A sitemap in UX is more than just a visual representation of a website’s structure; it’s a foundational tool that helps designers and developers at enterprise-level organizations plan and optimize the user journey from the ground up.

Sitemaps play a critical role in ensuring that complex sites or applications are intuitive, efficient, and aligned with both user and business goals. Enterprise sites often have vast amounts of content, detailed workflows, and layered access levels, making a clear, well-structured sitemap essential to creating a seamless experience for diverse user groups.

UXPin’s interactive capabilities let you create dynamic sitemaps that go beyond static visuals. Simulate real navigation paths and interactions, allowing stakeholders to experience the user flow firsthand, making it easier to identify areas for improvement. Try UXPin for free.

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What is a Sitemap in UX?

A sitemap in UX is a visual representation of a website’s structure, outlining how different pages connect and relate to each other. It acts as a blueprint for the content hierarchy, showing how users will navigate through the site to reach various sections. UX sitemaps help designers plan the user flow and organize content in a logical, user-friendly way.

Think of it as the “architect’s blueprint” for a website or app: just as a blueprint maps out each room and pathway in a building, a sitemap shows how different sections and pages connect, guiding users to key information with ease.

A sitemap is often represented as a flowchart or tree diagram, giving stakeholders a big-picture view of the website’s structure, hierarchy, and main navigation paths.

UX Sitemaps vs Information Architecture

While sitemaps and information architecture both play critical roles in organizing content for a website or app, they each serve distinct purposes in the design process.

UX Sitemap

A sitemap visually maps out the website’s page structure, showing an overview of all primary pages and how they interlink. Sitemaps are primarily focused on the layout and structure:

• What pages exist on the site (home, about, products, services, etc.)
• How these pages are connected to one another
• The hierarchical levels of content (main sections, sub-sections, etc.)

This makes the sitemap a tool for planning the navigation structure and content flow, helping ensure that all essential sections are accounted for and logically organized.

Information Architecture delves deeper into organizing, categorizing, and labeling content in a way that aligns with how users think and interact with information, often based on user research and behavioral insights.

While a sitemap shows what pages exist, Information Architecture, IA for short, defines how content is grouped, labeled, and arranged to support intuitive navigation. It involves:

• Understanding user needs and mental models: IA is shaped by research into how users expect to find information, ensuring that the structure aligns with their natural thought processes.
• Contextual relationships and categorization: IA considers the context and relationships between content items, grouping them in a way that makes sense to users and reflects their goals and expectations.
• Labeling and taxonomy: Clear, consistent labeling ensures that users can easily recognize where they are and where to find what they need.

For example, in an e-commerce site, the sitemap might simply outline main categories like “Men’s Clothing” or “Women’s Shoes” and subpages under each. IA would go further to define whether “Women’s Shoes” should be organized by type (sneakers, heels, boots) or occasion (casual, work, formal), based on user research showing how shoppers think about and search for products.

How They Work Together

In short, while sitemaps give a high-level structure, information architecture provides the details that make that structure usable and logical. In complex, enterprise-level websites or applications, IA ensures that content is accessible and intuitive for diverse audiences, with a navigation structure that aligns with how users expect to find information.

Together, sitemaps and IA lay the groundwork for a seamless user experience, balancing the organization of content with the needs and mental models of real users.

What Should be Included in a Sitemap?

A comprehensive sitemap is essential for organizing large, complex websites or applications. It provides a clear structure that helps users navigate efficiently, ensuring they find the information they need quickly and without frustration.

Here’s a breakdown of what should be included in an effective sitemap:

1. Main Pages

• These are the top-level sections of the website, such as the homepage, main product or service categories, user dashboards, and primary landing pages.
• Main pages act as starting points for users, providing a broad overview and often linking to more specific areas. For instance, a homepage might direct users to products, services, support, and contact information, making it essential for creating a coherent first impression.
• In enterprise contexts, main pages often reflect core business goals, such as leading with solutions for B2B audiences or providing quick access to employee resources in an internal portal.

2. Subpages and Nested Content

• These pages allow users to drill down into more specific information within each main section. For instance, a “Product” main page may include subpages for each product, detailed features, pricing information, FAQs, or customer testimonials.
• Nested content may also include role- or department-specific resources in intranet sites, where different levels of detail are required to support the unique needs of various employee groups.
• By including these subpages in the sitemap, you ensure the organization is clear, allowing users to understand the depth of content available and where to find it.

3. User Flows

• User flows are predefined paths that users might take to achieve specific goals. Including these flows in the sitemap highlights how users will move through the site, from start to finish, for key tasks.
• For example, in a customer-facing e-commerce site, a user flow might outline the steps from the homepage to the checkout page. For an enterprise HR platform, a flow might show how an employee navigates from the dashboard to the benefits page.
• Mapping out these flows in the sitemap helps designers and developers ensure that users encounter a logical progression, making it easier for them to complete their objectives without unnecessary steps or confusion.

4. Hierarchy and Relationships

• The sitemap should clearly represent the hierarchical relationships between main pages, subpages, and nested content, effectively grouping related pages together.
• This hierarchy provides an intuitive structure where users can quickly grasp how different sections connect. For instance, within a “Products” category, users should immediately see links to specific product pages, and within each product page, links to supporting resources like guides or FAQs.
• Visualizing these relationships also helps to avoid redundant pages or overlapping content, creating a streamlined, efficient structure that guides users seamlessly.

5. Permissions and Access Levels

• In enterprise environments, access to specific content is often role-based. For instance, certain sections may only be visible to managers or specific departments, such as HR or finance.
• The sitemap should indicate which content is accessible to different user groups or permission levels to prevent accidental access to sensitive information and to help users know exactly where they can navigate within their permissions.
• Including access levels in the sitemap is essential for ensuring that users only see content relevant to their roles, creating a more efficient experience and maintaining security in enterprise settings.

By incorporating these elements into the sitemap, your team can create a well-organized, logical site structure that addresses the unique needs of your users. A strong sitemap not only enhances usability but also ensures that the site structure aligns with business goals, providing a clear path for each type of user—whether they’re customers, employees, or stakeholders.

Why is site mapping important in navigation design?

Site mapping is crucial for defining user paths and ensuring users can easily find information. By mapping the structure, designers ensure that the most important pages are accessible and logically connected.

This process helps identify any redundancies or gaps in the content flow, leading to a more cohesive navigation experience. A well-thought-out sitemap improves usability, supports user goals, and reduces the chances of users feeling lost within the site.

What are the two types of sitemaps?

Designers should be aware of two main types of sitemaps, each serving distinct purposes:

1. HTML Sitemaps: linked pages that help locate sections.
2. XML Sitemaps: back-end sitemaps created for visibility in search results.

HTML Sitemaps

These are on-site, user-visible pages that list links to primary sections of the site. They’re a fallback tool for users who may struggle to navigate through traditional menus and are also helpful for accessibility.

XML Sitemaps

XML sitemaps are for search engines rather than users. Submitted to search engines like Google, they ensure all pages, particularly newer or lesser-linked ones, are found and indexed. For large enterprise sites, XML sitemaps are crucial for improving SEO and keeping the site visible in search results.

How to Create an Effective Sitemap?

Creating an effective sitemap helps you structure a website in a way that’s easy for users to navigate. Here’s a beginner-friendly guide, complete with tools and tips:

1. Define Objectives

• What to Do: Start by understanding the main purpose of the site. Ask yourself, “What are the site’s goals?” For example, is it to sell products, share information, or provide tools for employees? Also, identify the target audience (e.g., customers, employees, or partners) and the primary tasks they’ll need to perform.
• Why It Matters: This step sets the foundation for your sitemap by helping you focus on content that directly supports user needs and business goals.
• Tools: You can use a simple document, spreadsheet, or a tool like Notion to list objectives and brainstorm tasks.

2. Gather Content

• What to Do: Make a list of all existing content, like pages, articles, or tools, and decide what to keep, update, or remove. Identify gaps in content that you may need to add to fulfill user needs.
• Why It Matters: Knowing what content is available and what’s needed helps you plan a comprehensive sitemap.
• Tools: Airtable or a spreadsheet is useful for organizing content and adding notes about each item’s status.

3. Organize Hierarchically

• What to Do: Group similar content together under main categories. Think about creating sections like “Products,” “About Us,” “Services,” etc., with subcategories beneath them. For example, under “Products,” you might add subcategories like “New Arrivals” or “Top Sellers.”
• Why It Matters: A clear hierarchy makes it easy for users to understand the layout and find what they’re looking for.
• Tools: Use a visual tool like Miro, Lucidchart, or UXPin to create a flowchart showing the site’s structure with main categories and subcategories.

4. Map User Flows

• What to Do: Sketch out pathways users would take to complete specific tasks. For example, if a customer wants to buy a product, they’d start at the homepage, go to “Products,” select a product category, and proceed to checkout.
• Why It Matters: Mapping user flows ensures the sitemap supports easy access to important sections, aligning with the actual ways users will navigate.
• Tools: Whimsical or UXPin are great for mapping out user flows visually, making it easy to share and gather feedback.

5. Test and Revise

• What to Do: Share the sitemap with team members or a small group of real users and gather feedback on whether the structure makes sense. Are they able to find content easily? Does the flow feel natural?
• Why It Matters: Testing validates your design, allowing you to make adjustments based on real feedback before the site goes live.
• Tools: Use UXPin for creating interactive sitemaps or Maze for gathering feedback on navigation flow.

What are Sitemap Best Practices?

Creating an effective sitemap requires thoughtful planning and a user-centered approach to ensure easy navigation, scalability, and optimal search engine visibility.

1. Keep Critical Pages Accessible – Ensure important pages are reachable within 2-3 clicks to streamline navigation and improve user experience.
2. Use Descriptive, Clear Labels – Label sections clearly, avoiding jargon, so users can easily understand and navigate the site.
3. Organize for Scalability – Structure the sitemap to allow easy additions as the site grows, ensuring a flexible, future-proof design.
4. Highlight SEO-Relevant Pages – Emphasize high-value content in the sitemap to improve search engine indexing and visibility.
5. Regularly Update the Sitemap – Keep the sitemap current to reflect changes in content and structure, maintaining efficient navigation.
6. Limit Depth and Minimize Navigation Effort – Keep essential pages within 2-3 clicks to reduce navigation complexity and avoid user frustration.
7. Align with SEO Objectives – Structure the sitemap around SEO priorities to boost search visibility and align with user intent.

Unlock the power of seamless sitemap and information architecture design with a free UXPin trial! UXPin provides designers and developers with intuitive, powerful tools to create structured, interactive sitemaps that mirror the real user experience. Try UXPin for free.

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There are many important UX design principles organizations must consider when building products. These UX principles complement the design thinking process, placing the user at the center of all decision-making.

This article looks at 16 UX design principles organizations can use to build better products. 

UXPin’s advanced prototyping and testing features allow design teams to minimize usability issues to create better user experiences. Sign up for a 14-day free trial today!

Focus on the User

While it might seem obvious to focus on the user, many designers still make decisions based on personal preference or bias rather than fully understanding their users.

Designers also get sidetracked with design and technical innovation that doesn’t always solve users’ problems or add significant value to the product.

The best design decisions come from understanding your users and fulfilling their needs. Why?—because you’re designing products for people!

Many experienced UX professionals believe focusing on users rather than humans creates a disconnect where designers forget they’re dealing with human beings.

Reframing the term to human-centered design helps UX teams shift from solving design and technical issues to helping people.

Building a framework based on design thinking principles will always keep the user front and center:

1. Empathy—know your humans (end users)
2. Define the problem
3. Generate ideas
4. Prototype
5. Test and iterate

You can read more about human-centered design here.

Be Consistent

Design consistency is a vital ingredient to providing a good user experience. An inconsistent user experience means people will have trouble using parts of a product or might have to relearn how to use it with every feature release or update!

A designer’s goal is to build a product that fulfills users’ needs without worrying about inconsistencies, ultimately building trust and loyal customers.

Creating a design system can help develop consistency, so designers, product teams, and developers always use the same elements, typography, colors, components, assets, etc.

Don’t have a design system? Check out our 7-step process for building a design system from scratch.

Easy to Digest

Create content and experiences that users can easily digest. Designers must recognize that people will always look for the easiest route. If you don’t provide something easy to use in this highly competitive tech landscape, someone else will!

If your product requires onboarding, ensure your documentation is easy to understand with step-by-step instructions.

The UXPin documentation is a perfect example. Firstly, we categorize instructions, so it’s easy to find what you’re looking for. Next, we organize content with subheadings, step-by-step instructions, and explainer videos, making the information easy to follow and digest.

Don’t Make Users Think

Information architect and user experience professional Steve Krug states in his book, Don’t Make Me Think, “As a user, I should never have to devote a millisecond of thought to whether things are clickable or not.”

UX designers must follow design standards for product, app, and web design. For example, don’t hide navigation where users wouldn’t expect to find it. Make sure buttons, CTAs, and links are obvious to find and take users to their intended destination.

Creativity and innovation come from solving problems competitors haven’t thought of, not creating experiences where users have to relearn fundamental standards and processes.

How human psychology and cognitive load relate to UX design is something every designer must learn. Optimizing product design to minimize cognitive load will foster better user experiences and trust in the brand.

Understand Visual Grammar

First defined by the Bauhaus school in the early 1900s, the building blocks of all design comprise of three core elements: points, lines, and planes.

The best UX designers understand how to use these three elements to minimize design complexity, making products easier to navigate thus creating better user experiences.

If you feel your designs are getting too complex and complicated, return to the basics and figure out how to create the same user experience using simple design elements.

Identify the Problem First

Identifying problems comes from thorough UX research and testing—not designer intuition. 

UX researchers should keep asking why a problem exists to understand the root cause and find the right solution. Testing and iterating prototypes play a crucial role in helping to identify and solve problems.

If you don’t have proper prototyping and testing tools, you might get inaccurate results or even create problems that don’t exist!

UXPin is the world’s most advanced prototyping and testing tool. Designers can use a design system to build high-fidelity prototypes for testing quickly. Share prototypes straight from UXPin to identify problems through testing, make changes, and iterate! 

Sign up for a 14-day free trial to discover how UXPin can identify and solve user problems better than any other design tool.

Simple Language Is Best

Language should be as simple as possible, and designers should avoid using jargon or insider terms that people won’t understand. Alienating people through complicated language is a quick way to lose customers!

Readability can have a significant impact on cognitive load, even for highly educated users. It goes back to point four, Don’t Make Users Think. 

According to the widely-used writing aid Grammarly, you should use eighth-grade language (13 years old in the United States) for written content.

Have Empathy for Your Audience

Empathy is the heart of human-centered design—taking designers beyond understanding to connect with users on a deeper level. Designers use empathy so they can relate with users, their struggles, and their environment.

An empathy map is a UX research tool that helps designers empathize by identifying what users:

• See
• Hear
• Think
• Feel

Teams use empathy maps during initial research and usability testing to identify different feelings and emotions. Understanding users on a deeper level can help identify problems they might not express or verbalize.

Provide Feedback

Use microinteractions and animations to communicate with your users to provide feedback and context for their actions.

For example, if your product needs time to process an action, use a throbber or loading icon to let the users know to wait. Ensure error messages help users correct the problem, like highlighting missed required form inputs.

Use consistent feedback that aligns with brand messaging to ensure you always provide a positive user experience.

Don’t Forget the Business Value

Designers must satisfy two entities, users and the brand. While focusing on users is vital to building a successful product, designers must also ensure designs create business value.

Business value and human-centered design often overlap. For example, a smoother, faster eCommerce checkout experience will improve the user experience (user-centered) while increasing conversion rates (business value).

Whenever you’re trying to solve user problems, always look for opportunities to create business value simultaneously.

Ewelina Łuszczek from the Polish-based agency, HERODOT, summarizes a designer’s obligation to business value in one concise sentence, “A great UX designer will manage to link user goals with business goals so that both users and the company reap benefits.”

Here are four great examples from a 2014 INFRAGISTICS study, The Business Value of User Experience:

Bank of America

• Designer action: user-center redesign of the registration process
• Result: registration up 45%

Anthropologie (clothing company) 

• Designer action: UX redesign of the checkout process
• Result: sales up 24%

GFK (consulting firm)

• Designer action: buy button redesign
• Result: sales up $500 million

United Airlines 

• Designer action: user research
• Result: online ticketing up 200%

You can read INFRAGISTICS’ complete 12-page study for more information about creating business value through UX design here.

User testing

Like point six, Identify the Problem First, user testing is crucial for designers to understand real user issues rather than making educated guesses.

Usability testing provides UX teams with valuable feedback and user insights, including:

• Validating design concepts to solve users’ problems
• Exposing usability problems to fix
• Discovering opportunities for improvement
• Learn more about the users
• Identifying business value opportunities

Teams should test from conceptualization to final design handoff—constantly looking for problems to solve and validating their solutions.

Learn more about testing in this article: What is Usability Testing and How to Run It.

Visual Hierarchy

Visual hierarchy helps organize a product or screen layout so users can identify important elements and quickly scan to find what they need.

Designers create visual hierarchy by using distinct variations in color, contrast, scale, and grouping.

An excellent example of visual hierarchy is how writers use header tags to structure and organize content in an article—as we’ve done with this blog post!

Check out this informative article from the Nielsen Norman Group, Visual Hierarchy in UX: Definition.

Accessibility

Accessibility is an important design consideration to make products inclusive for users with impairments or disabilities. Accessibility should also consider who Google calls the “Next Billion Users” (people using technology for the first time).

Some key accessibility considerations include:

• Ensuring screen readers can interpret content and instructions
• Ensuring colors and contrast don’t impair readability
• Using a combination of icons and text so that all users understand links and navigation
• Using legible fonts and text sizes

UX designers often forget about these considerations because design tools don’t provide accessibility checker functionality. 

At UXPin, “We believe no one should feel excluded from digital experiences because of their visual disabilities.” So, we built Accessibility Features into our design editor.

Sign up for a 14-day free trial and start building more inclusive products with UXPin!

Give the User Control

Where possible, always make it easy for users to change their minds or edit the information they submit. For example, providing a back button on every screen in a checkout flow gives the user control to fix errors or make changes.

Never force people to commit to a decision they’ve made, and always ensure your product does not mislead users—whether it’s intentional or not.

Many organizations intentionally make it difficult for users to cancel a subscription by hiding the option in settings or making them contact support (where they usually try to offer incentives to continue the subscription).

Limiting the controls users have to change their minds or edit information creates distrust in the brand and pushes customers to find other solutions.

Design Handoff

Although it’s an internal process, a poor design handoff can adversely affect users by causing unnecessary delays or introducing technical errors. 

UX teams, product designers, and developers must work together to develop processes and protocols, so design handoffs run smoothly with minimal errors.

UXPin Merge can help bridge the gap between design and development. Firstly, Merge allows designers to sync components with a repository (via Git or Storybook integrations) so design teams can build fully functioning high-fidelity prototypes—improving testing and reducing usability issues.

Secondly, UXPin’s Spec Mode facilitates an easy handoff process where developers can get detailed information about designs.

• Inspect properties: grab CSS for elements and components, including sizing, grids, colors, and typography
• Distance measurement: hover over elements for the distance between elements and the canvas edge
• Style guide: a summary of the product’s design system with the option to download assets when applicable

Explore the power of UXPin Merge and how to connect your preferred technology, either through our Git integration for React or Storybook for other popular front-end libraries.

Reevaluate and Revise

One of the beautiful things about UX design is that it’s constantly evolving, allowing organizations to improve products and user experiences continuously.

Once you launch a new product or release, the work of analyzing data and reviewing designs begins. 

• How does the product perform when thousands or millions of people use it? 
• Do users use the product as intended?
• Do users take shortcuts that you can use to improve their experience?
• What do heat maps tell you about user behavior?
• Where do users drop off on signups or checkouts?

When analyzing a product’s performance, teams should always look for ways to improve the user experience while exploring avenues to increase business value.

Summary

Hopefully, you can use these 16 UX design principles to improve workflows and create better product experiences for your users. This is by no means an exhaustive list, so we recommend you always look for ways to improve your processes.

UXPin is a collaborative design tool that can help foster healthy UX design principles for your company. It’s the only design tool that successfully bridges the gap between designers, product teams, and developers to improve every aspect of the UX design process.

Get started with a 14-day free trial to explore a new world of design with UXPin!

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A good user interface is critical to a good user experience. If the interface doesn’t allow people to easily use the website or app, they won’t use the product or they’ll overwhelm tech support with costs, ballooning costs.

UI has real, tangible business impacts. Paying attention to it isn’t window dressing, it’s crucial to a business’s success. 

Many of these principles boil down to “make life easy for the user”. 

