With the digital universe continuously blasting into new territory, user experience is everything. In today’s tech-forward age, the best app or webpage will be doomed to obscurity if it isn’t straightforward and user-friendly. If you’re looking to fine-tune your UX and keep up with emerging trends, these tips will help you do so most effectively.
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Don’t overlook the data
Raw data in and of itself is not necessarily valuable for web designers. However, with the knowledgeable application of digital analytics tools, you can gain insights into user behaviors that might lead you to better UX choices.
For example, you can program analytics to identify which features users spend a lot of time on and which ones patrons ignore or rarely touch. With this knowledge, you know which functions may need a redesign or removal from the site entirely.
Simplify your UI
There’s nothing more attractive to most users than a clean, simple interface. If you’re unsure how to simplify your applications, look to the apps that have become popular in recent years due to their intuitive design or seek ideas from a UX UI consultant.
Take Discord, for example. The interface for this video, voice, and text chat app is easy to navigate, regardless of previous experience using the application. Ultimately, Discord keeps its UI straightforward, eliminating unnecessary menus, amplifying popular destinations, and creating intuitive front page functions.
To ensure your UI is easy to follow, look at your app through the eyes of a complete beginner—can you tell what you should click on first? Or do you need to navigate cluttered menus, pop-ups, and dropdowns?
Design with forgiveness in mind
Speaking of intuitive placement, you can upgrade your UX by including a general “undo” button that functions as a return action for accidental clicks. Your users will probably misclick on something at one point or another, and if it’s difficult to reverse their mistake, they could get frustrated and possibly exit your app.
If an “undo” doesn’t make sense in your app’s context, consider other safeguards, like confirmation choices before continuation, especially during critical functions.
Go back to basics
A basic understanding of color psychology can go a long way in UX efficiency. Though it may seem like looking at a color wheel is too rudimentary to fuel your UI design choices, finding complementary themes may be more complicated than you initially thought.
Maybe a calm, centering blue would complement a high-energy yellow in a pleasing contrast— though you may not have considered the combination without a color wheel analysis.
Another way to play with basic color theory is to try different online palette generators. Several tools are available to randomize colors or selectively generate more colors for a given palette, depending on the parameters you set.
Try something new
When in doubt, try something new to upgrade your UX. Some 2022 UX trend ideas include introducing a dark mode, incorporating gaming elements into the design (such as during loading times), and featuring user data visualization as a part of the UX (take Spotify Wrapped, for example).
Before you go
Though understanding the basic rules of any field is critical to staying on-trend, the true advantage of knowing industry principles is learning to break them in your own unique way. Your UX design should bring this idea to life by following the rules and trends to an extent and shirking guidelines when they no longer effectively serve your users.
