools like Google Trends are key for all those trying to better their site SEO. Giving your users what they want and when they want it will lead to a great user experience, so keep this in mind when you edit your UX.

Don’t replace all the text with video

While videos can be great tools for UX, don’t go crazy. There is such a thing as “too-optimized”. Google needs text in order to place your site on the Google search results page, so don’t go getting rid of all your text boxes in place of video, because you may see your traffic start to go down.

Make sure it works for mobile users

Mobile users account for 59.72% of all internet usage, so it’s vital you make sure your videos are optimized for mobile use. This means making sure all your videos work great on mobile and have reactive aspect ratios, with a high enough resolution, so they can be seen clearly on mobile devices. 

Optimize Videos for Good UX

As you can see, optimizing videos for your website’s UX isn’t just a walk in the park. There can be a lot to check, but ultimately the results will be worth it. Remember to always keep the visitor in mind. Videos are certainly a flashy way to get someone’s attention, but if it starts to affect the visitor’s journey on your site, maybe think about dialing them back just a little. 

However, if you follow the points we’ve covered in this article, you should find that optimizing videos can go a long way to improving your site UX, and increasing your number of happy customers along the way!

Create Prototypes of Websites with UXPin

UXPin is an advanced prototyping tool that makes building and sharing prototypes with rich content, such as videos, playlists, sortable data tables fun and easy. The videos that you add are not only visual representations of what you’re going to put on your site, the people who interact with your prototype can actually play it! Try UXPin for free.

The post How to Optimize Videos To Improve Website UX appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

Google has always recommended responsive web design (RWD), especially after rolling out a big update on 4/21/15 which ranked mobile-friendly sites higher.

It doesn’t specify in the update that you must use responsive design though, just that a site be accessible on mobile, with good UX and performance.

With that in mind, let’s examine the pros and cons of adaptive vs. responsive design with regards to performance and UX design.

One of the biggest debates that we’ve seen since the rise of mobile is whether you should choose to develop a responsive, adaptive web design (AWD) or standalone mobile site (with its own m. URL). For the purposes of this discussion, we’ll leave out standalone mobile sites as it appears to be the least favorite solution for designers and businesses since they must be created separately (which accrues more upfront cost and maintenance costs).

Looking for a prototyping tool for web design? UXPin is the app for you. You can use the various breakpoints. If you want to play around with them, start a free trial.

Build advanced prototypes

Design better products with States, Variables, Auto Layout and more.

Try UXPin

What’s the Difference between Adaptive and Responsive Design?

So first up, what are the key differences between responsive and adaptive design?

Responsive vs. Adaptive Website Design

Put simply, responsive is fluid and adapts to the size of the screen no matter what the target xdevice. Responsive uses CSS media queries to change styles based on the target device such as display type, width, height, etc., and only one of these is necessary for the responsive website to adapt to different screen sizes.

Adaptive design, on the other hand, uses static layouts based on breakpoints that don’t respond once they’re initially loaded.

Adaptive works to detect the screen size and load the appropriate layout for it – generally you would design an adaptive site for six common screen widths:

• 320
• 480
• 760
• 960
• 1200
• 1600.

On the surface, it appears that adaptive requires more work as you have to design layouts for a minimum of six widths. However, responsiveness can be more complex as improper use of media queries (or indeed not using them at all) can make for display and performance issues.

The latter in particular has created a lot of discussion over the past few years as it’s been the case that many sites deliver the full desktop model which, even if it’s not loading on the mobile device, slows sites down considerably. To get around this, you can use media queries–but there will be a few tradeoffs since a responsive site is never going to be as quick as a dedicated mobile site.

Why Use Adaptive Web Design?

Adaptive is useful for retrofitting an existing site in order to make it more suitable for mobile phones. This allows you to take control of the design and web development for specific, multiple viewports. The number of viewports that you choose to design for is entirely up to you, your company, and your overall budget. It does, however, afford you a certain amount of control (for example over content and layout) that you won’t necessarily have using responsive design.

Generally, you would begin by designing for a low-resolution viewport and work your way up to ensure that the UI design doesn’t become constrained by the content, and that usability isn’t lost.

As mentioned previously, it’s standard to design for six resolutions. However, you can make a more informed decision by looking at your web analytics for the most commonly used devices and then designing for those viewports.

If you want to design an adaptive website from scratch, that’s OK too. Start again by designing for the lowest resolution and work your way up. You can then use media queries to expand the layout for higher resolution viewports. However, if you do UI design for different screen sizes, you may find that this causes the layout to ‘jump’ when resizing a window to a smaller or bigger device screen.

