10 Usability Principles to Improve UI Design

Jakob Nielsen’s Heuristics

Visibility of system status

Explore your smartphone. Right after the screen lights up, it informs you about its battery and if you have a Wi-Fi connection, any received messages, missed calls and much more. Imagine how insecure you would feel if this information were missing. The system communicates its status and assists users in making better, more informed decisions by using signs, icons and indicators. 

Match between the system and the real world

Users may make assumptions about how a system will work based on their previous experiences with similar systems. You can help them overcome their initial discomfort by using language they are familiar with. 

User control and freedom

Digital spaces, like physical spaces, require quick ‘emergency exits’. Users frequently select system functions by accident and need a clearly marked way to leave the unwanted position without going through an extended dialogue. So, support the undo and redo functions. 

Consistency and standards

Consistency is the key. A ‘submit’ button on one page should look the same across the site on any page. If you show information in a particular format on one page, it should look the same on all pages. 

Error prevention

A careful design that prevents a problem from occurring in the first place is even better than good error messages. Remove conditions that may cause errors in your design, or look for them and give your users a confirmation option so that they can make an informed decision before tapping or selecting anything. 

Recognition rather than recall

Allow your users to recognize information in the user interface rather than expecting them to remember or recall it. Simply put, don’t make your users work any harder than necessary! Make your navigation as clear, detailed and straightforward as possible. Offer them hints, remind them when something time-sensitive needs to be done and notify them when a screen or a process has been changed. 

Flexibility and efficiency of use

Simply put, your system must be designed so that both experienced and inexperienced users can use it. Think of designing a system where a new user can find a way to perform a task without knowing any shortcuts. However, also design your system in such a way that an experienced user can use shortcuts to complete the action quickly and efficiently. 

Aesthetic and minimalistic design

Make a fantastic first impression! Users notice aesthetics or how visually appealing your system is in the first 50 milliseconds of landing on a page, which is ten times faster than it takes them to read it. This means that you should make sure that you establish and reinforce your system’s brand identity and credibility. 

Help users recognize, diagnose and recover from errors

A good error message should be polite, easy to understand, precise, constructive, clearly visible, and take as little time as possible to fix the problem as well as educate your users. 

Help and documentation

Even though it is preferable that your system can be used without documentation. It is important that any such information should be: easy to find, focused on the user’s task, include the actual steps they should take, and not be too large.