UX Design Tips: UX Designers and Software Architects Should Know

Rationale

UX Design is one of the most important thing in Software Development today most especially in web applications. And these are the reasons why:

• We want visitors to keep coming back and continue browsing in our site.
• Reduce complexities so that visitors can easily navigate and get the information they wanted.
• Visitors not satisfied with your website are likely to immediately close yours and look for other sites.
• And most of all, we want to increase traffic to maximize sales, income, and attract more advertisers through our websites.

"A happy customer will always come back for more."

Tips on How to Achieve These:

1. Know your Audience
   
   
   Knowing your target audience is very important in designing web site or web application.  This dictates the tone, language, and theme of the web.  Web templates such business, travel, science, educations, religion, technology, e-commerce, and etc. are evidences that this is relevant.
   
   
   Google analysis tells us that mobile users are far more engaging compared to desktops users. It also tells us what browsers are usually use to browse our website.
   
   
   These information drive us where to focus in our design.
   
   
2. Search Engine / SEO
   
   
   Search engine will tell us how people came into your web site. What is search key being used. 88% shows that web sites were reached through search engine and 11% came from direct access or links.
   
   
   Search Engine Optimization will be the key factor here.
   
   
3. Know What Causes Visitors to leave
   
   Most Reasons why Visitors Leave your Website
   

   Rank	Reason	Description
   1	WORLD WIDE WAIT Syndrome (Speed Does Matter)	10 seconds delay of web display can cause visitor to leave your page. Amazon.com can lost $1.6 Billion in sales in 1 second delay.
   2	Annoying Advertisements	Auto Popup covering the contents, auto play of ads sound and videos, flashy ads, and ads prioritization over contents.
   3	Interstitial	Ads are in between web contents that confuses the reader. Downloads that are indistinguishable.
   4	Web Site Layout Problem	Layout Problem may come in form of unfamiliar theme, poor navigation, color contrast that is not pleasant to the eye, big images, too much scrolling requirements.
   5	Long Pagination	Loading long pages at once will only cause your web to load slow. The reader will not read these pages at once. Let the reader navigate.
   6	Immediate Registration Demands	Common tactics like: Like us at Facebook before browsing, register with us before browsing…
   7	Poor Contents	These are common. When visitors don’t get anything from your site. They Leave.
   8	Too much Contents	Too much to read is time consuming. Simplifying the content would help the readers save time in reading your site.

   
   
4. Design
   
   Simple Design
   
   
   Simple design means using  the appropriate design principle to tell what is your website is all about. The use of images should help  explain your web site and not just to fill empty spaces.  Too much animation and blinking will just distract visitors.
   
   
   Consistent Design
   
   
   Consistency can be achieve in so many ways such the look and feel or the theme should not change as they navigate through out the pages. Another area of consistency is the way the web site respond when a menu was click. This should be consistent throughout the site.
   
   
   Standard Design
   
   
   Using site layout that most of the web designers used and users are already familiar with is a big advantage. Example: Standard icons, menu navigations. We can not avoid to introduce new look and feel but drifting away from standard confuse users.
   
   
5. Navigation
   
   
   10% of Web Site failures is due to navigation issues. Navigations should summarize the information what visitors expect to see. It should display where they are within the site and be able to move back and forward easily.
   
   Navigation Structure
   

   Type of Navigation	Description
   Task Based	This navigation is based on verbs such as Invest, Plan, Investigate and Register.  These are usually engaging menus like ATM menu.
   Category Based	These are noun driven navigation such as Movies, Songs, Books and  Shoes. eCommerce websites often use this type of navigation
   Mix Navigation	Depending on how large the structure of web site, these two can be mixed.



6. Menus


Most Common Navigation Menus

Location	When to Use
Top Navigation	This is usually used in Task Based navigation.
Left Column Navigation	Use this in long list of navigation such as alphabetically ordered list of choices or selections such as music.
Right Column Navigation	This could be interchange with Left Column Navigation. Using both left and right column navigation is not recommended for it may narrow the center section where the content is displayed.


Tips on Top Navigation


The 7 ±2 Rule


The number of objects an average human can hold in working memory is 7 ± 2. 

-The Miller's Law

It is advisable that the maximum items a menu can contain is 9.  If it exceeds 9, group it.


Site Maps
Site Maps are usually the last place search when people are looking for information. Please provide one.

Search

Search panel should be visible all the time in your page. This will give easy access to information in your web site. The standard location is at the upper right corner of the page.


Links

Link colors, link style (underline) and visited link colors will help users to distinguished sites they already visited.


7. Responsive Design
   
   
   The growth of Mobiles Users is a major technology shift nowadays. Different browsers is another issue. Web Responsive Design is very important in UX Architecture.  This is a long discussion but it is very important to know. There are very popular API’s available for download: BootStrap and WebFlow. BootStrap is free and WebFlow is not. These API’s are ready to use and provide excellent outcome.
   
   
8. The Home Page
   
   
   Energize Your Home Page

   Tip	Description
   Snap Shot Summary	The home page says it all. The summary should be in a form of menus, about page, mission and vision. Even it is only the summary, it is a deciding factor whether people will continue using it or not. Build the impression, be direct, concise, and simple but not boring.
   Fresh Content	If your engage in product, services, sales or you want to show what you can offer; it is a good idea to change the content of the home page frequently to keep it fresh. Carousel or slides can do.
   5 Seconds Test	Well! this seems like a very tough job to do. There are many factors why web loads slow: Internet Service Provider, Server, Bandwidth Sharing, and overall poor UX Design  . Web optimization can solve this problem. We have a lot of front end architectural patterns out there.

   
   
9. Using Media like Images, Audios, and Videos
   
   
   UX Design should not focus more on the looks but rather than on the content. Pure text are also boring so balancing text and images will bring life to your website. Great UI design relies on heavy graphics but it leads also to speed problems. Media such as images, audios, and videos should help explain the web contents and not to annoy visitors.
   
   Helpful Tips

   Media	Don'ts
   Images/ Flash	Using huge images as a background is not recommended especially in mobile mode. Don’t Animate the background image for it serve only as a distraction. Animations that are scattered all over the places is a poor UX.
   Audio	Don’t Auto Play. It serves as disturbance when people are not aware of it.
   Video	Don’t auto play.  It serves as disturbance when people are not aware of it.

   
   
10. Advertisement
    
    
    Advertisement is good source of income. Handling those advertisement properly will bring more income. Advertisements should be place in a proper corner. The right side column of the screen is a large area to place it. Top, right and bottom will do as long as they don't mixed with the contents.
    
    Helpful Tips

    Dont's	Why?
    Popups	Popping advertisement won't help your case. Especially if it covers big portion of the screen.
    Auto Plays	Auto play is not delighting. You are driving your visitors away.
    Interstitials	Mixing advertisement with web contents will only confuse visitors.
    Fake Links	Deceiving users for fake links and downloads is a form of internet crime.

    
    
11. Heat Map
    
    
    Heat Map is very helpful tracking tool to detect the clicks of users. It helps us to detect where people/visitors are interested in. Knowing this will shift our focus in where visitors are interested in.