These 14 principles of user interface design will improve your users’ usability, so make them enjoy your product while using it. Apply this principles in practice. Use UXPin for advanced prototyping that makes you create beautiful and fully interactive prototypes in minutes. Try UXPin for free.

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What are UI Design Principles?

UI Design Principles are foundational guidelines aimed at creating user interfaces that provide a positive, intuitive, and effective user experience. These principles guide designers in making decisions that improve usability, accessibility, and overall satisfaction in digital interfaces.

You should apply UI design principles at every stage of the design process to create intuitive, user-centered interfaces that meet user needs. Here’s how and when to apply these principles:

1. During Early Planning and Conceptualization

• Clarity and Accessibility: From the beginning, consider the clarity of the information architecture and how accessible your design will be for all users. This helps establish a strong foundation for an interface that is easy to navigate and understand.
• Consistency: Establish design guidelines early on (like style guides or design systems) to maintain consistency across colors, typography, and interactions. This will ensure visual and functional coherence throughout the design process.

2. Wireframing and Prototyping

• Hierarchy and Feedback: During wireframing, focus on visual hierarchy to make sure the most important elements are prominent. Include feedback mechanisms, such as placeholders for error messages or loading indicators, to provide users with a responsive experience.
• Flexibility and Efficiency: For prototypes, consider ways to streamline interactions. This could mean including keyboard shortcuts, visible cues, or easy navigation options for users at different experience levels. Testing different iterations with these principles helps refine and improve the layout.

3. User Testing and Iteration

• Applying Accessibility Principles: Accessibility testing ensures that the UI is usable for everyone, including those with disabilities. This is crucial for refining areas like color contrast, navigation paths, and text legibility.
• Feedback: Gather user feedback on the interface’s responsiveness. Users should feel confident that the system reacts to their inputs in expected ways, reducing confusion and improving satisfaction.

4. Final Design and Development Handoff

• Consistency and Clarity: Before handing off to development, verify that every element adheres to design principles. Ensure consistent spacing, typography, color, and interactions. Clear documentation also helps developers maintain these principles during coding.
• Usability and Flexibility: Ensure that interactions are user-friendly and adaptable to various devices, screen sizes, or input methods. This includes providing alternative paths for novice and experienced users, enhancing overall usability.

5. Post-Launch Evaluation and Iteration

• Even after launch, it’s important to revisit UI design principles. Use data and feedback to understand how users interact with the interface in real scenarios and make adjustments to improve clarity, accessibility, and usability over time.

Why UI Design Principles Matter?

UI design principles are essential because they provide a structured approach to creating interfaces that are usable, accessible, and enjoyable for users. When these principles are applied, they guide the user seamlessly through a digital experience, helping them achieve their goals without frustration.

1. Improved Usability: Design principles like clarity, consistency, and feedback help users understand how to navigate an interface intuitively. When users can recognize icons, understand labels, and feel confident in their actions, they’re more likely to complete tasks efficiently. For instance, feedback mechanisms, like button states and error messages, let users know their actions are being processed, reducing uncertainty and enhancing satisfaction.
2. Enhanced Accessibility: Accessibility principles ensure that digital products are usable by people of all abilities, providing features such as text alternatives for images, high-contrast text, and keyboard navigation. Without these considerations, people with disabilities may face barriers that prevent them from fully accessing or interacting with the product.
3. Consistency and Reliability: Consistency in visual style and interactions, such as using the same color scheme and button behaviors across pages, builds user trust. Users learn patterns and expectations, making navigation and action-taking more natural. If consistency is lacking, users may become confused, leading to mistakes and frustration.
4. Supports Faster Learning and Engagement: Good UI design helps users learn an interface quickly, especially if it incorporates recognizable patterns. For example, using a clear visual hierarchy and logical groupings of information supports user engagement and retention. Without these principles, users may experience a steep learning curve and are likely to disengage if the interface feels confusing or overwhelming.

Principle #1: Place Users at the Center

As always, the first UI design principle is to focus on people (or, the “user” as we all say). A good user interface is easy and natural to use, avoids confusing the user, and does what the user needs. 

You need to understand who your users are as well as understand what they want to do. Are they experts? The best way to do this is to talk to them.

Creating and structuring interviews is beyond the scope of this post, but interview your audience, learn who they are, and develop UI designs for them. Learning about human-centered design will help you achieve the right mindset for best interfaces and focus on people first, design second.

Principle #2: Strive for Clarity

The purpose of the user interface is to allow the user to interact with the website or application (or, more generally in broader design, any product). Avoid anything that confuses people or doesn’t help them interact. 

Principle #3: Minimize Actions and Steps Per Screen

Streamline tasks and actions so they can be done in as few steps as possible. Each screen should have one primary focus. For example, the purpose of this blog is for you to read and, hopefully, enjoy it and learn from it. It’s not to share it on Twitter or email a colleague (though please do if you find it valuable enough to share). 

Keep the primary action front and center and move secondary actions to deeper on a page or give them lighter visual weight and the right typography.  

Principle #4: Aim for Simplicity

Classics exist for a reason; they’re timeless and never go out of style, though they do benefit from modern touches. Think of the little black cocktail dress or the tuxedo; each are fashion style staples. They’re simple, elegant, and add a touch of class to the wearer.  

A user interface should be simple and elegant. Read more about simplicity here: Design Simplicity.

Principle #5: Be Consistent 

Consistency creates familiarity, and familiar interfaces are naturally more usable. How frustrating would it be to get behind the wheel of a car and the brake is on the right and the accelerator on the left? Or filling in a Web form with the “Submit” button in red and the “Delete” button in green. 

Consistent design reduces friction for the user. A consistent design is predictable. Predictable design means it’s easy to understand how to use functions without instruction. Not only should UI design be consistent internally, but externally as well.

General conventions across websites and apps that work identically or nearly so make your site easy to navigate and use. Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines provide a fantastic example of consistency across apps. The guidelines detail how functions should work across apps and on all Apple devices so that a user of any Apple product can pick up any other and easily use it. 

This also means don’t invent or reinvent common patterns. Many patterns already exist for design problems (patterns also reduce cognitive load, principle 9 below, because users already know how they work). Putting the search bar at the bottom of the page wouldn’t be revolutionary to design, it would just be confusing. 

A design system is a great way to ensure consistency in UI design. 

Principle #6: Make Your User Interface Design Invisible

Don’t draw attention to your user interface. A great UI allows people to use the product without friction, not spend time figuring out how to interact with the interface. 

Principle #7: Provide Useful Feedback

Feedback can be visual, audio (the ding of a new message alert), or sense of touch (useful in gaming or the “buzz” alert for a new email or phone call when your phone is set to “silent”). Every action should have feedback to indicate that the action was successful or not. 

Feedback helps to answer questions in four areas: 

1. Location: You are here.
2. Status: What’s going on? Is it still going on?
3. Future status: What’s next?
4. Outcomes & Results: Hey, what happened?

Hovering over a navigation item that then changes color indicates an item is clickable. Buttons should look like buttons. Feedback lets the user know if they’re doing the right thing (or the wrong thing).  

Principle #8: Reduce Cognitive Load

Many of these UI design principles serve to reduce cognitive load for users. Basically, don’t make users think (also a useful UX design principle as well). There are a few common ways to reduce cognitive load and make using your website or app easier:

• Chunk actions and information – Most people can handle seven-plus-or-minus two chunks of information when processing it. For instance, breaking up telephone numbers in the usual 3-3-4 way rather than a 10 digit sequence results in fewer errors. 
• Apply 3-click rule – it shouldn’t take more than three clicks to find any information.
• Minimize recall in favor of recognition – common images and icons in context help users identify functionality, think of the trash can and the bell icons (commonly used for notifications) and other commonly used icons that trigger pre-existing memory. This also means don’t take a commonly used icon that most people understand and then use it to represent something else, you’ll just confuse people. 

Principle #9: Make It Accessible

UI designs need to take into account accessibility issues. Online, this often means ensuring the visibly impaired can access and use the product. Don’t forget about color blindness as well.

Roughly 1 in 12 males (that’s about 8%) and 1 in 200 females (about .5%) are color blind to some degree. Use color to accentuate and emphasize, but don’t rely entirely on color to communicate information. 

Principle #10: Include User Feedback in the UI

Don’t design in a vacuum. Test and validate design choices by gathering user feedback. Watch users attempt to use your design (without coaching them). Are they confused? Can they achieve the desired outcome easily?

Do this in both the design process and continually evaluate after launch (heat maps are one way to track how effective a UI is; another one is A/B testing). 

Principle #11: Flexibility

Create a UI that will work and look great across multiple platforms. Of course, it may have to be tweaked depending on the form factor of a device and its operating system (Android and iOS, for example), but it should be flexible enough to work on anything. 

Principle #12: Visual Structure

Keep a consistent visual structure to create familiarity and relieve user anxiety by making them feel at home. A few elements to focus on include a visual hierarchy with the most important things made obvious, color scheme, consistent navigation, re-use elements, and create a visual order using grids.

Principle #12: Dialogs Should Result in Closure

Actions should have a beginning, middle, and end (with feedback at each step). For example, when making an online purchase we move from browsing and product selection to the checkout and then finally confirmed that the purchase is completed. 

Principle #13: Provide a Clear Next Step

Include a clear next step a user can take after an interaction. That could be as simple as a “back to top” click at the end of a long blog post or a pointer to more information. Help the user achieve their goals with the next step. 

One final thought to remember when designing a user interface, you will never successfully appeal to everyone. You can do your best to appeal to most. You can also do your best to personalize based on personas and well-defined users.

Even so, you’ll never appease everyone. However, keeping all fourteen of these UI design principles in mind as you decide what to include and exclude in your user interface design will help you keep the user front and center in your decision-making.

Creating a user interface is simple in UXPin. Work inside of a browser, get real-time feedback and collaborate with your entire team all online. You’ll create, test, and iterate your UI designs faster than ever with UXPin. Discover the power of UXPin for UI design. Try UXPin for free.

The post The Basic Principles of User Interface Design appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

The concepts of desirability, feasibility, and viability are foundational to the design process, especially in the context of human-centered design and innovation. They help ensure that designs are not only user-centered but also practical and sustainable.

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What are Desirability, Viability, and Feasibility in Design?

Desirability, viability, and feasibility is a design thinking methodology to test ideas, concepts, and hypotheses to determine if you have a unique value proposition (aka unique selling point) and whether it’s worth pursuing.

Without checking all three boxes, you increase the risks, costs, and potential for failure. You could say desirability, viability, and feasibility are a risk analysis methodology for ideas – a toolkit to find that innovation sweet spot.

By applying this methodology, you can pinpoint the weak points in your design concepts, do further research or scrap the idea and move on.

Where Does this Methodology Originate?

IDEO, a global design company, conceptualized the desirability, viability, and feasibility design thinking methodology in the early 2000s as a way to test ideas.

IDEO recognized that the best ideas succeed when they fulfill this trifecta. Conversely, “great ideas” often fail when they miss one or more of these three criteria.

Let’s look through these three lenses to understand how this trifecta fits together.

Desirability

The first box designers must check is desirability. If your product idea has no market value and people don’t want or need it, it won’t sell. 

Researching desirability will also tell you whether your product is a want or a need. For example:

• You need to get to work which you can do by walking, taking public transport, driving, carpooling, etc.
• You want a car to get to work because it offers convenience, and maybe more luxury than public transport.

A need is something your customers cannot live without, while a want is often a more desirable option to fulfilling that need. Both check the box for desirability, but a product that fulfills someone’s need is far more valuable than something someone wants or is “nice to have.”

To find a desirable product, you must research your customers and identify pain points (wants and needs) that you can fulfill. 

• Does your product solve someone’s problem?
• Do your competitors offer a solution? 
• Do you have a better idea? 
• What makes your idea unique, and why would someone choose yours over the competition?
• How will your product make end-users feel?
• Is your product so desirable that people will tell their friends?
• Will your product be something that once people try it, they won’t want to live without it?

When researching desirability, the intention is to stress-test your idea to find the gaps that need fixing. The more gaps you fill, the stronger your product and the better it will stand up against rigorous stakeholder questioning and customer satisfaction.

Example of desirability

Here’s an example of desirability in design:

Imagine you’re designing a fitness app aimed at helping people track their workouts and achieve fitness goals. To focus on desirability, you’d start by understanding users’ motivations, needs, and emotional triggers. Through user research and interviews, you might discover that your target users (let’s say busy professionals) want more than just tracking workouts—they want an app that encourages them to stay motivated and makes fitness feel rewarding.

Desirability in Action:

To address this, you design a feature that gamifies the fitness experience, such as:

• Earning badges for milestones (e.g., completing a 30-day workout streak).
• A personalized progress tracker that visually shows how close they are to their fitness goals.
• Social sharing options where users can share achievements with friends or workout communities for added motivation.
• Push notifications that are encouraging, like “You’re halfway to your weekly goal, keep it up!” rather than guilt-inducing or annoying.

These features make the app desirable because they align with users’ deeper needs—such as staying motivated, feeling accomplished, and sharing success with others. They’re not just functional, but also emotionally engaging, making users more likely to use the app regularly and enjoy the experience.

By focusing on desirability, you’re ensuring that the app does more than just meet basic needs; it makes the experience delightful and motivating, ultimately increasing user retention and satisfaction.

Viability

Viability tells you whether or not your product makes business sense. Even if you have the most desirable product in the world, if it’s too expensive or isn’t profitable, then it’s not a good business model.

A truly viable product idea makes business sense in the short-term and into the future. The quicker and longer it can deliver a positive return on investment, the higher the viability of your design idea.

A fantastic example of viability is how Coca-Cola designed a beverage formula in 1886 that’s still one of the most consumed drinks in the world today! That initial investment created massive wealth for its inventors and still delivers incredible returns for shareholders more than 135 years later.

Viability is also about societal and environmental impact—the ethical aspect of your design. Will your digital product provide a positive gain for society? In 2021, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen released documents showing that the social media giant’s internal research showed that Instagram creates anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts among teenage girls.

Instagram might deliver high financial returns in the short term, but is this harm to teenagers sustainable long-term? And what will governments do to regulate Facebook and Instagram?

Facebook is a massive company with the resources to overcome societal controversy, fines, and lawsuits. But, a smaller company or startup will mostly like fold when confronted with similar pressures. 

So, when we look at viability, it must provide value for the business, customers, and society. Some questions you might want to consider include:

• What has to be true for this design to work?
• What will it cost to turn your design into a functioning product?
• Do you have the capital investment to build the new product or feature?
• What is the pricing model? And, can the business make a profit?
• How long will it take to see a positive return on investment?
• Is the product sustainable?
• How does the product impact society?

Like desirability, viability requires you to research, analyze, and stress-test ideas to ensure they’re viable and sustainable.

Example of viability

Let’s take the same fitness app example and focus on viability—how the design supports the business and remains financially sustainable.

Viability in Action

You’ve already created a desirable app with features that engage users, but now you need to ensure that the app generates revenue and aligns with long-term business goals. To address viability, you decide to implement a freemium model with monetization strategies that balance user satisfaction with business needs.

Here’s how you might approach it:

1. Free Basic Tier: The app provides essential workout tracking features for free, attracting a wide user base. This tier gives users just enough to get value from the app and start using it regularly.
2. Premium Subscription: To drive revenue, you introduce a premium subscription that unlocks additional features. These might include:
   • Advanced fitness analytics and personalized workout plans.
   • Exclusive content like video tutorials from expert trainers.
   • Early access to new features or challenges.
   • An ad-free experience.
3. In-App Purchases: Another viable revenue stream could be selling customized workout plans or nutrition guides as one-time purchases. This allows users to buy specific content without committing to a subscription, catering to different user preferences.
4. Brand Partnerships and Sponsored Content: To further support business viability, you establish partnerships with fitness brands. These brands could sponsor certain challenges within the app, or provide users with exclusive discounts on fitness gear or supplements. This brings in additional revenue without compromising the user experience.
5. Cost-Efficient Scaling: On the backend, you work with your team to ensure that the app’s infrastructure is scalable, meaning it can grow with the user base without incurring massive costs. You may use cloud services with cost-efficient pricing models or optimize the app to use fewer resources.

Why This Supports Viability:

• The premium tier generates recurring revenue, which is crucial for long-term sustainability.
• In-app purchases provide a flexible option for users, tapping into a secondary revenue stream.
• Sponsored content and partnerships offer additional income, while also aligning with the fitness interests of users (so it feels less intrusive).
• The freemium model ensures a large user base, which helps with growth and retention, making the app attractive to potential investors or partners.

By considering these factors, you’re ensuring that the app can not only survive but thrive in the market, making it viable from a business perspective while still delivering value to users.

Feasibility

Feasibility looks at your current resources to determine if you’re capable of developing the product in the foreseeable future. Designers must consider how the product will impact the business.

Some feasibility factors include:

• Technical constraints
• Financial constraints
• Product’s impact on branding, marketing, customer support, and other areas of the business
• Estimated time-to-market
• Operational capabilities

Ideally, you want to design a new product or feature within the company’s current capabilities using available resources. When you have to build infrastructure to support a new product, you increase the risks and costs.

Here are some feasibility questions you might want to consider when designing a new product or feature:

• Does the current design system have the components to develop the new product?
• How long will it take to design and develop the product?
• Do you have enough product designers, UX designers, and engineers to build and scale the new product?
• Can our technical constraints support the new design?
• Will the organization need to hire new talent?
• If you have to extend the organization’s capabilities, how can this benefit future products?
• What impact will the product have on the brand?
• Will the product’s release impact other areas of the organization, like marketing, sales, and customer support? And do these departments have the capacity for more work?

Example of feasibility

Continuing with the fitness app example, let’s explore feasibility—ensuring that the app can actually be built and maintained with the available resources, technology, and team capacity.

Feasibility in Action

You’ve designed a desirable and potentially viable app with a freemium model, premium features, and possible in-app purchases. However, before moving forward, you need to ensure it’s technically feasible to implement these features with the resources you have.

1. Assess the Development Team’s Skills: You review your team’s capabilities. Your developers are skilled in building mobile apps, but the gamification features (like badges and achievements) you’ve designed require more sophisticated backend systems for tracking user progress in real-time. To make it feasible, you might decide to:
   • Start with basic badges that are awarded based on simple rules (e.g., completing 10 workouts) and phase in more advanced features over time.
   • Use an existing third-party service that provides gamification tools, rather than building it from scratch, saving time and resources.
2. Use Readily Available Technology: Instead of developing a custom AI-based workout recommendation engine (which would be desirable but complex), you decide to use a machine learning API from a trusted provider (like AWS or Google Cloud). This allows you to implement basic personalized recommendations with much less development effort, making the feature feasible within your current tech stack.
3. Optimize for Platform Limitations: Your team needs to ensure the app works smoothly on both iOS and Android. Since developing two separate apps would be resource-intensive, you opt for a cross-platform framework like React Native. This makes it feasible to launch on both platforms using a single codebase, saving time and reducing maintenance costs.
4. Infrastructure and Scaling: The premium subscription model will involve tracking individual user accounts, payments, and access to premium content. To ensure this is feasible at launch, you might integrate with a trusted subscription management service (like Stripe or Paddle) instead of building a custom payment system from scratch. Additionally, you consider using cloud services (e.g., AWS or Google Cloud) for scalable storage and server needs, allowing you to handle user growth without needing to manage your own servers.
5. MVP (Minimum Viable Product) Approach: You realize that building all the features—badges, custom workout plans, social sharing, etc.—at once is not feasible within your current timeline and budget. So, you plan to release an MVP version of the app that includes the core workout tracking and a few simple badges. Other features, like advanced analytics or social sharing, will be introduced in later versions once the app gains traction and resources allow for further development.

Why This Supports Feasibility

• By leveraging third-party tools and APIs, you reduce the development time and complexity, making the project more manageable.
• Using React Native allows you to build for both iOS and Android with a single development team, saving significant time and cost.
• Subscription management services like Stripe make payments and user account management straightforward without the need to build complex systems in-house.
• Focusing on an MVP approach ensures you can release the app in stages, allowing the team to validate the core idea and refine the product without being overwhelmed by too many features at once.

By considering the team’s skills, available technology, and development time, this approach ensures that the fitness app can be built within the given constraints, making it feasible.

Using Desirability, Viability, and Feasibility in a Design Review

Organizations conduct a design review during the early stages of a product design to evaluate the design against specific criteria. The goal is to identify any problems with the design or prototype before developing it–which carries the costs of infrastructure, marketing, sales, customer support, and more.

Essentially, the organization wants to know the product design’s desirability, viability, and feasibility.