It can be extra work designing and developing a site with adaptive for multiple viewports so it’s usually used for retrofitting.

Examples of Adaptive Web Design

When looking for examples of sites using adaptive web design, you’ll likely find them on the websites of large companies and corporations. Since many of these organizations have been around since before the advent of mobile, it is far easier (and cheaper) for them to retrofit their enormous websites with adaptive web designs rather than more complex responsive re-design options. 

Here, we look at how some of the world’s biggest companies have employed adaptive web design solutions in giving their websites the contemporary design elements they need to meet Google’s mobile-friendly rankings factors.

Amazon

The eCommerce titan Amazon quickly found that its website needed an adaptive design overhaul. This would help them ensure that its global customer base would enjoy faster page load speeds (a critical Google rankings factor) and a consistent UX, no matter which device they were accessing the site from. 

Amazon’s adaptive web design approach aligns the full-site experience with its branded apps, allowing users to switch between the two and enjoy the same functionality and workflow arrangement, irrespective of the aesthetic web and app design differences. Powered by adaptive design templates that ensure this consistency across all devices, users get to browse, shop, and checkout without having to learn how to navigate differently. 

This approach allows Amazon to ensure that page load speeds are optimized and that users are just as likely to access the eCommerce platform from a desktop website as a mobile. With elements like the all-important search bar remaining the focal point of the design layout across all formats, despite various other features optimized for mobile, Amazon’s adaptive design approach is a successful example of how to keep things efficient and consistent.

USA Today

When America’s favorite daily newspaper chose to revamp its website to ensure that its online news source remained prominent, USA Today took a tech-savvy adaptive web design approach – one that responsive web design simply couldn’t replicate. 

The newspaper adopted a technology that allows its website and applications to identify the device, OS, and screen size being used, and adapts the content accordingly. This innovative approach allowed developers to create an experience that isn’t limited to the six common screen widths, ensuring that users received a unique experience.

IHG

When considering adaptive web design approaches, hospitality companies wouldn’t usually be top of mind.

But once IHG realized that its customers were looking for a faster web and app booking experience that allowed them to make reservations faster, irrespective of whether they were doing it on mobile or their PCs, the hotel chain responded accordingly.

IHG employed an adaptive web design approach that took advantage of accessible GPS data and location services – features you find on nearly all mobile devices. This allowed the group to develop an adaptive website interface that encourages on-the-go booking with local hotels, allowing users to review reservations and access available offers quickly and with ease.

Why Use Responsive Web Design?

The majority of new sites now use responsive, which has been made easier for less experienced designers and developers, thanks to the availability of themes accessible through CMS systems such as WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal.

Responsive design doesn’t offer as much control as adaptive, but takes much less work to both build and maintain. Responsive layouts are also fluid, and whilst adaptive can and do use percentages to give a more fluid feel when scaling, these can again cause a jump when a window is resized. For example, in the image below, which shows a fluid layout, the designer is using percentage widths so that the view will be adjusted for each user.

Photo credit: Smashing Magazine

With responsive, you will be designing with all layouts in mind and this, of course, can confuse the process and make it quite complex. This means that you should focus on creating a viewport for mid-resolution and you can then use media queries to adjust for low and high resolutions later on.

So in essence, it’s usually better to use responsive for new projects, and adaptive for retrofits.

Check out how to make your design responsive: 8 Steps to Responsive Design.

Examples of Responsive Web Design

Responsive web design is the go-to for newer sites that demand a more fluid experience among users or for Google to pay more attention to. It is also the design approach of choice for many of the leading technology and design firms around the world, owing to the ease with which developers and designers can create and maintain responsive sites. 

Next, we look at some of the best examples of responsive web design-based sites and how they affect their sites’ performance and UX. All while delivering on the demands of big brands operating within the eCommerce and messaging space.

Slack

One of the biggest reasons for Slack’s surging popularity among businesses is the ease with which users can adopt and use the messaging app. Boasting a straightforward interface coupled with a raft of integration and optimization features, Slack’s simplicity and ‘human’ feel are reflected in its impressive responsive web design.

The app’s famous adaptability between desktop and mobile is highlighted by how seamlessly the display transitions and rearranges its layout. By using a Flexbox and CSS Grid Layout, Slack’s responsive interface is a step above. 

All this means that Slack’s website needs to match the app, allowing users to experience the same simplicity and ease of use on their mobile devices as they do on their work laptops and PCs.