A UX Design Review Template

Applying the desirability, viability, and feasibility design thinking methodology will give you the insights and data to present a comprehensive and objective design review to stakeholders. 

Below is a structure or template you can use to present your design review so that it’s easy for stakeholders to read and digest.

The problem: State the problem succinctly. The design and business teams will build a shared understanding from this foundation.

The system (current state): Show how the current system works (if it’s an existing product) to help put the problem in context. Later, you can show how the system could work with your proposed experience.

The Jobs To Be Done (JBTD): A shared understanding of what motivates your customers is crucial for a design review. As Tony Ulwick defines JBTD: “a lens through which you can observe markets, customers, user needs, competitors, and customer segments differently, and by doing so, make innovation far more predictable and profitable.” This lens helps stakeholders understand how customers decide whether to “hire” or “fire” your solution.

The business objective: State the business value and ROI for solving this customer problem.

The metrics that matter: You can’t improve what you don’t measure. These metrics should enable you to quantify the business and customer value you’ll create through your new product design.

The proposed experience: Summarize the proposal in a sentence. Make it clear and understandable. The people in the room need to understand how this proposal relates to the problem you’ve previously articulated.

The implications of your proposal: How will your proposal impact other parts of the business? Maybe you don’t know. Understanding this early in the product design process is critical to achieving balance in desirability, viability, and feasibility.

Basic experience design: Present your wireframes, mockups, prototypes, or minimum viable product (MVP) so that stakeholders can visualize how a customer might find the product desirable.

Insights informing the design: What led you to choose this design? What were the insights, hypotheses, etc.? Show your depth of thought in a few bullet points.

Hypotheses about the new design: 

• What are your hypotheses about the new design? 
• How did you arrive at this hypothesis? 
• How can you align these hypotheses to the metrics you believe matter?

These should be clear and testable. By conducting tests with clear pass/fail metrics, these hypotheses should also give you a strong foundation for measuring the incremental progress you’re making.

The team’s collaborative focus: Why are you all in the room? What input do you need from stakeholders? This section of the design review template helps set a clear context and focus for the stakeholders responsible for the product’s success.

With UXPin Merge, you can use built-in component libraries to quickly assemble high-fidelity prototypes and MVPs and present these to stakeholders during the design review. This will definitely speed up your time to market, and make you release quality products faster. Discover UXPin Merge.

The post What is Desirability, Viability, and Feasibility? [+ Design Review Template] appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

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.

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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 in HCI

Interaction design in HCI, which stands for Human-Computer Interaction, is designing the interactive elements of a product, such as buttons, menus, and other interface components, to ensure they are intuitive, user-friendly, and responsive to user actions, and facilitate good communication between the user and the system.

The goal of interaction design is to create an engaging user experience that facilitates seamless interaction with the technology. It encompasses understanding user needs, behaviors, and expectations to design interfaces that are not only functional but also enjoyable to use.

By focusing on how users interact with technology, interaction design in HCI aims to enhance usability, accessibility, and overall satisfaction.

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.

What are 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 or 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 button 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

What Interaction Designers Do?

An interaction designer’s role focuses on how users interact with products, particularly digital ones like websites, apps, or software interfaces. Their job is to ensure that these interactions are intuitive, seamless, and enjoyable.

Here’s a breakdown of what interaction designers do:

1. Understand User Needs

Interactive designers spend a lot of time researching who the users are and what they need. This includes conducting user research, interviews, and analyzing data to figure out the problems they face and how the product can solve them. Understanding these needs is crucial to designing interactions that make sense for the user.

2. Create User Flows

Once interaction designers know what users need, they design user flows, which are basically maps that outline the steps a user takes to complete a task in the product. For example, in an e-commerce app, the user flow might be from adding an item to their cart, through the checkout process, to receiving a confirmation. The goal is to make these steps as easy and efficient as possible.

3. Design Interactive Elements

This is where interactive designers focus on buttons, navigation, and forms—all the interactive elements users click, tap, or swipe. They design these elements to be clear, functional, and accessible. They’re always thinking about things like: “Does this button stand out? Will the user know what happens when they click it?”

4. Prototype and Test

Interactive designers build prototypes—early models of the product—so we can test how people actually use it. This stage is all about testing assumptions. They gather feedback from users and stakeholders, see what’s working and what’s not, and refine the design based on that.

5. Collaborate with Other Teams

Interactive designers work closely with UX designers, developers, and product managers to make sure the designs are feasible and meet business goals. Developers need to know exactly how interactions should work (like what happens when you hover over a button), and I’m there to clarify and iterate as needed.

6. Ensure Consistency

A big part of their role is making sure the design is consistent across the entire product. Users should feel familiar as they move through different sections. That means sticking to the same design patterns for similar tasks and interactions.

7. Balance User and Business Needs

While their main focus is the user experience, interactive designers also need to align the design with business objectives. For example, if the goal is to increase sign-ups, they might design an interaction that nudges users towards the registration page without feeling pushy or disrupting the user journey.

8. Stay Updated

Finally, interaction designers keep up with design trends, tools, and best practices. Interaction design evolves quickly, and it’s important to stay ahead to ensure the product remains competitive and user-friendly.

In essence, They’re here to make sure the product not only looks good but works in a way that’s easy and satisfying for users. Their focus is always on improving the interaction between the user and the product.

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.

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A cheat sheet is a concise reference guide that provides quick, essential information about a particular topic or process. It’s designed to simplify complex information into easy-to-follow steps without having to sift through large amounts of content.

In the context of UX process, a cheat sheet might outline the steps in the design process It acts as a quick, structured tool to guide you through each step, ensuring that important tasks are not overlooked and that the design work remains organized and efficient.

If you’re working in a large team, use UXPin to streamline your entire UX process and improve collaboration across departments. UXPin offers an all-in-one design tool that allows designers, developers, and stakeholders to work seamlessly together. With UXPin, you can create high-fidelity prototypes with real, interactive components—no need for switching between multiple tools or handoffs that lose important details. Try UXPin for free.

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Why Should You Follow This Cheat Sheet?

The cheat sheet transforms chaos into clarity, giving your team the tools to succeed from day one. It not only helps you stay on track but also elevates your work, turning good designs into great user experiences. With it, you’re not just completing a project—you’re crafting a product that truly solves problems, delights users, and exceeds expectations.

With this cheat sheet, you know exactly where to start: gathering insights from stakeholders, mapping out user journeys, and conducting solid user research. As you move from ideation to prototyping and testing, the cheat sheet ensures no steps are overlooked. It keeps the team aligned, helps you avoid mistakes, and provides a roadmap for each member to follow.

This cheatlist becomes handy when dealing with stakeholders. They can see the process is professional and methodical, and they trust the final product will meet user needs because you’ve built it around research and continuous iteration. Every decision you make is backed by data and user feedback. Instead of feeling lost, you’re confidently delivering a product that’s been validated at every step.

UX Process Cheat Sheet

Here’s a UX Process Cheat Sheet that provides an overview of key steps in a typical UX design process. This cheat sheet can help teams streamline their workflow and ensure a user-centered approach.

1. Discovery (Research Phase)

• Goal: Understand the problem space, users, and business objectives.
• Action Steps:
  1. Conduct stakeholder interviews to define business goals, project scope, and success metrics.
  2. Perform user research through interviews, surveys, and contextual inquiries to understand user pain points, behaviors, and motivations.
  3. Analyze competitors by identifying market gaps and opportunities.
  4. Review user data and performance metrics to uncover trends and identify areas for improvement.
  5. Conduct a SWOT analysis to evaluate strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for the product.
  6. Document detailed user personas and user journey maps.
  7. Compile a competitive analysis report, highlighting key findings.
  8. Draft a preliminary PRD that outlines product goals, constraints, and user requirements.

2. Product Definition (Define Phase)

• Goal: Establish a clear product vision that aligns with user and business needs.
• Action Steps:
  1. Organize a product kickoff meeting to align all stakeholders on the product vision, roles, and responsibilities.
  2. Define value propositions, customer segments, and strategic goals.
  3. Conduct a technical feasibility assessment to ensure the product concept is achievable.
  4. Perform a risk assessment to identify potential roadblocks and how to mitigate them.
  5. Create a product vision document that defines the long-term strategic vision.
  6. Create a detailed Functional Specification Document (FSD) to outline technical requirements such as supported platforms, input fields, error messages, and system behaviors.

3. Ideation (Creative Phase)

• Goal: Generate creative solutions that address user needs and business objectives.
• Action Steps:
  1. Facilitate brainstorming and design thinking workshops to generate a range of possible solutions.
  2. Conduct assumption mapping to identify and validate key assumptions about users, the market, and technical constraints.
  3. Create service blueprints to visualize the ecosystem and interactions users have with the product.
  4. Organize and prioritize features using card sorting exercises and a user task matrix.
  5. Develop rough sketches and low-fidelity wireframes to visualize key concepts.
  6. Prioritize the feature list based on technical feasibility, business impact, and user needs.

4. Prototyping (Design Phase)

• Goal: Create interactive prototypes to test ideas and validate user flows.
• Action Steps:
  1. Build low-fidelity prototypes using UXPin to quickly test concepts and user flows.
  2. Create prototypes focused on structure, user flow, and content hierarchy, without visual styling.
  3. Create a content strategy to plan how messaging, content structure, and hierarchy align with user needs.
  4. Implement accessibility guidelines to ensure compliance with WCAG standards (e.g., color contrast, screen reader compatibility).
  5. Design microinteractions that offer feedback to users during interactions.
  6. Develop high-fidelity prototypes that include branding, visual design, and detailed interaction elements.
  7. Establish a design system, if needed, to ensure design consistency and efficiency.

5. Testing (Validation Phase)

• Goal: Validate design decisions through user testing and iteration.
• Action Steps:
  1. Conduct usability testing sessions with real users to gather qualitative feedback on ease of use and task completion.
  2. Implement A/B testing to compare different design variations and determine the most effective solution.
  3. Perform heuristic evaluations to assess the product against usability principles and best practices.
  4. Validate frequent user tasks using the user task matrix to ensure the most critical functions are easy to use.
  5. Test for accessibility using automated tools and manual testing methods to ensure compliance with accessibility guidelines.
  6. Monitor performance benchmarks to ensure the product runs efficiently across devices.
  7. Document usability findings and iterate on the design based on feedback.

6. Build (Implementation Phase)

• Goal: Translate the validated design into a working product through collaboration between design and development teams.
• Action Steps:
  1. Prepare and deliver design specifications and assets to developers using tools.
  2. Plan development sprints using an Agile methodology, ensuring continuous feedback loops with stakeholders.
  3. Integrate automated testing tools for functionality, performance, and security to ensure code quality during development.
  4. Implement design QA processes to ensure the final build matches design specifications and functions as expected.
  5. Use bug tracking software (e.g., JIRA) to monitor, document, and resolve issues as they arise.
  6. Perform dogfooding (internal testing) by having your own team use the product to find bugs and usability issues.
  7. Document technical details for future reference and maintenance.

7. Iteration & Continuous Improvement

• Goal: Continuously refine and improve the product based on real-world data and user feedback.
• Action Steps:
  1. Set up feedback loops with customer support, sales, and other customer-facing teams to collect real-world issues and suggestions.
  2. Monitor analytics and performance metrics using tools like Google Analytics or Hotjar to identify friction points or areas for improvement.
  3. Conduct post-launch A/B testing and usability testing to further optimize the product experience.
  4. Use feature flagging to release new features incrementally and gather feedback from specific user segments.
  5. Update the product roadmap based on feedback, performance data, and business priorities.
  6. Iterate on key features based on insights from post-launch analysis.

Supplemental Tools and Documentation:

• Action Steps:
  1. Create a Functional Specifications Document (FSD) with precise technical details, including data input fields, validation rules, and interaction behaviors.
  2. Develop a Design Specification Document that includes detailed typography, spacing, grids, colors, and reusable components.
  3. Draft a QA Test Plan outlining the steps and criteria for testing the product’s functionality, usability, and performance.
  4. Implement a Content Strategy Document to plan and manage content structure, governance, and updates.
  5. Maintain a Product Roadmap that outlines future features, updates, and iterations based on feedback and performance data.

How to use UX Process Checklist?

To use this checklist effectively in your UX process, follow these steps:

Set Up at the Start of Your Project

Begin by reviewing the checklist before you start the project. Identify which phases of the UX process are most relevant to your current project and align them with your goals, team structure, and timeline.

Integrate into Your Workflow

Break your project into stages that mirror the checklist’s phases: Discovery, Product Definition, Ideation, Prototyping, Testing, Build, and Iteration. Assign team members to each phase and ensure they understand their responsibilities.

Track Progress

Use the checklist as a progress tracker. After each phase is completed, review the corresponding steps in the checklist to ensure nothing has been overlooked. Check off completed tasks and revisit areas where refinement or additional work may be required.

Collaborate with Your Team

Share the checklist with your team so everyone has a clear understanding of the process. Use it as a guide in meetings to set expectations, discuss progress, and resolve any blockers.

Adapt and Iterate

Not every project will follow the exact same path. Adapt the checklist as needed for specific projects—add tasks for unique requirements or skip phases if they don’t apply. Remember to review and iterate on the checklist itself after each project to improve its relevance for future work.

Maintain Accountability

Use the checklist as a source of accountability. Keep it visible to track what has been done and what’s next, ensuring that the entire team stays aligned and responsible for delivering on time and meeting the project’s goals.

Use UX Process Checklist to Track Your Projects

By using checklists effectively, you can ensure a smooth, structured, and user-focused design process, leading to high-quality products delivered on time.

When it comes to delivering exceptional design and streamlining project workflows, UXPin stands out as the ultimate tool for UX designers and teams. UXPin brings everything you need—design, prototyping, and collaboration—into one platform, making it easy to manage the entire design process from start to finish.

UXPin is your all-in-one solution that saves time, reduces friction, and ensures that every design decision is validated and user-centered. If you’re looking for a tool that makes designing smarter, faster, and more collaborative in real time, UXPin is the best choice for any team. Try UXPin for free.

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“The first step in solving a problem is to recognize that it does exist.”  – Zig Ziglar

Product definition is the cornerstone of our entire product and sets the stage for the success of our product. Every solution we design builds upon the framework of this initial problem.

That means we need to start with a problem that we work to understand and define–carefully. Otherwise, we risk clinging to the first problem that feels right. And we all know how that ends.

UXPin Merge is an ideal solution for tackling design problems by bridging the gap between designers and developers. It allows teams to use live, code-based components from a design system to create fully interactive prototypes that look and function like the final product. This drastically reduces the discrepancies between design and development, eliminates handoff issues, and ensures design consistency across the project.

With UXPin Merge, you can test real-world scenarios early in the process, quickly iterate, and validate if the design solves the original problem, all within a single platform. Request access to UXPin Merge.

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What is a Design Problem?

A design problem is an obstacle or challenge that arises during the creation of a product, service, or system that affects the user experience. It typically involves a mismatch between user needs or goals and the current design solution.

Design problems can range from usability issues (e.g., confusing navigation) to more complex challenges, like ensuring accessibility or aligning business objectives with user satisfaction. Identifying and solving these problems is at the heart of UX design, as it focuses on improving the experience for users and achieving desired outcomes.

Imagine you’re designing a website, and users are struggling to find the information they need. That’s a design problem. It happens when the design of a product or system doesn’t meet user needs or expectations. This could be anything from hard-to-use navigation, a confusing checkout process, or even a mismatch between the design and business goals.

In UX, solving design problems is all about understanding what users need, why they struggle, and creating solutions that make their experience smoother, faster, and more enjoyable.

How to Design an App Around a Problem?

Let’s go through the process of designing an app around a problem. Since it’s always fun to be a designer on a project that deals with a problem you can relate to, I’ll choose a problem experienced by myself and the majority of people I know.

The problem of having too much stress.

I did some quick and dirty research by calling up a dozen friends and asking if it was a problem they felt they also had. 9 out of the 12 people said they experience the same problem. I suspect 3 of those 12 people are super-secret Zen monks.

Of course, I didn’t have to call them up. I could’ve just sent this 5 minute survey (which you can feel free to take too) to get a sense of the problem.

Now that we have perceived a problem to design an app around we can define it in a problem statement, or definition — a statement that captures the scope of the problem we are trying to solve.

In this piece, I’ll dive deep into how to write a well-crafted statement that communicates the right problem to the team. The next time you come up with a great product idea (or get feedback), follow the steps below to make sure your heart and mind are in the right place.

How to Identify a Design Problem

Adapted from: Danielle Elder, Creative Commons 2.0

As a designer fortunate enough to get to work with some incredible teams building mobile apps, I get to hear a lot about what other people think about the way many apps are designed and function. There are so many great examples of well designed apps available, it makes finding inspiration easy and enjoyable. Not every app is a pillar of stellar design though, every now and then I hear about one that got everything wrong.

Recently my wife was telling me about an app she was trying to use to assist her with some of the fun things associated with newborn humans, and said:

“This is a bad app.”

My designer’s ears pricked up at the sound of a problem.

“What’s that dear? You have a problem that needs solving?”

“No, I’m trying to tell you a story. Can’t you just empathize with me and let me finish?” she probably implored.

“Of course I’ll help you!” I exclaimed. “First we need to understand your perceived problem at a deeper level.”

An audible sigh came from somewhere in the room.

Many people don’t know how to begin solving their user’s problem because they don’t take the time to listen and really consider their problem. This is usually true not because the person is lazy, rather they just don’t know how to go about thinking about the problem on a deeper level in an effort to understand what is causing it. The design process has to start somewhere though, and that starting point is usually our perceived problem. The perceived problem my wife was having (apart from my listening and empathizing skills) was that the app she was trying to use was a bad app.

To recap, here is what we need to do when a problem is perceived:

• Acknowledge the problem. First things first, we must understand that there is a problem. You can’t solve it without saying that it exists. Brushing it under the rug does nothing for you or for your users.
• Listen and consider. Don’t just jump to wanting to solve the problem. You have to listen to your users — think about my interaction with my wife — to really understand what’s going on. Asking follow up questions is fine, but don’t just try to suggest a solution before you really understand what’s going on.

Let’s go back to our original problem as an example: I have too much stress.

Well, the problem of having too much stress is probably too general to design a solution around. As is the problem of an app being bad. This is where you need to probe deeper, asking more questions: How many ways can you fix a bad app? All the ways probably. How many different ways can you think of to manage stress? Are overall app design and amounts of stress our real problems, or are they symptoms of deeper problems?

Learn more: The Skeptical Designer’s UX Process. 

What Are the Symptoms of Bad Design Problems?

A symptom is a subjective departure from normal function or feeling which is noticed by a user.

For example, the feeling (feelings are subjective, not objective) of being tired (departure from the normal of being awake during the day) is a symptom (a subjective departure from the norm) of not getting enough sleep.

Adapted from: Eamon Curry, Creative Commons 2.0

Our feeling of too much stress is a subjective departure from our normal function of not being too stressed. It also has many different ways we could deal with it, such as having a glass of wine at night, or a bottle, or listening to music, or watching TV.

Maybe you know someone who has huge meltdowns and throws tantrums as a way of letting off steam.

Maybe you sit in a quiet place and breathe deeply and try to figure out what is causing you to feel stressed.

Many people don’t even recognize that they are stressed, which means it’s not easy to recognize what is causing it.

Is having too much stress really our problem? It seems like it is just a symptom of a much deeper problem. In order to solve the perceived problem of having too much stress, we need to think about the problem to determine if it is a root cause or merely a symptom of something deeper.

What is the Root Cause of the Design Problem?

Why is it important to find the root cause of the problem? It’s important because solving a symptom isn’t a permanent solution.

For example, if your leg hurts you could take aspirin to dull the pain, but you will not be fixing the root cause of the pain. You will continue to experience the pain which is a symptom of the real problem.

If you went to the doctor complaining about the pain and she determined that your leg hurt because you broke a bone, you could address the broken bone, which is the root cause of the pain problem.

So how do we determine the root cause of our perceived problem of too much stress? We can use something developed at Toyota during the design of its manufacturing methodologies known as the Five Whys Technique.

The Five Whys Technique

Adapted from: Jeffrey Pioquinto, Creative Commons 2.0

The Five Whys Technique is an iterative question-asking technique we will use to explore the cause and effect relationships underlying our perceived problems. This will enable us to find the root cause of our perceived problem. What was my wife confused about again? Something about an app she was trying to use, I think.

“This is a bad app. Also you could do a better job at listening to me when I’m trying to tal..”

..oh yeah that’s right. She couldn’t figure out how to use a productivity app to help her manage some of the fun things that are associated with having a newborn. Things like the amount of poopy diapers, ounces of milk consumed, etc.

In an effort to identify the deeper problem with the app I suggested we go through the Five Whys process.

1. Why is it a bad app?
   …because it doesn’t work the right way. (refined problem)
2. Why doesn’t it work the right way?
   …because I don’t understand where to go. (refined problem)
3. Why don’t you understand where to go?
   …because none of these icons make sense. (refined problem)
4. Why don’t the icons make sense?
   …because they don’t take me where I think they should. (refined problem)
5. Why don’t they take you where you think they should?
   …because some of them that I think are icons, actually aren’t, and the ones that are icons aren’t ones I’ve ever seen before. (alterable behaviors identified)

Created in UXPin

The root cause of my wife’s problem has been identified very quickly, which I can send to the app’s design team as actionable feedback.

How can we be sure we have identified a root cause? The key to understanding the root cause of the problem (it isn’t always answered with the 5th why) is in identifying a broken process or an alterable behavior. Sometimes there are more than one you will identify, like in the app we are going to design to help with the problem of too much stress.

1. Why do I have too much stress?
   …because I have too many stressful thoughts. (refined problem)
2. Why do I have so many stressful thoughts?
   …because I can not calm my thoughts. (refined problem)
3. Why am I unable to calm my mind?
   …because I don’t practice calming my mind. (refined problem and alterable behavior)
4. Why am I unable to practice calming my mind?
   …because I don’t have a process to calm my mind. (broken process identified)
5. Why do I not have a process to calm my mind?
   …because I’m not aware of myself enough to know I need one. (deeper broken process identified)

Created in UXPin

The root cause of the perceived problem of too much stress is a lack of process to calming and focusing our mind. In this example, calming my thoughts would lead to less stress, which solves the original problem. We can evolve our problem definition now.

Learn more: Free e-book UX Design Process Best Practices. 

Redefining the Design Problem

New Problem Definition:
To enable users to calm their mind in an effort to reduce their stress.

What about the deeper problem of not being more aware of our true self? Sometimes a product will benefit from attempts to solve a deeper broken processes than may be necessary. By designing a solution with a deeper and more abstract problem definition we should still be solving the original symptom with the benefit of solving additional symptoms.

Throughout the design process we will continue to evolve the problem definition, so if we find we have gone too deep we can abstract back up one level. Let’s go ahead and redefine our problem definition:

Redefined Problem Definition:
to enable users to become more aware of themselves in an effort to reduce their stress.

Photo Credit: Kevin Dooley, Creative Commons 2.0

Here are a couple of ways you can probe deeper into design problems with your team, as discussed in the e-book The Guide to UX Design Process and Documentation:

• Brainstorm on the problem. Get your team together on the perceived problem, having everyone on the team — from designers to developers to marketers to business analysts to sales — participate. Now while it’ll be up to the designer ultimately to solve the design problems, teammates from other departments can provide other insights that will help frame your work. After all, sales may be closer to users and have a deeper understanding of their problems while a business analyst may have insights into the market.
• Researching the problem. You can conduct a competitive marketing analysis to determine if this problem is being faced elsewhere. You can also conduct a customer survey (like the one we did earlier on stress). If it’s an existing product, dig through your analytics, heuristics, content, or conduct users tests.

Doing these things will go a long way to getting to what’s causing your problem, its root cause and how to solve it.

3 Examples of Design Problems

1. Enlight

According to Stav Tishler from Enlight, their mobile app’s problem definition is:

“To empower the mobile photographer with creative tools, that until now, were reserved only for professionals and only on desktop.”

Enlight solves this problem through the careful design and technology. Lightricks’ proprietary image processing engine powers the tools that are tied together with a consistent UI that allow the users to transfer the knowledge they acquire by learning one tool, to other tools.

2. PureChat

According to Hamid Shojaee, Pure Chat CEO, their mobile app’s problem definition is:

“To enable small business owners who are on the move to be able to communicate with visitors on their websites.”

Maintaining 4.5 stars on the Apple and Google mobile app stores is a pretty good indicator that they have designed a great solution for the problem they set out to solve.

3. Crowd Mics

According to Tim Holladay, Crowd Mics CEO, their mobile app’s problem definition is:

“To enable users who have a voice to be heard in the conference, meeting or any live event in which they are attending.”

Crowd Mics turns the users’ smartphones into wireless microphones for use in live events.

Conclusion

By dedicating some time to thinking about the problem your product aims to solve, you will define a strong foundation for all your future design decisions.

• Start by making a list of the problems you perceive that you plan on solving with your product and combine them into a problem definition.
• Next take some time to think deeper about the problem definition with the 5 Whys.
• Finally discuss the problem with any of the product’s stakeholders and re-evaluate the problem, iterating on the problem definition if it needs further clarification.

Once you write a really strong problem statement, don’t feel like you’re married to it.

As you go along the design process, you may have to redefine your problem. That’s because you’ll discover things that weren’t apparent in the early discovery stage of the process.

For more UX advice, get the free guide UX Design Process Best Practices. 

Let’s say you’re building a design, and developers need to turn it into a real product. Often, things get lost in translation. UXPin Merge solves this by allowing designers to work with actual, code-based components from a design system. This means the prototype isn’t just a mockup—it works like the real product.

UXPin Merge eliminates the usual back-and-forth between designers and developers, ensuring everything looks and behaves exactly as intended. Plus, you can test and iterate faster to fix problems before going live. Request access to UXPin Merge here.

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A problem statement is a critical component of UX design that defines the user’s key challenges and helps guide the design process. Crafted early in the project, it ensures that the team is aligned and focused on solving the right problem. Without a clear problem statement, design solutions can become scattered or misaligned with user needs and business goals.

In this post, we’ll explore what a problem statement is, when it should be formulated, and why it’s essential for successful user-centered design. Build interactive prototypes that help you inspect your problem statements and find the perfect solutions through user tests. Try UXPin for free.

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What is a Problem Statement?

A problem statement is a clear, concise description of the issue or challenge that needs to be addressed. It defines the gap between the current situation and the desired outcome.

In UX, a problem statement explains what’s preventing users from achieving their goals and highlights the significance of solving the problem for both users and the business. It serves as a foundation for the design process, ensuring the team remains focused on addressing the user’s needs and business objectives.

When to Formulate a Problem Statement

Problem statements are typically formulated early in the design process, often after conducting initial user research. During this phase, UX designers gather insights from methods such as user interviews, surveys, or usability testing to understand user pain points.

Once the research reveals a clear challenge or unmet need, the problem statement is crafted to define this issue clearly. It serves as a guide throughout the design process, ensuring the team’s solutions are focused on solving a specific, well-defined user problem.

Why Do We Need Problem Statements in UX?

We need problem statements in UX design because they provide a clear and focused definition of the user’s challenges. They help:

1. Align the team: Ensures everyone on the project understands the core issue being addressed.
2. Guide the design process: Keeps the team focused on solving the right problem.
3. Support decision-making: Helps prioritize design solutions and features that directly address user needs.
4. Measure success: Establishes a clear outcome to evaluate whether the solution solves the problem effectively.

This clarity ensures efficient, user-centered design solutions.

What is a Good Problem Statement vs Bad One?

Here are good and bad problem statements side by side. Take a look at them before moving further:

• Good Problem Statement: “Users are abandoning the checkout process because it’s too complex, resulting in lost sales.”
• Bad Problem Statement: “We need a better website.”

A good problem statement is clear, specific, and focused on the user’s challenge. It directly identifies the problem, its impact on users, and why solving it is important. It should guide the design process and align with business goals.

A bad problem statement is vague, lacks focus, and doesn’t address a clear user need or business outcome.

Problem Statement Examples

Here are problem statement examples based on popular products. Each statement in the “Good” examples is specific, user-focused, and highlights the problem’s impact on both users and the business:

Apple

• Bad: “Our operating system needs improvement.”
• Good: “Users find it difficult to navigate privacy settings on iOS, leading to confusion about data-sharing permissions.”

Spotify

• Bad: “We need better playlists.”
• Good: “Users struggle to discover new music aligned with their preferences, resulting in lower engagement with personalized playlists.”

Airbnb

• Bad: “We need more bookings.”
• Good: “Hosts find it challenging to communicate with guests effectively, leading to cancellations and reduced bookings.”

Amazon

• Bad: “The checkout process is too slow.”
• Good: “Customers are abandoning their carts during checkout due to a lengthy and complex payment process, causing lost sales.”

What is the Structure of a Problem Statement?

The structure of a problem statement typically includes:

1. Current Situation: Describes the current state or context where the problem occurs.
2. Problem: Clearly identifies the specific issue or challenge users face.
3. Impact: Explains the consequences of the problem for users and the business.
4. Goal/Desired Outcome: Defines what success looks like and what the ideal outcome would be after solving the problem.

This structure ensures the problem is well-defined, actionable, and aligned with user and business needs.

How to Write a Problem Statement

A well-crafted problem statement ensures your design process stays focused on solving the right problem. Here’s how to write one:

Step 1: Identify the Problem

The first step is to clearly define the issue that users are facing. Be specific about what’s preventing users from achieving their goals. This can come from various sources, such as user research, usability testing, or feedback. Focus on what frustrates users and where they encounter obstacles in completing tasks.

Example: “Users are abandoning the product discovery process because the search function is not returning relevant results.”

Here, you’ve zeroed in on a specific problem—irrelevant search results. Avoid general or vague descriptions like “The search function needs improvement.”

Step 2: Explain the Impact

Next, describe how the problem is affecting users. How does this issue create frustration, inefficiency, or lost opportunities for the users? Explain the emotional or practical toll the problem takes on them. This helps illustrate the severity of the problem.

Example: “As a result, users are spending excessive time filtering through unrelated products, causing frustration and a drop in conversion rates.”

Explaining the problem’s impact on both users and the business highlights why the issue is important to resolve.

Step 3: Contextualize the Business Goal

Align the problem with the company’s goals or broader business objectives. It’s important to show why solving this problem is critical for both the user experience and the business. Whether it’s increasing conversions, reducing churn, or improving engagement, tying the problem to a tangible business metric strengthens its importance.

Example: “Improving the relevance of search results could reduce abandonment rates and drive up sales, aligning with our business objective to boost product discovery efficiency.”

This part of the statement highlights the potential business benefits of solving the problem, showing that it’s not just a user issue but also affects the company’s success.

Step 4: Keep it Concise and Actionable

A good problem statement is focused and concise, avoiding unnecessary details or jargon. Aim for a short, clear statement that captures the essence of the problem. You want it to be easy for everyone—designers, developers, and stakeholders—to understand. Don’t overload it with too much information. The purpose is to lay out the problem in a way that sets the stage for ideation and solution-finding.

Example: “Users are abandoning the checkout process because it requires too many steps, leading to lost sales.”

This statement is concise, specific, and actionable, giving a clear problem that the team can work to solve.

Tips on Writing Problem Statements

To improve a problem statement, follow these steps to go from a bad one to a good one:

1. Be Specific: Instead of vague goals like “We need a better website,” specify the actual issue. For example, identify a user pain point: “Users struggle to find product details, leading to high drop-off rates.”
2. Focus on the User: Center the statement around the user’s challenges, not just the company’s goals.
3. Clarify the Impact: Highlight the consequences of the problem for users and the business.
4. Add Context: Include details from user research to support the problem statement.

By incorporating these elements, your problem statement will become clearer and more actionable.

Problem Statement Template to Copy

We’re giving you a template that ensures that problem statements are specific, user-focused, and aligned with business objectives.

1. Current Situation:
   Describe the current state or context of the issue (e.g., a product, feature, or process).
2. Problem:
   Clearly define the specific issue users are facing. Be user-centric and focus on what’s preventing them from achieving their goals.
3. Impact:
   Explain how this problem affects users (e.g., frustration, inefficiency) and its business impact (e.g., drop in conversions, increased churn).
4. Goal/Desired Outcome:
   Describe the ideal solution or what success looks like after solving the problem.

What Your Problem Statement Will Look Like with this Template?

1. Current Situation: Mobile users have difficulty completing the checkout process.
2. Problem: Users are abandoning their carts due to too many steps in the mobile checkout flow.
3. Impact: This has resulted in a 15% drop in mobile conversions and increased frustration for users.
4. Goal: Streamline the checkout process to reduce abandonment and improve conversion rates.

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Problem statements are crucial because they define the issue that users face and give direction to the design process. By clarifying user challenges and their impact on the business, problem statements keep the team focused on solving the right problem. They are especially helpful in the early stages of a project, after user research, to ensure the solution is user-centered.

In the bigger picture of UX, problem statements are part of a larger effort to understand user needs. They allow designers to prioritize solutions that address real issues, leading to more effective and impactful designs.

UXPin prototypes allow you to test problem statements by creating interactive, high-fidelity prototypes that simulate real user interactions. This enables you to validate whether the design addresses the problem effectively. By testing prototypes with users, you can observe how they interact with the design, gather feedback on usability, and identify if the solution solves the stated problem. Try UXPin for free.

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A UX design portfolio is a collection of work samples, case studies, projects, and relevant artifacts that showcase a UX designer’s skills, expertise, and experience in designing digital products or services with a focus on enhancing user satisfaction and usability.

Creating a portfolio is a crucial first step for any UX designer. It’s where you showcase your best work and let your skills, as well as your personality, shine through. Recruiters and potential clients will all want to see your portfolio website before hiring you. This is true whether you’re new to the field, or a senior looking for your next step.

When it comes to UX design, it’s not just about what you present, but how. Your website is, in fact, a part of your work.

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What is a UX portfolio?

A UX (User Experience) portfolio serves as a comprehensive compilation of a UX designer’s professional journey, presenting an array of work samples, case studies, projects, and pertinent artifacts.

This collection is meticulously crafted to highlight the designer’s multifaceted skills, deep expertise, and extensive experience in the realm of digital product and service design, all with a central emphasis on elevating user satisfaction and usability.

The designer showcases their proficiency in various facets of UX design, including but not limited to user research, information architecture, interaction design, and visual aesthetics. Each component within the portfolio provides a nuanced narrative, offering insights into the designer’s creative process, strategic methodologies, and problem-solving prowess.

This curated collection serves as a powerful testament to the designer’s capabilities, positioning them as a great candidate for employment opportunities or collaborative ventures within the landscape of user-centered design.

16 UX Designer Portfolios

Alex Lakas

Alex Lakas is a UX designer with over a decade of experience working on products everyone uses. He took part in rejuvenating LinkedIn’s feed and gave Google Maps search pages the modern look they have today.

Lakas makes his caliber clear the moment you arrive, with a one-line bio that presents his experience.

A short scroll-down and you’ll find a short but precise list of clients, most of whom are major household names. This isn’t just name-dropping, it’s an important part of any experienced designer’s portfolio. Piquing your visitors’ interest right away with something familiar is the best way to motivate them to check out your work. 

While boasting impressive credentials, the website doesn’t rely on that alone. After a few short lines, you’re met with the most important part of any UX portfolio – case studies. Lakas’ case studies present the thought process behind some of his most well-known work, in a clear-cut, easily digestible fashion.

Complete with a slick design that mirrors his UX work, Alex Lakas’ portfolio website is a great example of what any designer should strive for.

Olivia Truong

Olivia Truong is a product designer. She makes that clear the moment you enter her portfolio, in a simplistic fashion that runs through her website, as well as her work. 

Truong’s UX portfolio doesn’t offer quotes or credentials. It simply displays four of her projects, in a beautifully designed, minimalistic presentation. The way she presents them, by raising questions such as “how do I manage my events onsite?”, is exactly the thought process a UX designer should have. She asks a question, referring to a common problem, and offers a solution in her case study. In this case, she presents Ticket Manager, an app developed to manage event ticket sales.

The case study is a perfect example of how UX case studies should be. She walks us through the problem she set out to solve, presents her research, and details her design process with a lot of imagery.

Olivia Truong’s portfolio pinpoints what a UX designer should present. It’s a great inspiration for designers just starting out, as it does nothing but highlight her process. If you have even one complete project, this is how to present it.

Ed Chao

Ed Chao is most well-known for his work with Dropbox. He’s designed their web interface, followed by their mobile app, and finally their desktop app UI.

What works best about Chao’s portfolio is the minimalizm. There are very few images and even less text. The few case studies he offers are short and don’t go into too much detail. However, what they do present is the key features and ideas behind his Dropbox UX design. This shows that Chao understands what’s important, and what can be cut out, a great trait for a UX designer.

One small, but important aspect that Ed Chao nails is the contact information. The first thing you’ll see when you arrive at his portfolio is links to his email, LinkedIn and Twitter. This is arguably one of the most important functions of a portfolio website, ensuring potential customers and recruiters can get in touch as easily as possible.

Jung Hoe

Jung Hoe is a UX/UI designer at Wix.com’s Playground. His portfolio website catches your attention immediately with a greeting that rapidly switches languages. 

But what keeps visitors interested is the humor. With a backdrop of beautifully animated yellow blobs bouncing around, he presents himself as a “genius baby” transformed into a “fully grown design nerd”. The personality in these lines creates an immediate connection and willingness to discover more.

Scrolling down, it’s clear that this portfolio belongs to a talented and playful UX designer. As a visitor, you can flip a switch between UI/UX work and “Fun Work”. Both of which present a wide range of apps and products he’s designed. Clicking on any project will lead to a detailed case study that includes his research, thought process, and final, as well as scrapped designs. 

Whether you choose to browse UX projects, or simply look at Hoe’s “Fun Work”, you’ll eventually reach an eye-catching call-to-action to “Make somethin’ fun together!” with a playful “Hit Me Up!” button leading to his email.

Jung Hoe’s portfolio is an example of how designers can showcase their personalities, as much as their work. But still, maintain a perfectly professional UX portfolio website.

Jamie Choi

Jamie Choi’s website is another example of a great UX portfolio that does exactly what it sets out to achieve, and nothing more.

The simple illustration of Jamie herself, the autumn color palette, and the simplicity in which her projects are presented make scrolling down her website a soothing experience. 

The case studies she offers, such as her work designing an online platform for a local bakery, are perfectly precise and detailed. She walks the reader through the challenge, research, analysis, work process, and ultimately design ideas. These case studies go into extreme detail, which is what any recruiter or client would want to see.

What completes Choi’s portfolio website is her about page. Like her case studies, this section includes all the detail it needs to keep you interested, while never being too overbearing.

Jamie Choi’s UX portfolio perfectly balances two of the most important things a portfolio website needs. It provides an in-depth look into her professional work process, while simultaneously creating a feeling of personal familiarity.

Liz Wells

Liz Wells is a Brooklyn-based designer and senior product designer at Squarespace. Her UX portfolio site is stunningly trippy.

The homepage displays five case studies, with nothing but unique typography. You’re only met with an image when you hover over a project, an image which is then smeared across the page as you move your cursor.

What makes Wells’ portfolio truly impressive is her case studies. Her “Sidewalk Toronto” case study, for example, is summed up into a short video. If you wish to know more, you can scroll down to find a hand-drawn sketch of the site map, followed by a project description, as well as the UX challenges and solutions. The case study is accompanied by visuals that give life to her process.

Liz Wells’ UX portfolio leaves nothing to be desired, while perfectly presenting her personality as a designer.

Jeremy Stokes

Jeremy Stokes is a product designer at Duolingo and a former UX design intern at Google. But what’s most special about his work is his passion project – Cultivate. 

With Cultivate, Stokes sets out to design a new way of understanding mental health, specifically in the African American community. The project is laid out like any other case study, providing some background into the issue and detailing the process behind building and designing the platform’s concepts.

Another aspect that shines through Stokes’ portfolio is his ability to present himself. His About page is full of imagery and references to his favorite things – video games and cartoons. But he doesn’t settle for just a bio. His portfolio includes his stunning resume, which is as much a part of the portfolio as his case studies.

Jeremy Stokes’ UX portfolio walks a thin line between professional portfolio, and personal website, and does it excellently. Showing visitors your personality can make the difference between being considered for a job, or being forgotten among dozens of other UX designers.

Siriveena Nandam

Siriveena Nandam is a UX designer with an analytical twist. With a background in psychology, Siriveena creates “data-driven solutions that elevate human experiences”, as her website states.

Her portfolio makes it clear that data is the key parameter that runs through her work. The design has a much more technical feel than many other UX portfolios.

As expected, scrolling down her site reveals several case studies. These are the highlights of Nandam’s portfolio, and they’re incredibly detailed. 

“Our National Conversation”, a non-partisan news aggregator, is a perfect example of the type of issues Nandam tackles, and the case study includes everything a case study should. It provides a short summary, before diving into her research, analysis, wireframes, and UI designs, all with great detail, as expected from such a technical product designer.