Shopify

Shopify has taken a different route to its responsive web design. It took the website and app in different directions and chose device-choice optimization over a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach.

Designers at Shopify felt that no matter the screen size, their design elements should match the screen the user was using. So, in order to ensure that all users enjoy a consistent UX (even if that meant changing things up), Shopify designed their site to respond according to the device’s screen size. It also delivered different CTAs and illustrations in different sizes and at different locations on the page. 

While PCs and tablets display Shopify CTAs and images to the right of the form, on mobile, you’ll find those elements below it and in the center. This responsive design approach allows users to enjoy a more divergent UX while still being able to experience optimized interaction capabilities, no matter the size of their screen.

Dribbble

Anyone who uses creative design hub Dribbble will likely agree that the self-promotion and social networking platform has aced its responsive web design. The platform’s website represents an excellent example of a flexible space that enhances the browsing experience by actively responding to the device on which it is being viewed. 

Dribbble’s website employs a flexible grid layout that works in concert with the screen dimensions. It actively responds to the user’s interactions by adapting the layout into grid columns that shift according to the device. This means that designers can adjust the items displayed on the grid to optimize for visibility and item count. As a result, users can enjoy a balanced experience that doesn’t appear cluttered or disorganized. 

Users accessing the site on a 13” laptop or PC screen will see a 4×3 grid configuration, while those using a smaller screen will be able to see the same portfolio presented in a single-column format.

Adaptive vs. Responsive? Consider Site Speed, Content, and UX

As discussed earlier, responsive sites can suffer when it comes to site speed (if they aren’t properly implemented).

Responsive also requires more in the way of coding in order to ensure that the site fits each and every screen that accesses it. However, the extra work is debatable (compared to adaptive design) since adaptive design requires that you develop and maintain separate HTML and CSS code for each layout. Modifying adaptive sites is also more complex since it’s likely you’ll have to ensure that everything is still working sitewide (such as SEO, content, and links) when it’s time for implementation.

You should, of course, also consider the user experience. Because responsive essentially shuffles the content around in order to fluidly fit the device window, you will need to pay particular attention to the visual hierarchy of the design as it shifts around.

According to Nielsen Norman Group, “Responsive design often turns into solving a puzzle — how to reorganize elements on larger pages to fit skinnier, longer pages or vice versa. However, ensuring that elements fit within a page is not enough. For a responsive design to be successful, the design must also be usable at all screen resolutions and sizes.”

So there are no shortcuts to whichever technique you decide to use – both require the work that comes with creating a site that’s essentially one-size-fits-all. Responsive has a slight edge, as you won’t, going forward, need to spend an awful lot of time in site maintenance.

Which is Better: Responsive or Adaptive Design?

When it comes down to it, the key is to consider your audience first and foremost no matter what design technique you adopt. Once you know exactly who they are and what types of devices they tend to access the site on, then it’s easier to design with them in mind when it comes to different layouts, content, and so on.

When it comes down to it, the key is to consider your audience first and foremost no matter what design technique you adopt. Once you know exactly who they are and what types of devices they tend to access the site on, then it’s easier to design with them in mind when it comes to different layouts, content, and so on.

It will also depend largely on whether you have an existing site to work with or you’re starting from scratch. Responsive design has become the go-to design technique and it’s thought that around 1/8 websites now use responsive (while there’s little to no data on how many use adaptive). Adoption rates for responsive are growing quickly too and have almost reached the same level as standalone mobile sites.

With all of that in mind, it’s safe to say that responsive is usually the preferred technique if only because of the ongoing work that adaptive design demands.

However, if a client or company has the budget, then adaptive might be a better choice, according to a test carried out by Catchpoint. They built two web pages in WordPress, one using the standard WP TwentyFourteen responsive theme and the other using a plugin called Wiziapp.

The plugin serves a mobile theme to users depending on the device they’re accessing the web pages from and also offers advanced configuration options so that you can further streamline the process.

The results in load time speak for themselves:

It should be pointed out that no optimization was carried out at all, but this does show that the responsive site is downloading everything that is required for the desktop computer. So right out of the box, the theme doesn’t offer a very good performance at all.

Again, this can be overcome using media queries, but the above serves as a good example of why responsive UX design – whilst being a popular choice – is not always the best for smartphones. Until something better comes along though, it’s difficult to know what we can do about it other than learn how to properly code and implement a great responsive site.

So the conclusion?