Siriveena’s UX portfolio is an inspiring demonstration of how designers can take serious subjects and technical information and present them in an interesting way. The lack of playfulness doesn’t hinder the visitor’s experience at all and does a great job at differentiating her from the competition.

Eugenie Lee

Eugenie Lee is a UX designer from California, USA. Her portfolio starts off with a short, to-the-point bio about herself. Notice how the above-the-fold section mentions that she is an inquisitive, problem-solving individual, i.e., has two essential UX designer skills. Right under her profile photo, she shares her philosophy. Namely, that there is a solution to every problem if you know how to ask the right questions. 

In terms of the color palette, Eugenie chose bold colors like black and orange. These two, paired with various hues of grey, are used throughout the entire portfolio.

Right under the above-the-fold, Eugenie added tags for her skills. Among others, they feature popular prototyping and animation tools.

Scrolling down, there’s a lengthy section on the projects she has worked on. Each sheds light on the entire product design process. Eugenie mentions how she collected briefs, ran preliminary research, and engaged in prototyping. If you head over to her portfolio, you’ll see that she has worked on major projects like the Griffith Observatory and MSN News apps. 

Without a doubt, Eugenie Lee’s UX design portfolio is a delight to go through both from an aesthetic and informational perspective. It’s a great example of how you can market yourself in front of prospective clients. 

Zhenya Nagornaya

Zhenya Nagornaya is a junior UX/UI designer from Wellington, New Zealand. She recently completed her studies at Uprock Design School. Her portfolio showcases all of her freelance work taken up while studying. 

Zhenya has worked on different types of projects, including online magazines, landing pages, and various corporate marketing collateral. These have been selected to show her versatility. 

After sharing a few examples of her work, Zhenya moves on to a brief section about herself. Here, she mentions how she pivoted from being a front-end developer to a web designer. Her bio can be read as a cover letter to a potential employer – she’s aware that she doesn’t have much commercial experience, but is willing to learn.

Further down, there’s a section on skills that – on top of proficiency in UX design tools – include HTML, CSS, and Javascript. 

If you’re fairly new to the UX design scene, then this portfolio will be a great source of inspiration.

Yael Levey

Yael Levey is a UX design leader based in London, UK. She has been in the design industry since 2009. Throughout the years, she’s climbed the UX career ladder from an intern role all the way through to becoming a Creative Director at BBC Weather and, currently, Product Design Manager at WhatsApp. 

Yael Levey is a prime example of how UX designer portfolios evolve as you proceed to a leadership role. While her LinkedIn profile is filled with endorsements of her hands-on wireframing, user research, and information architecture skills, her online portfolio features leadership content. She synthesizes her past experiences and shares advice with those who want to progress in the UX design field.

That being said, unlike Yael’s website, her Dribble profile focuses on her work. So, you can see some of the projects she’s taken on throughout her career.

This profile is a perfect example of how you can become a thought leader in the industry. Not to mention, it goes to show that some UX design portfolios can also take on a written form.

Jared Bartman

Jared Bartman is a designer, writer, and artist based in the USA. His website serves as a portfolio of the projects he’s worked on since 2021. These, among others, include designs for small businesses and globally-recognized enterprise companies like Nestle and the New York Times. 

The website features an ‘About Me’ section where Jared talks about his hard skills and his approach to design. It also has a downloadable CV for those who prefer a formal, traditional work experience overview.

In each of the projects descriptions, Jared sheds light on:

• The project objectives, user challenges, and market opportunities
• The tools used throughout the project
• All the stages of the design process – from research to prototyping and user testing.

If you’re a multidisciplinary designer like Jared, then this portfolio is certainly worth inspiring yourself with.

Henry Dan

Henry Dan is a freelance UI/UX designer with more than seven years of experience in mobile, desktop, and web design. 

Henry’s website is a well-rounded portfolio where he shares a short bio, a list of completed projects, and his design philosophy. What’s particularly noticeable is how bold and transparent Henry is about what it’s like working with him. On top of explaining the main stages of the design process (Understand, Explore, Prototype, and Deliver), he clearly mentions that UX design is a collaborative process. Meaning, that he requires the client’s honest input and ongoing communication to ensure successful delivery.

As you scroll down, right after an overview of completed projects, you’ll see a few testimonials from satisfied customers. This is a great way of telling potential clients that not only is he an experienced designer, but also a reliable, trustworthy partner. 

Whether you’re a freelance UX designer like Henry or looking to find full-time work, this website portfolio is a perfect source of inspiration.

Stef Ivanov

Stef Ivanov is a London-based UX and UI designer who has fifteen years of experience in design and branding. While he started off as a freelancer, he now works as the Founder of a design studio called Pony (a fact he makes blatantly clear on his personal site, as seen above).

His work has been nominated to Awwwards and featured on outlets like The Next Web and Tech Crunch. 

Throughout his site, Stef uses a mix of blue and yellow, complemented with black font and white spacing. Right under the fold, he mentions his extensive UX leadership and design experience to legitimize himself in front of potential clients. He underlines that he’s as focused on design deliverables as he is on helping businesses reach their business goals. 

What’s particularly great about this senior UX designer portfolio is that he helps potential clients quickly assess if he’s the right fit. How so? In the ‘Work’ section, on top of short project descriptions, he mentions that his “sweet spot” is taking on both UX and UI work for the same client. He’s also clear that he loves “tricky UX challenges” and enjoys every minute of helping businesses identify and fix what’s blocking their growth.

This is one of the most compelling work descriptions we’ve seen. If you’re clear on the types of projects and/or industries you’d like to work in, then this should be your number-one source of inspiration.

Kimberly Kim

Kimberly Kim is a freelance UX designer and a full-time UX writer at Google. Her portfolio is a simple, yet highly-informative account of her work in both of these roles. 

What made us choose it for this round-up is that it’s one of the best examples of a designer showing off their personality. Kimberly’s work colleagues say that she’s “somehow, both super chill & super passionate”. She explains that it’s because she takes work seriously, but not herself. This shines through each of the case studies and sections on her site.

Kimberly’s portfolio is divided into three sections – UX writing, UX design, and an ‘About Me’. When it comes to the first two, what’s great is that each project description starts with a bulleted list of problems she helped solve. This makes it easy for potential clients and employers to see if they’re facing a similar challenge.

The bio page, meanwhile, is the rare kind – equally entertaining, laid-back, and professional. Kimberly mentions the types of projects she can help with and that she prefers informal communication with clients. This helps pre-qualify any potential future customer and boosts the chances of fruitful cooperation.

Fabricio Teixeira

Fabricio Teixeira is a design partner at Work & Co. In the UX community, he’s known as the founder of the UX Collective, the largest design publication on Medium. Fabricio’s UX career spans more than two decades. During this time, he’s worked with multiple tech companies, including Google, Samsung, and Mailchimp. 

For his website, Fabricio bet on a one-pager, which starts off with a short bio written by none else (or, rather, nothing else) but ChatGPT. What follows is a list of recent engagements, where he appeared as a lecturer, jury member, or speaker. 

As you scroll further down, you’ll see an overview of the awards he received, companies he worked at full-time, and articles he wrote. What separates this UX design portfolio from most is that there aren’t any lengthy project descriptions or mission statements. Instead, Fabricio links to external sites and his social media accounts, treating his site as more of a content hub.

If you, just like Fabricio, would like to link to examples of your work spread across multiple outlets, then this portfolio might just be the perfect example. 

What can you include in a UX portfolio?

A typical UX portfolio may include seven components listed below.

1. Case Studies: Detailed descriptions of projects the designer has worked on, including the problem they were solving, their process, methodologies used (such as user research, wireframing, prototyping, etc.), and the outcomes achieved.
2. Visual Design Samples: Examples of visual design elements created by the designer, such as wireframes, mockups, prototypes, user interface (UI) designs, etc.
3. User Research: Insights gained from user research activities, such as interviews, surveys, usability testing, etc., along with how these insights influenced design decisions.
4. Process and Methodologies: Description of the designer’s approach to UX design, including methodologies, frameworks, tools, and techniques used in their work.
5. Skills and Expertise: Highlighting specific skills and expertise relevant to UX design, such as information architecture, interaction design, usability principles, accessibility, etc.
6. Client or Employer Testimonials: Recommendations or testimonials from clients or employers that validate the designer’s skills and professionalism.
7. Personal Branding: Personal touches that reflect the designer’s personality, style, and unique perspective on UX design.

UX Design Portfolio Tips Based on Examples Above

Based on the examples provided in this UXPin portfolio article, here are actionable UX design portfolio tips:

• Highlight Case Studies: Present projects as detailed case studies showcasing your problem-solving process, research, design iterations, and final outcomes.
• Simplify Your Presentation: Use minimalistic designs to make your work the focal point, avoiding distractions.
• Add Personality: Integrate your unique style and personal story to differentiate yourself from others.
• Make Navigation Easy: Ensure clear access to contact information and portfolio sections.
• Showcase Key Skills: Mention tools, techniques, and methodologies used to enhance credibility.

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If you want to design your UX portfolio, why not sign up for a 14-day free trial? By the end, you’ll have another design tool to add to your portfolio!

The post 16 Inspiring Examples of UX Design Portfolios That You Just Must See appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

Data driven design is a method of making design decisions based on data collected by designers. It has a great potential of perfecting design in a way of fulfilling user needs and keeping them happy. Let’s learn all about it.

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What is Data Driven Design?

Data driven design uses quantitative and qualitative data to inform and shape design decisions in digital product development. Designers use actual user behavior and preferences from user research to drive decision-making, creating more effective and user-centric solutions.

This data-driven approach minimizes assumptions and guesswork, resulting in more targeted and relevant product design decisions. By incorporating data into the design process, designers can better understand user needs and enhance user satisfaction, allowing them to balance user and business goals successfully.

What is the Meaning of Data Driven Design?

Being data-driven means making decisions and taking actions based on empirical evidence and insights derived from data analysis, rather than relying solely on intuition, assumptions, or personal opinions.

In a data-driven approach, data serves as the foundation for understanding trends, identifying patterns, and informing strategies across various domains or product development phases.

In the context of UX design, being data-driven means utilizing empirical data and insights to inform the design process and improve the user experience of products.

Examples of Companies Who Use Data Driven Approach to Design

Here are examples of companies known for their data-driven design, relying heavily on research and user data to inform their design decisions:

1. Google

• Approach: Google extensively uses A/B testing, user research, and data analytics to inform product design and improvements. Their design decisions are heavily influenced by quantitative data collected from user interactions.
• Example: The evolution of Google Search’s interface and features is a prime example, where even minor design tweaks are tested for user engagement and effectiveness before full-scale implementation​​.

2. Facebook (Meta)

• Approach: Facebook employs a data-driven design process, utilizing vast amounts of user data to optimize user experience. They perform continuous A/B testing and leverage user feedback for iterative improvements.
• Example: Features like the News Feed and reaction buttons have been refined through rigorous user testing and data analysis to maximize user engagement and satisfaction.

3. Amazon

• Approach: Amazon relies on data-driven insights to enhance its website and app design, focusing on improving user experience and increasing conversion rates. They use extensive A/B testing and customer feedback to drive design decisions.
• Example: Amazon’s recommendation engine and one-click purchasing feature are results of data-driven design, aimed at improving the shopping experience based on user behavior and preferences​.​.

4. Netflix

• Approach: Netflix uses a data-driven approach to personalize user experiences. They employ A/B testing, user surveys, and detailed analytics to refine their interface and content recommendations.
• Example: The personalized recommendation system and the interface design changes, such as the introduction of profiles and autoplay previews, are based on user data and testing​ (HubSpot Blog)​.

5. Airbnb

• Approach: Airbnb uses data-driven design to improve user experience on its platform. They gather extensive user data through testing and feedback to make informed design decisions.
• Example: The redesign of Airbnb’s search and booking interface, aimed at simplifying the user journey and improving accessibility, is driven by insights gathered from user data and feedback .

6. Spotify

• Approach: Spotify uses data analytics and user research to refine its user interface and feature set. They focus on understanding user listening habits and preferences to enhance the user experience.
• Example: The Discover Weekly and Daily Mix playlists are examples of features designed based on user data analysis to create personalized music experiences .

7. Microsoft

• Approach: Microsoft adopts a data-driven design approach across its products, including Office and Windows. They collect user feedback and usage data to drive design improvements.
• Example: The Fluent Design System, used in Windows and Office, was developed through extensive user research and feedback to create a more intuitive and consistent user experience .

These companies exemplify how leveraging user data and research can lead to better design decisions, ultimately enhancing user experience and achieving business goals.

What’s a difference between UX design and data analytics?

UX design and Data Analytics are two distinct fields. UX design primarily focuses on creating intuitive and user-friendly experiences for digital products or services. It involves understanding user behavior, conducting user research, and designing interfaces that meet user needs.

Data analytics, on the other hand, focuses on analyzing data to derive insights and make informed decisions. It involves collecting, processing, and interpreting data to uncover patterns, trends, and correlations that can be used for strategic planning, optimization, and problem-solving.

They are both crucial for creating successful products. Integrating insights from data analytics into UX design processes can lead to more informed design decisions, while prioritizing user experience can ensure that data-driven insights are effectively communicated and implemented to meet user needs.

Types of Data for Design

There are two types of data UX designers and stakeholders rely on for decisions:

• Quantitative data–what, when, and how it happens
• Qualitative data–why it happens

Quantitative data

Quantitative data is numerical and measurable, giving designers objective insights into user behavior and interactions. This quantifiable data type is valuable for identifying trends and patterns, allowing designers to make informed decisions based on hard evidence.

For example, a designer might analyze website analytics to determine which pages receive the most traffic or where users tend to drop off, guiding layout and content improvement decisions.

Qualitative data

Qualitative data is non-numerical and focuses on subjective user opinions, feelings, and motivations. This qualitative data helps designers understand the “why” behind user behavior, offering a deeper insight into user needs and preferences.

For instance, conducting user interviews or analyzing feedback from usability testing can reveal user pain points or preferences that inform the design process, leading to more user-centric solutions.

Important Data Sources for Designers

Here are six domains where design teams typically source data:

• Analytics tools
• User surveys & interviews
• A/B testing
• Usability testing
• Heatmaps & click tracking
• Multivariate testing

Analytics tools

Analytics tools (Google Analytics, product metrics, social media analytics, email analytics, etc.) provide designers with valuable quantitative data on user behavior, demographics, and engagement.

These tools offer quantifiable insights into how users interact with a digital product, helping designers identify areas of improvement and optimize the user experience.

For example, a design team might analyze the bounce rate of a specific page to identify issues and make adjustments to retain users and encourage further interaction. Learn about design team goals.

User surveys & interviews

User surveys and interviews are essential for collecting qualitative data, offering insights into user opinions, preferences, and motivations. Designers engage with users directly to better understand their needs and pain points, leading to more informed design decisions.

For example, a design team may conduct user interviews to uncover the reasons behind low adoption rates for a specific feature, guiding necessary improvements or adjustments.

A/B testing

A/B testing (split testing) is a valuable method for comparing two or more design variants to determine which performs better with users. Designers use A/B testing to make informed decisions about the most effective and intuitive design layouts or elements.

For example, a design team might test two different call-to-action button styles to determine which one leads to higher conversion rates, ultimately choosing the version with the best performance.

Usability testing

Usability testing is a crucial step in the design process, allowing designers to observe users as they interact with a product and identify any usability issues.

For instance, a design team might conduct a usability test on a new checkout process and discover that users struggle to find the “Continue” button, prompting a redesign to improve visibility and user flow.

Heatmaps & click tracking

Heatmaps and click-tracking tools, such as Hotjar or Crazy Egg, visually represent user interactions on a website or app, offering insights into user behavior and preferences. Designers can use this data to identify popular elements or areas where users may struggle, leading to more informed design decisions.

For example, a design team might analyze a heatmap of their homepage and notice that users frequently click on an unlinked image, prompting the team to add a link to improve the user experience.

Multivariate testing

Multivariate testing is an advanced technique that allows designers to test multiple variables simultaneously within a single test, providing a more comprehensive understanding of how different design elements interact and impact user behavior. 

Multivariate testing is beneficial when optimizing complex layouts or features, as it helps identify the most effective combination of design elements.

For example, a design team might conduct a multivariate test on a landing page, simultaneously comparing different headlines, images, and call-to-action button colors.

Challenges and Limitations of Data-Driven Design

Data collection and privacy concerns

Data collection and privacy concerns are significant challenges for UX designers. They must balance gathering valuable user data, respecting user privacy, and complying with data protection regulations, such as GDPR and CCPA.

Design teams can address these concerns by adopting privacy-by-design principles, collecting only necessary data, and obtaining explicit user consent. Additionally, designers should anonymize data whenever possible and use secure data storage and transmission methods to maintain user trust and adhere to legal requirements.

Potential data biases

Data biases can arise from various sources, such as sampling errors or the influence of pre-existing beliefs. These biases may lead to incorrect conclusions and negatively impact design decisions.

To mitigate potential biases, design teams should:

• Strive for diverse and representative samples
• Cross-validate data with multiple sources
• Continuously question their assumptions

To mitigate potential biases, design teams should strive for diverse and representative samples, cross-validate data with multiple sources, and continuously question their assumptions.

It’s also beneficial to involve a multidisciplinary team in data analysis, as different perspectives can help identify potential biases and improve decision-making.

Misinterpreting data and making incorrect assumptions

Misinterpreting data, poor data, or incorrect assumptions can lead to flawed design decisions and a suboptimal user experience. To prevent this, design teams should approach data analysis with a clear understanding of the context and limitations of the data.

They should verify their findings by triangulating data from various sources and employing rigorous statistical methods when analyzing quantitative data.

It’s vital to involve domain experts and users in the design process. Their input can help validate assumptions and interpretations, ensuring design decisions are expert-vetted and user-centric.

Implementing Data-Driven Decisions in the Design Process

Step 1 – Setting goals and objectives

Designers must establish clear goals and objectives before collecting and analyzing data. This goal-setting process involves identifying the key performance indicators (KPIs) aligning with user needs and business objectives. Setting specific, measurable goals enables designers to ensure their efforts and focus on the most impactful areas of the product or user experience.

Step 2 – Collecting and analyzing data

Once goals and objectives are in place, design teams must collect relevant quantitative and qualitative data from various sources, such as analytics tools, user surveys, and usability testing. Designers must employ rigorous methods to analyze this data, ensuring their conclusions are accurate and free from potential biases.

Step 3 – Identifying patterns and insights

Designers look for patterns and insights in collected data to inform their design decisions. This analysis may involve identifying user pain points, preferences, or behavior trends. By recognizing these patterns, designers can better understand user needs and make informed decisions throughout the design process.

Step 4 – Making data-informed design decisions

With valuable insights, designers can make data-driven decisions to address user needs and meet business objectives. This process involves iterating on the design, incorporating user feedback, and refining the product based on data. Designers often have to adjust or change direction as new data emerge, ensuring solutions remain relevant and practical.

Design teams build prototypes to test ideas and assumptions throughout the design process–from paper prototyping in the early stages to fully functional interactive prototypes later.

Step 5 – Using data to iterate and refine

Throughout the design process, it’s essential to measure the impact of design changes and iterate accordingly continually. Design teams monitor KPIs and gather ongoing user and stakeholder feedback, refining the design to optimize the user experience and achieve the desired results.

By embracing a data-driven approach, designers can ensure their work remains user-centric and aligned with user needs and business goals.

Balancing Data-Driven Design with Creativity and Intuition

While data-driven design is essential for creating user-centric solutions, designers must also remember the importance of creativity and intuition in the design process. Relying on data alone results in stale design decisions that lack originality and innovation.

The importance of intuition and creativity in design

Intuition and creativity play a crucial role in innovative design, allowing designers to think outside the box and generate novel solutions to user problems. These qualities enable designers to empathize with users, anticipate their needs, and craft engaging, memorable experiences that set products apart from competitors.

For example, designers might draw on their intuition and creativity to develop a unique, visually appealing layout that captures users’ attention, increasing engagement and better user satisfaction.

Striking the right balance between data and intuition

Balancing data-driven design with intuition and creativity is essential for producing truly effective, user-centric solutions. Designers should use data to inform and validate their decisions while trusting their instincts and expertise to guide the design process.

For example, a designer might notice a pattern in the data that suggests a specific feature is underutilized. While the data provides valuable insight, the designer’s intuition and creativity can help them identify and implement a more engaging design solution that resonates with users.

Avoiding over-reliance on data

While data is a powerful tool, over-reliance on data can stifle creativity and limit innovation. Designers should be mindful of this risk and ensure they don’t become overly constrained by data, which can lead to generic or unimaginative solutions.

For example, a design team might discover that a specific design pattern is popular among users. While it’s essential to consider this data, designers should also explore alternative solutions, as blindly following trends may result in a product that lacks distinction and fails to meet users’ unique needs.

Common Challenges with Data-Driven Design

Data-driven design has become a critical component of creating user-centered experiences, but it’s not without its challenges. Here are a few common pitfalls design leaders often encounter:

Data Biases

Data can unintentionally reflect biases present in the collection process, leading to skewed insights. For example, if user surveys are only collected from a certain demographic, the resulting data might not represent the entire user base.

Solution: Regularly review data collection methods to ensure diverse representation. Implement cross-validation techniques to identify and minimize biases. Additionally, complement quantitative data with qualitative research to get a more holistic view of user behavior.

Misinterpretation of Results

It’s easy to misinterpret data, especially when drawing conclusions without proper context. A slight increase in bounce rates, for instance, could indicate a variety of issues, such as poor content relevance or technical problems, making it difficult to identify the real cause.

Solution: Pair quantitative metrics (e.g., bounce rate) with qualitative observations (e.g., user interviews) to understand why these changes are happening. Use data visualization tools to spot trends and anomalies more easily.

Ignoring Contextual Factors

In UI design, focusing solely on data can lead to overlooking contextual factors that affect user behavior, such as the physical environment in which users interact with the product or the emotional state of the user at that time. This is particularly relevant when designing interactive elements or complex interfaces where context can heavily influence usability.

Solution: Conduct contextual inquiries to gather insights on how users interact with the product in real-world scenarios. Incorporate these findings into your design hypotheses and use data to validate contextual observations rather than replace them entirely.

Resistance to Change

Team members may resist adopting a data-driven approach due to unfamiliarity or skepticism about the data’s validity. This resistance can slow down implementation and prevent teams from fully benefiting from data-driven strategies.

Solution: Educate the team on the benefits of using data in the design process and provide training on data analysis tools. Create a culture of openness where designers feel empowered to question data interpretations and contribute qualitative insights.

Data Overload

Too much data can be just as problematic as too little. Teams can get lost in the numbers, focusing on irrelevant metrics that don’t align with project goals, leading to decision paralysis.

Solution: Define clear key performance indicators (KPIs) and focus on actionable metrics. Prioritize data points that directly correlate with business goals and user satisfaction, and avoid being swayed by vanity metrics.

By acknowledging and addressing these common challenges, design leaders can leverage data more effectively while maintaining the creativity and innovation needed for exceptional user experiences.

Data-Driven UX Design With UXPin

Making data-driven design decisions relies on good data. Image-based design tools lack the fidelity and functionality to get accurate feedback during user testing, limiting the decision design teams can make.

UXPin is powered by code, enabling designers to build prototypes that look and feel like the final product. These interactive prototypes give designers actionable feedback to iterate and refine ideas while solving more problems and identifying better opportunities during the design process.

Want to see how interactive prototyping can enhance your decision-making ability? Build your first UXPin prototype. Sign up for a free trial.

The post What is Data Driven Design and How to Use it? 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 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.

Reach a new level of prototyping

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

Discover UXPin Merge

What is Mobile-First Approach?

The mobile-first approach is 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 design is also a response to the realities of modern user behavior and technological advancements, such as increasing mobile usage, future-proofing the design, and more. By prioritizing mobile, designers can ensure a more effective and efficient design process that meets the needs of the majority of users.

Who uses Mobile-First Design?

Mobile-first design has been adopted by numerous organizations across various industries. Here are some notable examples and case studies of companies that successfully implemented mobile-first design.

1. Google

• Context: As a leading technology company, Google recognized the shift toward mobile usage early on.
• Implementation: Google began encouraging a mobile-first approach through initiatives like AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) and mobile-first indexing.
• Outcome: Websites adopting Google’s mobile-first guidelines generally experienced improved mobile performance and search rankings. Google’s emphasis on mobile-friendly designs helped shape industry standards and practices.

2. Dropbox

• Context: Dropbox transitioned from a desktop-centric service to a mobile-friendly platform to meet user demands for accessibility on-the-go.
• Implementation: They adopted a mobile-first approach in redesigning their app, focusing on a simplified, intuitive interface for mobile users first and then scaling up for desktop users.
• Outcome: The redesign led to a more consistent user experience across devices and contributed to increased mobile engagement and user satisfaction.

3. BBC

• Context: The BBC needed to reach a global audience on various devices, particularly mobile phones, given the increasing consumption of news on the go.
• Implementation: They adopted a mobile-first strategy for their website and apps, ensuring content was accessible and optimized for mobile devices.
• Outcome: The BBC saw a significant improvement in mobile traffic and user engagement. Their responsive design approach also made it easier to manage content across multiple platforms.

4. Flipkart

• Context: Flipkart, a major e-commerce company in India, recognized the growing trend of mobile commerce in the region.
• Implementation: They adopted a mobile-first approach to design their app and website, focusing on fast load times, simplified navigation, and a user-friendly interface.
• Outcome: This approach contributed to a surge in mobile transactions, with Flipkart reporting that a large majority of their sales came from mobile devices.

5. Airbnb

• Context: Airbnb aimed to create a seamless experience for travelers and hosts who increasingly relied on mobile devices.
• Implementation: They redesigned their platform with a mobile-first mindset, prioritizing mobile usability and a responsive design that adapted to various screen sizes.
• Outcome: The mobile-first design contributed to higher user satisfaction, increased mobile bookings, and a more consistent user experience across devices .

6. Spotify

• Context: Spotify needed a mobile-friendly design to cater to users who accessed music primarily through mobile devices.
• Implementation: Spotify embraced mobile-first design principles to ensure a seamless, intuitive user interface on mobile devices before adapting it for desktop users.
• Outcome: This approach enhanced user engagement and satisfaction, with the majority of Spotify’s user base accessing the service via mobile devices.

Mobile-First means Content-First

If your site is good on a mobile device, it translates better to the rest of devices, be it tablet, desktop computer or laptop. 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.

What is mobile-first design framework?

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 or 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.

How to Create Mobile-First Design

We prepared for you a tutorial that will explain how to create a mobile-first design. Our mobile-first design tutorial has four steps.

• Step 1: Set your content priorities.
• Step 2: Design smartphone view.
• Step 3: Work on tablet view.
• Step 4: Create desktop view.

Step 1: 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.

Step 2: Design 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.

Step 3: Work on 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.

Step 4: Create 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

#1: UI Design with regular UXPin

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.

#2: Code-backed design with UXPin Merge

Those of you who use UXPin Merge can use Frames to build fully responsive prototypes.

1. Open a UXPin prototype.
2. Select the Frame tool from the Quick Tools Bar.
3. Click anywhere on the canvas to create a default frame (300 x 100 px), or click and drag on the canvas to create a frame with custom dimensions.
4. Put code-backed components inside of Frame and manage their properties.

You can preview just a frame of full design in the Spec Mode. Frames in UXPin work similarly to iFrames but offer more flexibility for responsive design. They support dynamic resizing and styling which allows components to automatically adapt their appearance and behavior for different screen sizes, making it easy to ensure a responsive design across all devices. To see how it works exactly, request access to UXPin Merge.

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

One of the best things about being a part of the design community is that most designers love to exchange ideas, spread knowledge, and share their experiences regardless of their seniority level. You can be a starting designer or an established thought leader, and it’s almost a given that you find a design conference that may teach you something new.

What’s also great about UX conferences is that not all of them target the UX/UI community, but the people who work with them on a daily basis. Product managers, developers and other professionals who work closely with design can find an event for themselves.

Increase design maturity with UXPin Merge. Build a more collaborative design process and bridge the gap between designers and devs by using a single source of truth in your prototypes: interactive components. Discover more about UXPin Merge.

Reach a new level of prototyping

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

Discover UXPin Merge

January 2024 Conferences

 QRCA 2024 Annual Conference

QRCA stands for Qualitative Research Consultants Association. The conference covers research methods, tools, and lessons that will prepare designers for the next era of qualitative research.

• Date: Jan 22-25, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Virtual & Denver
• Audience: UX researchers, marketing researchers
• Common topics: qualitative research, research methods, research tools

UX360 Research Summit 2024

We will welcome the third edition of a conference dedicated entirely to research. The line up includes UX researchers from top companies: Google, Meta, Dropbox, Delivery Hero, and more.

• Date: Jan 30-31, 2023
• Free: No
• Where: Virtual
• Audience: UX researchers, UI designers, UX designers
• Common topics: research, design strategy, human-centered design

Design Matters Mexico

Join Design Matters and listen to Mexican designers telling you about local design and the intersection between technology and humanity.

• Date: Jan 31-Feb 1, 2023
• Free: No
• Where: Mexico City
• Audience: UX researchers, UI designers, UX designers
• Common topics: inclusivity, design future, technology

February 2024 Conferences

What about the second month of the year? We’ve found a couple of conferences that may catch your eye. Let’s see them.

AXE CON 2024

Sign up to attend a virtual accessibility conference focused on building, testing, and maintaining accessible digital experiences.

• Date: Feb 20-22, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Virtual
• Audience: designers
• Common topics: accessibility, UX

Product World [Hybrid]

Product conference that concerns itself with sharing the product success stories from tech product professionals at Silicon Valley’s top tech companies.

• Date: Feb 21-29, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Virtual and San Francisco Bay Area
• Audience: product managers, developers, product designers
• Common topics: collaboration, leadership, growth

ConveyUX 2024 [Hybrid]

Learn about what is going on in the world of user experience in this AI-driven era. 

• Date: Feb 27-29, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Virtual and Seattle, US
• Audience: product managers, developers, product designers
• Common topics: design process, design future, AI

HUCCAP 2024 [Hybrid]

At the same time as ConveyUX, there’s a Human-Computer Interaction Conference hosted in Rome, Italy. Join to discuss HCI matters in an interdisciplinary environment.

• Date: Feb 27-29, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Virtual and Seattle, US
• Audience: product managers, developers, product designers
• Common topics: human-computer interaction.

March 2024 Conferences

DDX Dubai

A great meeting place for people interested in discussing the impact technology has on our daily lives and UX meaning.

• Date: March 2, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Dubai
• Audience: UX designers and product managers
• Common topics: artificial innovation, innovation, design process

Leading Design New York

One of the design conferences by Clearleft will be hosted in New York.

• Date: Mar 20-21, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: New York, US
• Audience: UX designers
• Common topics: career, leadership, future of design

UX Copenhagen [Hybrid]

It’s the 10th edition of annual “Human Experience” conference. This year it will examine overconsumption and tackle de-growth.

• Date: Mar 20-21, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Virtual & Copenhagen, Denmark
• Audience: UX designers, UX researchers
• Common topics: UX design, leadership, future

ACM IUI 2024

Interested in AI for design? If so, you can’t miss out on this conference! It focuses on the advances at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).

• Date: Mar 18-21, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Sydney, Australia 
• Audience: product designers, researchers
• Common topics: information architecture, artificial intelligence

April 2024 Conferences

AI in Web Design Conference’24

Join other professionals who design websites and web apps and learn about weaving artificial intelligence into the process beyond using ChatGPT in UI design.

• Date: Apr 2-3, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Virtual 
• Audience: product designers, researchers, product managers
• Common topics: design process, artificial intelligence

Web Con

Who said university conferences are for students only? Join an online 2-day event organized by University of Illinois.

• Date: Apr 4-5, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Virtual 
• Audience: UX designers, UI designers, product managers
• Common topics: design process, artificial intelligence

Information Architecture Conference

It’s one of the leading conferences for information architects, designers, and others who create and manage UI and information environments. This year theme is to examine the impact of AI on information architecture.

• Date: Apr 9-13, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Virtual 
• Audience: product designers, researchers, product managers
• Common topics: information architecture, artificial intelligence

UX Research Festival [Hybrid]

Being a brainchild of UXInsights, the largest UX research communities in Europe, UX Research Festival invites you to Breda (in the Netherlands) to hear out amazing talks about UX research.

• Date: Apr 15-17, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Virtual and Breda, Netherlands
• Audience: researchers, designers
• Common topics: UX research, artificial intelligence

Prompt UX

April is full of AI conferences and Prompt UX is one of it! Travel to Berlin and discuss the impact of artifical intelligence yet again this month.

• Date: Apr 17-18, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Berlin, Germany
• Audience: UX designers
• Common topics: design process, artificial intelligence

May 2024 Conferences

DDX Conference Munich

If you’re interested in subjects such as sustainability, future-oriented design, ethical design, this conference will be your cup of tea. Discuss innovative ideas and solutions during 1-day stay in Munich.

• Date: May 11, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Munich
• Audience: UX designers and product managers
• Common topics: artificial innovation, innovation, design process

CHI 2024 [Hybrid]

This year’s annual ACM Computer Human Interaction conference is hosted in beautiful Hawaii. It embraces the theme of Surfing the World – which means reflecting the focus on pushing forth the wave of cutting-edge technology and riding the tide of new developments in human-computer interaction. 

• Date: May 11-16, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Virtual & Honolulu, Hawaii
• Audience: researchers
• Common topics: research tools, research methods

UXDX Community USA [Hybrid]

UXDX is a popular conference for UX designers, developers and product people around the world, sharing with them collaboration ideas.

• Date: May 15-17, 2024
• Free: Yes
• Where: Virtual and on site
• Audience: UX designers, UX researchers, developers and product managers
• Common topics: leadership, collaboration, design system

UXLx

Join fellow designers in sunny Lisbon. Soak up UX knowledge, network with like-minded individual, and hone your design skills.

• Date: May 21-24, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Lisbon, Portugal
• Audience: designers
• Common topics: UX, design process

UXistanbul

Organized by UXServices, this conference is a place for gathering Web3 enthusiasts and designers interested in the field. Come and join them online on Discord.

• Date: May 21-23, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Virtual 
• Audience: product designers, researchers, product managers
• Common topics: NFT, metaverse

From Business to Buttons 2024

Spend one day in Stockholm to discuss user experience and customer expaerience. Great conference for business-savvy designers.

• Date: May 24, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Stockholm, Sweden
• Audience: designers, product managers
• Common topics: design process, design impact, leadership

WebExpo

Travel to Prague, an extraordinary European city, to join fellow web designers, developers, marketers, and more discussing innovations in web design and development.

• Date: May 29-31, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Prague, Czechia
• Audience: designers, developers, product managers
• Common topics: web design, front-end design, UX

June 2024 Conferences

UX Sofia

Travel to sunny Bulgaria to discuss topics connected to strategy, career growth and more.

• Date: Jun 5-7, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Sofia, Bulgaria
• Audience: product designers, researchers
• Common topics: strategy, UX design, UX research

ACE!

This Polish conference has two tracks: Agile Software Development and Product Design & Management. Yet, there will be a lot of content for product designers, too.

• Date: Jun 13-14, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Kraków, Poland
• Audience: product managers, developers, product designers
• Common topics: leadership, product strategy, product growth

Pixel Pioneers

It may be just a day-long, but the Pixel Pioneers is fully-packed with inspirational presentations from leading UX/UI designers and front-end developers.

• Date: Jun 14, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Bristol, UK
• Audience: product designers, developers, researchers
• Common topics: human-centered design, inclusive design, future of design

DRS 2024 BOSTON

Hosted by Design Research Society, this conference is about 4 Rs: resistance, recovery, reflection, and reimagination, which we’re sure are relevant to the state of design in 2024.

• Date: Jun 24-28, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Boston, US
• Audience: design research
• Common topics: research, leadership, future of design

UXPA 2024

At the same time, visit sunny San Diego and join the UXPA conference may be your cup of tea. It is a design conference in the USA.

• Date: Jun 24-27, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: San Diego, US
• Audience: product designers, researchers
• Common topics: human-centered design, leadership, research

HCI INTERNATIONAL 2024

That international conference on human-computer interaction that is usually held in Gothenburg, Sweden, but this year it will be hosted in the USA. We highly recommend to attend. It’s a great treat for the interaction designers.

• Date: Jun 29-July 4, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Washington, DC, USA
• Audience: product designers, researchers
• Common topics: human-centered design, research, leadership

August 2024 Conferences

UXDX APAC 2024

It’s yet another UXDX event, but this one is an Audio-Pacific version. It’s dedicated to Product, UX, Design and Development teams that want to find a way of working together.

• Date: Aug 13-15, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: San Diego, USA
• Audience: product managers, developers, product designers
• Common topics: product direction, scaling design, validation, product growth

UX Nordic [Hybrid]

Sharpen your skills and nurture your growth as a UX researcher, designer or writer. Meet other design professionals and explore your interests.

• Date: Aug 28-29, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Virtual & Aarhus, Norway
• Audience: UX researchers, UX designers, UX writers
• Common topics: design process, leadership

UX Australia [Hybrid]

It’s the 16th edition of UX Australia. The conference focuses on UX, product and service design, and the surrounding disciplines of research, content, operations, management, and more.

• Date: Aug 27-30, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Virtual & Melbourne, Australia
• Audience: UX researchers, product managers, product designers
• Common topics: research operations, leadership, research methods, research tools

September 2024 Conferences

SmashingConf Freiburg 2024

Are you a UX Architect, UI Developer, or a Product Designer that needs to work a lot with engineers? You can’t miss this UX design conference that oh-so-smoothly merges development and design.

• Date: Sep 9-11, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Freiburg, Germany
• Audience: product designers, developers
• Common topics: accessibility, web development, design process

October 2024 Conferences

SmashingConf Freiburg 2024

Smashing Magazine stops in New York to network with designers and front-end developers, and guess what? UXPin will have a booth there! We can’t wait to meet you.

• Date: Oct 7-10, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: New York, US
• Audience: product designers, developers
• Common topics: accessibility, web development, design process

UXDX EMEA [Hybrid]

Break down the barriers between Product, UX, Design and Dev and build better products, faster, together.

• Date: Oct 9-11, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Dublin, Ireland and Virtual
• Audience: product designers, developers, product
• Common topics: accessibility, web development, design process

World Usability Conference

Let’s meet in Austria and discuss usability with other UX professionals and participate in talks and masterclasses where handpicked speakers share meaningful hands-on insights.

• Date: Oct 15-17, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Graz, Austria
• Audience: product designers, UX researchers
• Common topics: design process, usability, sustainability

Design Matters Copenhagen [Hybrid]

This well-known design conference advertises itself as, “Made for designers, by designers.” And it truly is so! We highly recommend you attend it.

• Date: Oct 23-25, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Copenhagen, Denmark
• Audience: product designers, UX researchers
• Common topics: tutorials, design process, leadership

November 2024 Conferences

Leading Design London

Let’s meet in London to discuss design.

• Date: Nov 6-7, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: London, UK
• Audience: UX designers
• Common topics: career, leadership, future of design

Push UX 2024

From Lisbon travel to a lovely Munich to meet like-minded UX professionals that will discuss design research, presentation, and other aspects of daily UX designer’s activities.

• Date: Nov 7-8, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Munich, Germany
• Audience: product designers, UX researchers
• Common topics: design process, design leadership, product growth

Web Summit Lisbon

Come to a sunny Lisbon to participate in lively discussions on web design and development.

• Date: Nov 11-14, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Lisbon, Portugal
• Audience: product managers, developers, product designers
• Common topics: web design, web development

Wey Wey Web

Creating UI for the web? Then, you must show up at this conference. Located in a beatiful Spanish city of Malaga, the conference blends the topics of accessibility, UI, UX, and front-end development.

• Date: Nov 27-29, 2024
• Free: No
• Where: Malaga, Spain
• Audience: developers, product designers
• Common topics: web design, web development

December 2024 Conferences

TBD

Which Design Conferences Are You Attending in 2024?

It seems as if 2024 is going to be full of inspiring and educational content coming from the best speakers in design and product management. Have you found a conference for you? We will definitely keep you posted if any new event comes our way.

Use the knowledge that you acquired from design conferences in practice. Instead of working in siloed environment, unite your team with a single source of truth: interactive components that can be used across design and product. Discover more about it. Check out UXPin Merge.

The post Best Design Conferences in 2024 appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

Lists are fundamental components of user interfaces, helping to organize information in a way that’s easy to scan and digest. Whether it’s a simple to-do list or a complex product display, well-designed lists enhance usability and improve the overall user experience. By understanding the principles of list design, designers can create intuitive layouts that streamline navigation and engagement. In this guide, we’ll explore best practices, key principles, and hands-on tips to create visually appealing, functional lists for any UI project.

Optimize your list design process with UXPin Merge. Bring code-backed components to a design editor and create interfaces that are production-ready from the start. Design prototypes that feel like a real product with UI elements that can be shared between design and development. Request access today.

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What is a List in UI Design?

In UI design, a list is a method of organizing information vertically, allowing users to scan and process data quickly. Lists can display a variety of content, from simple text items to more complex layouts that include images, descriptions, and interactive elements.