Responsive design will remain popular, but that might be because we have not yet found a decent solution to the heavy maintenance that adaptive demands. Adaptive web design hasn’t died out though, despite the web’s apparent love of responsive, so it’s possible – in theory at least – that we’ll see some improvements emerge yet that will blow responsive web design out of the water.

Responsive vs Adaptive Website Design – Common Mistakes 

Design is an iterative process, requiring some degree of trial and error before figuring out what works – and what doesn’t. But that doesn’t mean that mastering the responsive vs adaptive web design field requires designers to endure painful failures before nailing it. 

We can still count on avoiding some of the most common mistakes that tend to slow the process.

Too much focus on desktop versions

Mobile design is fast hauling in its desktop-based counterpart, delivering an optimized UX on smaller devices that oftentimes beats out design choices seen on PCs and laptops. But most things online began as desktop-based sites, with mobile versions only coming along later. This has left many platforms, tools, and sites leaning towards desktop origins, and mobile seen as a supplementary need.

Designers need to start adapting to a mobile-first work approach, moving away from their desktop-focused mentality and focusing on the potential that design has to work for mobile and how much more of an impact this can have on the evolution of design thinking. 

This means transitioning towards an approach rooted in designing for multiple screen sizes, uncoupled from the conventional six that have been touted as the most likely to require a dedicated design, and targeting percentages rather than fixed ratios. This doesn’t mean discounting desktop design altogether, but rather balancing it with mobile.

Not considering gestures 

With most of today’s mobile devices boasting touch functionality, it is only a matter of time before users can navigate a website without making contact with any hardware or surfaces. Gestures are an often overlooked responsive web design element with massive potential. 

From using gestures to zoom, swipe, scroll, and return to delivering instructions and executing complex commands, responsive design is fertile ground for taking these movements to the next level. Yet designers continue to bypass this potentially revolutionary aspect of design. Primarily, due to the complexity of developing a gesture architecture that allows for consistent navigation across all devices. 

One possible solution would be to ensure that a website follows a uniform structure that replicates on other devices and provides ease of use and accuracy.

Buttons are too small 

Anybody who has ever dealt with an app that has buttons too small to hit accurately will agree that this is one of the most frustrating design issues on mobile. While desktop versions enjoy the benefit of accurate mouse cursors, thumbs and fingers have a habit of missing their mark on smaller screens and mobile devices. 

Sometimes responsive design looking to optimize layouts and available space will tend to bunch clickable elements together or shrink them down as they scale with smaller screens. This can cause frustration among users and even cause a site’s accuracy, navigability, and UX to degrade.  

Developers must pay attention to how buttons will be affected by their responsive design approach, considering that not all thumbs, fingers and eyes were created equal.

Putting design over functionality 

While a website that looks good on both desktop and mobile is important, a website should, first and foremost, work. Users who access an attractive site will naturally assume that an equivalent amount of effort has been invested in its utility. So, one can imagine the anger at a website that doesn’t work as well as it looks. Anger that can lead to significant drops in traffic and reputation.

The same goes for the level of functionality between desktop and mobile. A desktop site that sets a benchmark for good design and operability only to fail miserably on the mobile front would be better off not even bothering with mobile at all. 

Go beyond developer perceptions by testing with different niches and using effective prototyping to ensure that the design matches its functionality.

Having a separate URL for mobile 

Making use of separate URLs between desktop and mobile website versions is a design killer, wasting precious time and damaging your search rankings. Aside from frustrating users by ferrying them back and forth between each version, using multiple URLs goes against SEO best practices and are often unnecessary.

In some cases, however, using multiple URLs can allow developers to create lightweight mobile versions of websites that perform better on mobile devices, though only in instances where the desktop version is very anti-mobile.

Not accounting for future maintenance and development costs

Development costs money, and oftentimes, design decisions are taken based on short-term financial considerations without thinking about what the future holds.

While adaptive web design requires higher upfront investment owing to the labor-intensive nature of its development, AWD maintenance costs generally remain stable down the line. 

Responsive web design, on the other hand, can lead to unexpected cost implications. However, the rewards stemming from an improved UX may offset those financial risks.

Design UI in UXPin

If you’d like to start mocking up your own adaptive user interface design, you can do so with UXPin. The collaborative platform comes with pre-set and custom breakpoints. Once you’re done, activate Spec Mode to automate your design handoff to developers.

Use UXPin to build prototypes for mobiles, desktops, and everything in between. Try various interactive prototyping features and make your design easy to understand for stakeholders and engineers. Start a free trial.

The post Responsive Design vs. Adaptive Design: What’s the Best Choice for Designers? appeared first on Studio by UXPin.