They improve usability by breaking down information into manageable chunks, ensuring users can navigate effortlessly. Lists are versatile and appear in many forms—such as single-line lists, multi-line lists, and image lists—each tailored to specific content types and design needs.

What is the Difference Between a List and a Data Table?

Designers use data tables to display a dataset to users. Tables have a specific structure, including a header, rows, and columns with sorting and filters to find and manipulate data.

Read this: How to Design a Table UX

Lists don’t have a fixed structure. Each list item is independent rather than part of a structured dataset with rows and columns. The list item could feature a single line of text in a menu dropdown or a complex card component with lots of data.

In summary, the most significant difference between lists and tables is the data structure. Tables have a specific design, while lists can exist in many formats.

Types of List Designs

There are three types of list designs:

• Text lists
• Image lists
• Card lists

Text List Design

There are three types of text lists. These lists typically include text and an image, icon, and other UI elements like a checkbox or radio. 

• Single-line lists: These are the simplest form of lists, displaying only one line of content per item. They work best for short, easily digestible information, like settings or contact lists.
• Two-line lists: These lists include a second line, often used for supplementary information, like subtitles or descriptions. They balance brevity and context, making them ideal for emails or notifications.
• Three-line lists: These lists display more detailed information, such as titles, descriptions, and additional metadata. They’re useful for content-heavy items, like product listings or media files.

Image Lists

Designers use image lists when visuals are the primary content–like an image or video gallery. Sometimes a single line of text will accompany the image to provide detail or context.

Where image lists don’t include text, designers must ensure to use descriptive alt attributes so screen readers can navigate the content accordingly.

Card Lists

Card lists typically include visual content and text and may also include a CTA. We often see these card lists in eCommerce store product lists that feature an image, title, short description, category tags, price, and “Add to cart” button.

How to Design a List UI

Step 1: Think Content First

Designers must decide on the best list item design based on the content they want to display. 

UX designers have three primary ways to structure content lists: horizontally, vertically, and grid layouts.

List Example: Instagram

An excellent example of these lists in action is Instagram:

• Main feed – vertical list
• Story feed – horizontal list
• Search feed – masonry grid list

UX designers have seemingly endless options and variations within these three list structures.

Step 2: Follow Atomic Design Principles

There are three components to a list design:

• The list: All list items together
• List item: An individual item in the list
• List content: The content that makes a list item–image, text, metadata, title, subtitles, and other user interface elements

It’s helpful to use an atomic design approach when deciding how to put these pieces together. 

• Atoms: The content within each list item–individual images and text
• Molecules: The components within each item–a profile image component
• Organisms: Each list item
• Templates: The entire list with a search field, filters, etc.

Step 3: Design with Consistency in Mind

Consistency is key in list UI design. Ensure that list items follow the same layout, including the placement of text, icons, and actions. This not only enhances the visual flow but also improves usability, as users learn to anticipate where to find the information they need. A consistent structure reduces cognitive load, making the interface more intuitive.

Step 4: Optimize for Responsiveness

Always consider how your list will appear across different screen sizes. On mobile devices, a vertical list may work best, while on desktops, a grid layout could be more effective. Adjust font sizes, spacing, and layout to maintain readability and usability regardless of device.

Step 5: Test for Accessibility

Lists must be accessible to all users, including those relying on screen readers. Use proper HTML elements like ordered or unordered lists, and avoid nested lists when possible. Additionally, ensure proper color contrast for readability and include alternative text for images.

Best Practices of List UI Design

1. Prioritize User Needs

Good list UI design follows design thinking and user-centered design principles. The list design must match user needs while providing appropriate fields for the content. UX designers must pay attention to responsiveness and how the list will look across multiple devices and screen sizes.

2. Follow Material Design Principles

Google’s Material Design UI defines three principles for designing lists – lists must be logical, actionable, and consistent. This means that:

• Logical: Organize lists in meaningful ways (alphabetical, numerical, etc.).
• Actionable: Ensure items are easy to identify and act upon.
• Consistent: Use uniform layouts for icons, text, and actions.

3. Make Lists Scannable

One of the keys to designing a great list UI is making it easy for users to scan content to find what they need. The quicker someone can find what they need, the better the user experience and the more likely they are to use and recommend your product.

4. Leverage Visual Hierarchy

Hierarchy plays a vital role in making lists scannable and easier to read. UX designers have several ways to create this visual hierarchy, including typography, color, spacing, images, etc.

List UI Example: eCommerce

For example, this eCommerce list uses color, size, and typography to separate content and create a visual hierarchy:

• Product name: bold black and white typography top center
• Product description: smaller grey text
• Price: Large dark text
• Reviews: Small text with bright star icons
• Image: Large circular product image

This product list is an excellent example of a visual hierarchy that makes it easy for customers to scan products by the content that matters most to them–i.e., by product name, description, price, etc.

List UI Example: Spotify

In a more simplified example, Spotify uses font size and color to create a visual hierarchy between the song title and the artist. The different size and color make it easy for users to scan a playlist accordingly.

5. Ensure Accessibility

Lists can cause problems for screen readers, creating a poor user experience for visually impaired users. For example, screen readers can’t decipher nested lists correctly. So, designers should use a heading with an unordered or ordered list instead.

Further reading on list accessibility:

• Lists in HTML from Penn State
• Lists from NC State
• Lists Accessibility from Oregon State University

List UI Design Patterns and Interactions

Here are some common list design patterns and interactions that you can apply to website and mobile app design projects.

Checkboxes & Radiobuttons

Checkboxes and radiobuttons are essential UI elements to allow users to make selections and actions on list items. As a general rule, designers use checkboxes for selecting multiple list items and radios for a single selection.

Scrolling & Swiping

Scrolling and swiping allow users to perform multiple actions. For example, many apps allow users to swipe list items left or right–one way to delete the other to archive.

Designers must also create scrolling interactions and lazy loading to optimize performance.

Select Lists

Select lists or dropdown menus allow users to select from several options–like choosing which shipping method they want at checkout. UX designers might also include a search feature for long dropdown menus, a feature we often see for state/province or country lists.

Collapsing & Expanding

Designers can use collapsable lists to hide and show details. Reducing the amount of content that’s always visible is crucial for usability and minimizing cognitive load. Collapsable interactions are also useful for nested lists or submenus.

Reordering & Sorting

Reordering list items gives users control over how they prioritize and experience data. Depending on their preference, they can move items manually up or down the list, usually by dragging and dropping. This customization creates a positive user experience because users can arrange content to suit their needs. 

Sorting works similar to reordering, except users choose from predefined categories rather than reorder list items manually. For example, Spotify allows users to sort a playlist by title, artist, album, or recently added.

Filtering

Filtering helps users find what they need much faster. Accommodation booking platforms like Airbnb and Booking.com allow users to apply multiple filters to list properties that suit their needs and preferences.

Dividers

Dividers help create separation between content; however, they can add unnecessary “visual noise.” If your lists get too busy, try testing white space as an alternative content separator. 

List UI Design in UXPin

With UXPin’s code-based design tool, UX designers can build list prototypes that accurately resemble the final product. Our Multilevel Dropdown Navigation example demonstrates how designers can use States and Interactions to build a functioning dropdown list–using only a single frame.

Designing a List with MUI Components in UXPin Merge

With UXPin Merge, you can sync code components like MUI (Material-UI) into UXPin for fully interactive prototyping. Follow this tutorial to create a list using MUI components.

Step 1: Import MUI Components

Ensure you have your MUI components integrated into UXPin using Merge. This will allow you to drag and drop pre-coded components directly into your design.

Step 2: Add a List Component

1. In UXPin, navigate to your MUI component library.
2. Drag the MUI List component into your canvas. This is the container for your list items.

Step 3: Configure List Items

1. Next, drag in ListItem components within the list container. These components will represent individual list items.
2. Use ListItemText to add the main content, such as the title or description for each list item.

Step 4: Customize with MUI Properties

With Merge, you can modify component properties like styling, layout, and behavior. For example:

• Typography: Adjust fonts, colors, and sizes within the ListItemText to create a visual hierarchy.
• Icons: Use ListItemIcon to include interactive icons, such as checkmarks or navigation arrows.

Step 5: Add Interactions

Use UXPin’s interaction panel to add click actions, hover states, or dynamic behaviors. For example, configure the list item to navigate to another page or trigger a modal when clicked.

Step 6: Preview and Test

Use UXPin’s Preview mode to test the list in a fully functional prototype. Check responsiveness and usability across different devices to ensure an optimal experience.

Step 7: Hand-off to Developers

With UXPin Merge, your list UI is code-ready. Developers can directly access the code, ensuring a seamless design-to-development process without discrepancies.

Increase Fidelity and Functionality with UXPin Merge

Take your prototypes to the next level using UXPin’s proprietary Merge technology. Sync your product’s design system or an open-source component library from a repository to UXPin’s editor so designers can build prototypes using fully functioning code components.

You can see Merge in action with our MUI library integration. Using MUI’s React library, designers can build fully functioning list prototypes. MUI’s React components come complete with states and interactions, so designers only have to focus on product design rather than building everything from scratch. Everything you see in MUI’s documentation, designers can replicate in UXPin without writing a single line of code. Request access to UXPin Merge.

The post List Design 101 – A Short Guide for Beginners appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

Where does the empathy map come in?

UX designers know better than anyone — it’s what’s inside that counts. As in, the user’s thoughts and feelings, and how those affect what they say and do.

When created correctly, empathy maps serve as the perfect lean user persona:

• They quickly visualize user needs (especially to non-designers)
• They fit perfectly into a Lean UX workflow as a starting point for user knowledge (you’ll build more as you prototype and test)
• Because they’re quick to create, they’re easy to iterate as you revise assumptions based on real data
• They prime stakeholders for your design ideas since they’ve thought beyond their own experiences

Photo credit: “How to Use Persona Empathy Mapping.” Nikki Knox (UX Magazine).

That’s what this article is about: a clear-cut, all-inclusive guide on empathy maps, answering why, when, and how to use them.

Let’s get started.

UXPin as a comprehensive design tool that facilitates empathetic design decisions by enabling real-time collaboration and feedback. With UXPin, teams can seamlessly integrate empathy maps into their design process, ensuring that user insights are effectively translated into actionable design solutions. Try UXPin for free.

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What Are Empathy Maps?

An empathy map in UX design is a collaborative tool that helps teams better understand and visualize the user’s perspective. It typically consists of four quadrants that explore what a user thinks, feels, says, and does. By filling out these sections, designers can develop a deeper understanding of user motivations, pain points, and behaviors, which helps guide more user-centered product decisions.

Empathy maps are especially useful during the early stages of the design process to align teams on user insights and drive empathetic design solutions.

When to Use Empathy Maps

Empathy maps are most useful at the beginning of the design process.

Try to complete empathy maps before the product requirements, but after the initial user research. Product strategy is about solving problems, and empathy maps shed light on which problems to solve, and how. This also makes them a great tool for redesigns as well.

When done well, empathy maps create a “UX domino effect” that affects the entire project. Empathy maps affect the product requirements, which affect the product strategy, which affects the wireframes, mockups, prototypes, etc.

However, empathy maps work better if they’re drawn from real data, so they should be made after user research like user interviews. But in a pinch, empathy maps can still be built on your existing knowledge and stakeholder feedback. Quick basic empathy maps offer valuable insight in any meeting — hence the “10-minute persona” nickname.

Empathy Map Format

A common UX empathy map is divided into four quadrants, outlining notes on four different aspects of the user’s internal experience. The quadrants can vary based on needs and preferences, but almost always contain:

• Thoughts — Quotes of what the user is thinking, i.e., “I wonder if there’s an example?” or “I hope this doesn’t take long.”
• Feelings — The user’s emotional state, i.e. “is confused by the navigation and blames themselves.”
• Actions — The user’s behaviors, whether in general or in response to a specific instigator, i.e., “returns to the home page every time they don’t know where to go.”

Photo credit: “Adapting empathy maps for UX design.” Paul Boag (boagworld).

Some common variants include:

• Sights — Where the user’s eyes go, i.e., “loves the colorful mascot.”
• Quotes — Things the user says, similar to thoughts. Can be pulled word-for-word from user interviews, or based on existing knowledge.
• Influences — What the user has heard from third parties that might influence how they act, i.e., “They say this is easier to use than Photoshop.”

In addition, at the bottom in some empty space, it’s always a good idea to include:

• Problems (“Pains”) — Any obstacles worth considering, i.e., an unfamiliarity with technology, or a short attention span.
• Goals (“Gains”) — What the user hopes to accomplish, i.e., complete the task within 5 minutes.  

Alternatively, you can summarize the above two areas by filling in the simple statement, “The user needs a way to ________________ because ________________.” Pay attention to the second blank, since user motivation is the real raw material for feature ideas.

Last, you may want to leave a space for general notes, such as the type of device the user is accessing your product from.

Optionally, it may help to include a picture of the user to make the document feel more real.

Empathy Map – The Creation Process 

It’s important to note that empathy maps can be created for a general understanding, or for specific tasks and situations. Broad empathy maps are more useful as quick user personas because they are not based on a single user scenario. If you can spare the time, you could create several task-based empathy maps to feed into more detailed personas.

For example, if you’re working on a web app redesign and notice users having difficulty logging in, you can center around the user’s mind as they complete (or ignore) this task. But this information is most relevant to this particular context (logging in). You won’t understand why a user would want to use your web app in the first place.

Let’s examine how to create a broad empathy map as a 10-minute user persona. Before you start the exercise, you will need at least basic understanding of your user segments (e.g. Sally the College Student, Sean the Young Professional).   

1. Find a whiteboard, a large flip chart, or print out this free template.

2. Set aside 30 minutes to 1 hour for the session.

3. Invite the core product team members: product manager, developers, marketers, and of course other designers.

4. Ask a broad question to help unpack everyone’s thoughts and assumptions, e.g. “Why would somebody buy a new iPhone?”

5. Set aside sheets of paper or space on the whiteboard according to the user segments (e.g. one for Sally, one for Sean).

6. Hand out sticky notes and encourage everyone to write down their thoughts regarding each of the empathy map’s four quadrants.

7. Review the completed empathy map and discuss any patterns and outliers.

As you might expect, sometimes it’s difficult to get the creative juices flowing and/or really pinpoint the issues at hand. If your team is stuck, Demian Farnworth of the Copyblogger recommends a moderator posing questions like these to help team members better visualize their users:

• What environment are the users in when using your product?
• Are they having fun, or do they want to get it over with?
• What’s their life like outside of using the product?
• What kind of day are they having?

If all else fails, try a bit of role-playing, where one person “plays” the user, and ask them questions or play the role of the product, eliciting responses.

At the end of the session, wrap up what was learned. Did anyone’s opinions change? Is there a better direction to go with the product design? Were any of the responses based on data, or pure assumption? These answers are partly why you made an empathy map in the first place.

Remember that the benefit of empathy maps are their convenience. They’re designed to be a quick collaborative exercise rather than exhaustively thorough. You’ll gather more important insights once you’ve started prototyping and testing your designs with at least 5 users.

What to Do With Finished Empathy Maps

While a large part of empathy maps’ utility are the process of making them, they are still quite useful as documentation.

Share the results of the empathy map with anyone on the product team who wasn’t able to join the exercise. Executive stakeholders, too, might be interested in the more actionable takeaways from the exercise — although you should explain the bottom line upfront, and the reasoning afterward.

If you happen to be using UXPin, you can also upload a picture of the empathy map into your UX project so that others can comment on it as needed.

Next Steps

While broad empathy maps aren’t the most thorough personas, they certainly help everyone think more like a user while checking their own assumptions. Certainly not a bad result for a single 30-60 minute workshop.

If you’re looking for a way to integrate empathy maps into your UX design process seamlessly, consider using UXPin. It offers powerful collaboration tools that allow teams to work together in real-time, making it easier to incorporate user insights into your designs. With UXPin’s interactive prototyping and design system features, you can bring empathy-driven design to life while maintaining consistency and functionality. Try UXPin for free.

The post The Practical Guide to Empathy Maps: 10-Minute User Personas appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

A prototype is an early model or simulation of a product used to test and validate ideas before full-scale production. Prototypes vary in fidelity from simple sketches of a user interface to fully interactive digital models that resemble the final product. They serve to gather user feedback, identify usability issues, and refine design concepts, helping ensure that the final product meets user needs effectively.

Prototyping is one of the most critical steps in the design process, yet prototypes still confuse some designers and project teams.

Key takeaways:

• A prototype is a representation of the end-product that is used in order to see if the product teams are building the right solution for their desired users.
• There are several types of prototypes: a paper prototype that’s basically a sketch of a product, digital wireframe, functional prototype, and more.
• Prototypes differ in terms of their fidelity to the final product. Low fidelity means prototype doesn’t include many details while high-fidelity prototype can be fully functional and behave like a real product.
• There are a couple of ways of creating a prototype depending on the level of fidelity you want to achieve. You can start with a paper or build a prototype in code. Let’s discuss what that means.

Build a living example of your product with UI components that come from your design library stored in Git, Storybook or as an npm package. Simplify design handoff and make sure that teams are sharing a single source of truth between design and code. Discover UXPin Merge.

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What is a Prototype?

A prototype is a simulation of a final product which design teams use for testing before committing resources to building the actual thing.

The goal of a prototype is to test and validate ideas before sharing them with stakeholders and eventually passing the final designs to engineering teams for the development process.

Prototypes are essential for identifying and solving user pain points with participants during usability testing. Testing prototypes with end-users enables UX teams to visualize and optimize the user experience during the design process.

Engineering is expensive, and making changes to a final product is often not as straightforward as teams may anticipate. So, finding and fixing errors during the design process is critical.

Another common misconception about prototyping is that it only needs to be done once or twice at the end of the design process— it’s not true. 

One of our mottos that we believe at UXPin is “test early and test often.”

According to Elementor’s Director of UX, the website building platform’s designer – there should be an average of four to five prototyping sessions, depending on the complexity of a given UI design.

Teams should create a prototype of every possible iteration of the design—even your early basic ideas for solving a user need. Prototyping shouldn’t be reserved only for beta tests of the final version; you should test basic and more complex versions of the end-product.

If testing a prototype produces new insights about how users interact with your product, then it’s worth taking the time to gather user feedback and iterate—whether that’s paper, low-fidelity or high-fidelity.

Prototyping Tools

A variety of tools and methods are available for creating prototypes in UX design, each offering different features and capabilities. Tools like UXPin, Figma, Sketch, and Adobe XD are popular for creating both low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes. These tools allow designers to build interactive prototypes with dynamic elements, transitions, and animations, enhancing the ability to test and refine designs.

Read about top prototyping tools for designers and developers.

Prototype in UX Design

In UX design, a prototype serves as a preliminary version of a product, allowing designers, developers, and stakeholders to explore and validate design concepts before full-scale development. Prototyping is a critical step in the UX design process because it bridges the gap between a concept and its final execution, ensuring that the end product meets user needs and expectations.

Qualities of Effective Prototypes in UX Design

Prototypes are crucial tools in the UX design process, embodying several key qualities that make them indispensable for creating successful, user-centered designs:

1. Visualizing and Testing Ideas

Prototypes allow designers to bring their ideas to life in a tangible format, making it easier to explore and test different concepts. This hands-on approach provides a clearer picture of how a design will function in real-world scenarios, enabling designers to make more informed decisions and iterate quickly based on what works best.

2. Enhancing User Experience

An effective prototype goes beyond static visuals by simulating interactive user experiences. This enables designers to identify usability issues early on, ensuring the design is intuitive and user-friendly. By testing these interactions in a prototype, designers can refine the user journey and enhance the overall quality of the final product.

3. Facilitating Feedback and Collaboration

Prototypes serve as a concrete representation of design ideas, making them an excellent tool for gathering feedback and fostering collaboration among team members and stakeholders. By providing a visual and interactive reference, prototypes ensure that everyone involved in the project can review, discuss, and align on the design direction, fostering a more collaborative and consensus-driven development process.

4. Reducing Development Costs

One of the most valuable qualities of prototypes is their ability to catch design flaws and usability issues early. By identifying and resolving these problems before full-scale development begins, teams can avoid costly changes later in the process. This proactive approach reduces the risk of expensive rework and helps maintain project timelines and budgets.

5. Enabling Rapid Iteration

Prototypes are inherently flexible, allowing for quick changes and adjustments based on feedback, testing, and analysis. This quality is vital for refining the design to meet user needs and achieve project goals. The ability to iterate rapidly ensures that the design evolves in response to real user insights, making it more effective and aligned with the intended user experience.

Types of Prototypes

We’re going to explore prototypes in three types of prototypes: paper, digital, and HTML.

Paper Prototypes

A paper prototype is a prototype that is drawn on a paper or a digital whitebaord. Such a prototype is used during the early design stages, like a design thinking workshop while designers still brainstorm ideas.

Paper prototyping works best during early design stages where design teams collaborate to explore many concepts fast. Team members sketch ideas by hand using simple lines, shapes, and text. The emphasis is on lots of ideas and speed, not aesthetics.

UX Teams lay paper screens on the floor, table, or pinned to a board to simulate user flows. A common practice for testing these prototypes is to have one person play “the product,” switching the sketches according to how the real user behaves.

A low visual/low functional paper prototype.

Advantages of Paper Prototypes

• Fast — You can sketch a prototype in minutes, which is why paper works so well for testing lots of ideas. You can draw a prototype quickly (even during a brainstorming meeting), so you haven’t wasted more than a few minutes if an idea falls flat. 
• Inexpensive — You only need a maker pen and paper to create prototypes, making the process cheap and accessible.
• Team-building — Paper prototyping is a collaborative effort, and often teams have fun coming up with fresh ideas. It’s a fantastic team-building exercise, and these free-thinking sessions often inspire creativity.
• Documentation — Team members can keep physical copies of paper prototypes, notes, and todos for quick reference during future iterations. 

Disadvantages

• Unrealistic — No matter how skilled the art or craftsmanship, paper prototypes will never be more than hand-drawn representations of a digital product. So, while they’re quick to draw, paper prototypes produce little or no results when doing user testing.
• False positives — Sometimes, paper prototypes don’t validate ideas properly. What seems like a good idea on paper might not work effectively in a digital wireframe.
• No gut reactions — Paper prototypes rely on the user’s imagination, adding a break between seeing the stimulus and responding to it. That “gut” reaction is crucial for a successful UX.

Considering these advantages and disadvantages, we recommend paper prototyping only during early-stage design. Once you move from paper to digital, there shouldn’t be any reason to revisit hand-sketched prototypes for the same designs or user flows.

For more information on paper prototyping, check out these helpful resources:

• Paper Prototyping as a Usability Testing Technique by Justin Mifsud
• Better Use of Paper in UX Design by Marcin Treder
• iPhone User Interface Design, Paper Prototype Design (video)
• Printable Paper Prototyping Templates courtesy of Tripwire Magazine

Digital Prototyping

Digital prototyping is an exciting part of the design process. Prototypes start to resemble the final product allowing teams to test and validate ideas.

There are two types of digital prototypes:

• Low-fidelity prototypes: a user flow using wireframes
• High-fidelity prototypes: a user flow using mockups

Low-fidelity prototypes allow research teams to outline basic user flows and information architecture. High-fidelity prototypes go into more detail, testing user interfaces, interactions, and how usability participants interact with a product.

Designers build prototypes using design tools like Figma, Adobe XD, and others. Sometimes non-designers, from product teams use Powerpoint or Google Slides to simulate user flows.

UXPin is unique because it allows designers to create prototypes that look and function exactly like the final product—something you cannot achieve with other popular design tools!

Advantages of Digital Prototyping

• Realistic interactions — Testing with high-fidelity digital prototypes lets UX teams see how users interact with the final product, thus effectively iron out any usability issues.
• Flexibility — Test early and test often! You can start with lo-fi prototypes that become progressively more advanced as the product design process moves forward.
• Speed — While paper prototypes might be the fastest way to test ideas, digital prototypes are the quickest way to test usability issues. Once a product gets to the engineering stage, changes cost significantly more time and money.

Disadvantages

• Learning curve — Before you can build a prototype, you’ll need to learn and understand the software—which is why product teams often use Powerpoint instead of a specialized design tool. The good news is that most design software incorporates the same tools, so it’s relatively easy to switch between them.
• Cost — As you move from low-fidelity to high-fidelity prototyping, time and labor costs increase.

A prototype’s success depends on teams outlining clear objectives and KPIs for each usability study. Without a proper plan, designers can get side-tracked, adding unnecessary features and interactions!

Here are some helpful resources for creating digital prototypes:

• A 10-Minute Rapid Prototyping Lesson by Marek Bowers

HTML & JavaScript Prototyping

On rare occasions, teams might build HTML & JavaScript prototypes to get more accurate results. The downside to this approach is that coding comes with considerable time and technical costs.

But with UXPin Merge, that isn’t the case!

Product designers (and non-designers) can create code-based high-fidelity prototypes that look and function like the final product.

For example, with UXPin’s Merge technology, teams can use React components pulled from a Git repository or Storybook components to create fully functional high-fidelity prototypes. With UXPin Merge, participants never have to “imagine” what a button or dropdown will do because the prototype functions like the final product!

Low Visual/High Functional Prototype built-in HTML. (Image credit: Mike Hill)

Advantages

• Final product functionality — HTML prototypes provide participants with an accurate model of the final product.
• The technical foundation for the final product — Building an HTML prototype provides researchers with a valuable research tool and provides developers with the foundations for building the final product.
• Platform agnostic — You can test your prototype on virtually any operating system or device, and the user won’t need to run outside software.

Disadvantages

• Dependent on designer skill level — Your HTML prototype is only as good as your ability to code. Poorly coded prototypes could introduce usability issues that don’t have anything to do with UX design!
• Inhibits creativity — Coding takes time and focus to build a usable prototype. Designers might not achieve the same level of innovation or creativity as using a familiar design tool.

Here are some helpful resources on HTML prototyping:

• Designing with Code by Andy Fitzgerald
• The Advantage of Rapid Prototyping by ZURB
• UXPin Merge for interactive prototyping by Robert Kirkman

The Prototyping Process

There’s no single best process for prototyping; it all depends on the product and application. Below are the three most effective prototyping processes, each intended for different scenarios.

(Note: We advise that you ALWAYS test the prototype when going from lo-fi to hi-fi.)

Paper => Lo-fi Digital => Hi-fi Digital => Code

Most designers follow the paper => lo-fi digital => hi-fi digital => code process for prototyping—it’s how we designed UXPin :).

Teams collaborate to develop lots of ideas, sketching wireframes on paper and creating user flows before committing to digital. Here, UX teams will use common brainstorming methods like crazy eights or asking “how might we” questions to get into an end-user mindset.

A lo-fi digital prototype (wireframe) tests crucial elements like navigation and information architecture early in the design process. Teams can use feedback to make quick adjustments to wireframes before committing to mockups.

Once teams complete navigation and information architecture, designers build mockups resembling the final product—adding color, content, interactions, and animations.

When researchers have exhausted testing, UX teams hand over designs to engineers to develop the final product.

Paper => Lo-fi Digital => Code

Going from Lo-fi prototyping to code is an old approach that few teams ever use these days. While lo-fi prototyping is cheap, it doesn’t catch many of the usability issues high-fidelity prototypes expose.

Product developers without design skills might use the paper => lo-fi digital => code method because it’s quicker for them to code than learn how to use a design tool.

The process is exactly like the example above, except that teams will skip the hi-fi digital step.

Low fidelity prototype created during a Yelp redesign exercise. 

High fidelity prototype created during a Yelp redesign exercise.

HTML Prototyping => Code

Solo developers might skip any early prototyping methods and go straight to code. With no one to bounce ideas with, it can make sense for a developer to jump straight in.

Essentially, the prototype creates a foundation and evolves into the final product. This prototyping method is only effective for skilled product developers with efficient workflows.

Even designers with excellent design skills might want to avoid this method of prototyping. Low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototyping are significantly faster than building and editing code.

Paper =>UXPin Merge – Hi-fi Prototyping => Code

With UXPin Merge, you can accelerate the UX process through rapid prototyping. Create fully-functioning high-fidelity prototypes using UI code components to provide participants with a life-like model of the final product.

UX teams follow the standard paper prototyping processes as outlined above. Next, designers build high-fidelity prototypes using UXPin Merge just by dragging and dropping ready interactive UI blocks on the canvas.

The outcome: no more “imagining!” Your prototype will work just as the final product. Prototyping in a code-based design tool like UXPin Merge means engineers can build the final product significantly quicker than working with vector-based designs. Discover UXPin Merge.

The post What is a Prototype? A Guide to Functional UX 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.

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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 User Flows – How to Create Perfect User Flows for Smooth UX appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

One of the key design principles, no matter if your designing a mobile app or a desktop one, is to keep your UI consistent. But what does it mean? How do you achieve consistent user interface? Which design decisions you need to make to achieve that? It’s time to explore that.

Good UX design doesn’t come from following UX design best practices. You need to test your product to tell if it offers great UX and fulfills user needs. That’s where prototyping tools come in. With a tool like UXPin, design teams can prototype their product, and then optimize their design through series of iterations and usability testing with real users.

Maintaining consistency between design and development can be challenging, especially in complex projects. UXPin Merge bridges this gap by allowing designers and developers to work with the exact same components. With Merge, your design team can create complex interfaces using the same elements your developers use in production, ensuring that what you design is exactly what gets built. Discover UXPin Merge.

Reach a new level of prototyping

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

Discover UXPin Merge

What Exactly is Design Consistency?

Design consistency is what ties UI elements together with distinguishable and predictable actions, which is key for great product experience and an important thing to consider for UX designers. A way to simplify things is to think of it as a commitment that you make to your users (“whenever you see the light grey button in the pop-up on a homepage, you can assume that it will cancel and the pop-up will close”) so that they can easily interact with your product.

As they become more acquainted and become regular users, they begin to trust the product more and more, which is a reflection of the consistent design. To provide users with a consistent UI, here are UI and UX best practices I’ve found useful for product design.

4 Types of Design Consistency

There are four types of design consistency that comprise visual, functional, internal, and external consistency.

1. Visual Consistency
   • Color Palette: Using a uniform set of colors across the entire design.
   • Typography: Keeping font choices consistent in terms of style, size, and weight.
   • Spacing and Layout: Maintaining uniform margins, padding, and grid systems.
2. Functional Consistency
   • Interactions: Ensuring that similar actions (like clicking buttons or navigating menus) yield similar outcomes.
   • Controls and Components: Using the same design for similar controls and UI components (e.g., buttons, forms) across different sections.
3. Internal Consistency
   • Within a Product: Ensuring all parts of a single product or system look and behave consistently, even across platforms.
4. External Consistency
   • Across Products: Aligning design elements and interactions with other products in the same ecosystem or brand family.

What are the Benefits of Design Consistency?

Design consistency enhances usability by making elements predictable, and it also shortens the learning curve, improves aesthetics, reduces user errors, and strengthens brand recognition by using uniform visual and functional elements.

• Improved Usability – users can predict how elements behave, leading to a smoother and more intuitive experience.
• Faster Learning Curve – users familiar with one part of the system can easily navigate others, reducing the need for extensive learning.
• Enhanced Aesthetics – a cohesive look enhances the visual appeal and professionalism of the design.
• Reduced Errors – predictable interactions minimize user errors and enhance reliability.
• Brand Recognition – consistent use of visual and functional elements strengthens brand identity.

How to Achieve Design Consistency

1. Design Systems and Style Guides – develop and adhere to comprehensive design systems or style guides that outline standards for visual and functional elements.
2. Component Libraries – use component libraries to maintain consistent design elements and interactions.
3. User Testing – Conduct regular user testing to ensure consistency meets user expectations and needs.
4. Documentation and Training – provide documentation and onboarding for new designers and developers to maintain consistency.

9 UI and UX Best Practices for Consistent Design

Start with research

Nothing is more important for a consistent experience than quality research.

This should not be underestimated or hurried. Time and budget are always a necessary consideration in product design. Without either of these, a product would never ship. Although they are important to the process, we can’t lose sight of who actually uses the product, what their customer journey looks like, whether they are desktop or mobile users.

Keep your users top of mind and don’t overlook UX research in the beginning stages of product design planning.

Define user goals

Get into the mindset of a new user. What do they want to accomplish? How will the application help them? List our goals and refer back to these throughout the UI or UX design process.

For example, let’s assume we’re building a travel app. This travel application allows users to select a vacation timeframe and find deals on flights and hotels within their budget. But it’s not just the standard travel site. It connects to your Facebook account, works its magic, and plans the top five vacations based on the content that you’ve shared. The user selects the vacation plan that they like best and all the details are taken care of.

Here are some of the user goals:

• View vacation options within a specified timeframe
• Compare different vacation options
• Select a vacation based on users interests
• Keep within vacation budget

Now that we know the breakdown of goals, we can design to meet user expectations.

Familiarize yourself with common UI patterns

Don’t reinvent the wheel when it comes to established UI patterns. Recurring patterns solve common UX and UI design problems.

Of course, UX designers shouldn’t just “copy” the entire layout of another similar web or mobile app. They need to filter and modify the patterns based on specific user goals.

 A typical pattern in eCommerce is a product grid. With this pattern users can easily browse and see product information.

It’s safe to say that patterns have been evolving and users become aware of standard locations for elements. Most users would agree that when they want to search for something, they look for the search bar in the upper center or right since this is a common placement.

Establish design patterns for product UI and UX design consistency

One of the keys to a successful — and consistent — UI is the user performing tasks with the minimum number of actions is. If a task that takes four steps can easily be completed in two, the UI should always be modified for the shorter task flow. UI patterns can help with this… after all, this efficiency is why they became patterns in the first place.

Design hierarchy

Along with design patterns, having an established visual hierarchy of UI design elements does wonders for UI consistency. Whether users are aware of it or not, they instinctively pay attention to the order and priority of the elements they interact with.

When it comes to visuals and the human eye, some elements take precedence over others (bigger sizes, bright colors, etc.), depending on how “noticeable” they are. Think about your screen visuals in terms of what people will see first, second, third, and so on.

This allows UX designers to ensure users find primary functions faster than others, but they can also present secondary and tertiary functions with the appropriate amount of attention.

UI elements

There is a multitude of design elements that go into an application’s UI, and each makes up the building blocks that form UI patterns. Keep an organized inventory and check that elements are used properly to maintain a consistent experience.

Branding elements

Stay consistent with the overall brand. Typography, logo, correct image styles, brand color schemes, etc. should be reflected in the application, just like the rest of the brand’s properties.

Is the correct logo used? Are branding colors consistent? Does the typeface match the others? Brand consistency helps new projects feel like part of the brand’s family, rather than a black sheep. Style guides usually provide all the information you’ll need.

Making sure colors and typography are on brand gives each of the company’s products a consistent look and feel.

Typography

Elements with the most visual impact like typography should always be “on brand.”

This visual element is especially important, not just for hierarchy, but for the entire UX as well. Changing the sizes, fonts, and arrangement of the text can improve scanability, legibility, readability, and even navigation.

UI components

During user research, become familiar with UI patterns and their components. Knowing how each component behaves, within the pattern and outside it, lets UX designers properly prioritize all elements on the screen without anything slipping through the cracks.

“Components” can refer to any number of elements that make up a pattern, such as:

• Buttons
• Cards
• Forms
• Lists
• Panels
• Progress bars

Let’s say you’re considering adding pagination to long lists so the user doesn’t have to scroll far with long lists.

As you examine the wireframes, you notice that one list has pagination with 20 or more items, while in another part of the application, a list only has pagination with 40 or more items. Which is correct? This example illustrates how making definitive decisions about guidelines is the backbone of UI and UX design consistency.

Templates

If you’re having difficulty standardizing your site or app, try using templates.

Most applications allow them, and because the layout and elements look the same, they streamline UI features across the products. Plus, you can reuse the same UI templates over and over, even years down the line.

Pattern library and design system

It may not be user-facing, but it is one of the keys to consistency. Today, many teams have a pattern library or design system as a point of reference to keep everyone on the same page.  Pattern libraries and design systems are the rulebooks that anyone on the team can reference at any time. For team-wide consistency, they are essential.

A pattern library may not be as robust as a design system since it’s limited to design patterns specifically. A design system has more information all around, including helpful documentation about all the UI patterns and various components. A pattern library can also be a subsection of a design system.

Make actions consistent

Everyone loves when an application is user-friendly. It saves time, avoids headaches, and helps users accomplish their goals by eliminating confusion — all requirements for creating satisfied customers.

Consistent actions remove the need for user discovery and therefore make their task flow run more smoothly. If a user knows how to use the functionality in one section, they know how to use it in all sections (as long as it’s consistent).

Users inherently transfer past knowledge to new contexts as they explore new parts of the application. Consistent actions become second nature and eventually, the user can use the application without even thinking. Furthermore, users bring these expectations into new features or aspects of the product that they haven’t explored yet, minimizing the learning curve.

 “View” placement is not consistent. On most of the cards, it’s toward the top, but on the collection card, it’s at the bottom. This inconsistency might cause the user to pause for a moment to search for the “View” option, not to mention it undermines their own natural habit-forming processes.  

So what, specifically, should you consider when designing your interface? Ask yourself these questions during the entire process:

• Do all parts of the application behave the same way?
• How do interactions work? Are they predictable and consistent?
• How much discovery is needed for a user to understand this interaction?

The example on the left has inconsistent sorting; not all columns have the option to sort. Users may want to sort data in other columns. The example on the right has consistent sorting on all columns.

Review your content

It’s not just about the visual elements, but also the text throughout the application.

Consistent copy — especially consistent terminology — in each place in the application is another key. Using two different words for the same function makes them seem like different functions, causing a momentary pause in the workflow while the user sorts out the discrepancy.

Consistent copy avoids this confusion.

Content structure

Content plays a crucial role in UI elements, whether something as simple as navigation listings or as complex as product documentation. It’s not just the words themselves, but how to copy text is presented visually, such as body copy, list items, table content, etc.

In particular, pay attention to how content is handled in these areas:

• Navigation
• Dropdowns
• Form fields
• Validation messages
• Tooltips
• Charts
• Image captions
• Error messages
• Loading screens
• Confirmation pages
• Product support documentation

Brand consistency in content

You know that feeling when a certain part of an application feels “off.” A lot of times the reason is an inconsistency in the content’s language, for example, if one button says “Logout” and another says “Sign out.”

Even less noticeable inconsistencies can create that “off” feeling.

For the Oxford comma fans out there, something as “minor” as comma usage is picked up subconsciously. After enough of these subconscious flags, the user’s conscious brain starts to notice.

Other writing guidelines such as title case and voice/tone also influence the user’s experience. While title typography is more empirical, voice and tone are a little harder to pin down.  The trouble escalates if most content uses a casual style that clashes with a more formal “brand language.”

Appropriate user defaults

By considering user goals upfront, you can set realistic defaults to reduce the burden on the user.

If the defaults are set to the most popular preferences, the user may not have to make any adjustments at all. Take the date picker on an airline or car rental site. Often the starting default date is sometime in the near future, the most likely choice according to past statistics.

Pay close attention to forms, too; they’re a great opportunity for defaults to reduce the amount of user effort.

Consistent communication

Search results, form submit messages, error windows — every interaction with your user is communication. For an app to be successful, it must speak to the user and keep them informed on what’s happening. And, as with everything else, the way you communicate should be consistent.

Changes in state and helpful information

Users appreciate feedback: a toggle that changes color to indicate “on” or “off,” for example, or a sound effect to verify a completed action.

Your user should never waste time wondering whether an action took place or not. Form field submissions are notorious for this, but it happens in other areas as well. In situations where it may not be clear, a quick success (or error) message is all you need.

Play it safe. Even when it’s apparent that the action was successful, a lot of users still prefer a quick confirmation.

Reduce user frustration

The most common cause of user frustration happens when it’s not clear what to do next. Some tasks are not so self-explanatory, but UI and UX designers are often too close to it to notice. Luckily, some instructional text — even just a line or two — can solve the problem.

For the same reason, error messages are useful too. While users may not like seeing them, they still need to know what happened and how it can be corrected.

Which Design Tools Help in Maintaining Consistency?

There are several tools on the market that help designers and developers keep consistency. We will discuss three of them. If you want to learn about more tools, you can see our article with Design System Management Tools.

UXPin Merge

UXPin with Merge technology allows design teams to build interfaces with production-ready UI components that can be further used to build the end-product. It ensures that the user interface that you design stays consistent and functional with the end-product that gets developed.

This means that design and development teams can be on the same page throughout the full product development process, from early-stage prototyping to creating fully interactive prototypes, eliminating discrepancies and reducing rework by maintaining a single source of truth.

Merge also allows designers to create fully functional prototypes using actual, interactive UI components, leading to more accurate user testing and a seamless handoff to development. Overall, it speeds up the design process by enabling real-time updates and feedback using the latest components, making it easier to maintain consistency and quickly adapt to changes.

Read about dotSource case of using UXPin Merge in their process.

Figma

Figma is a collaborative design tool that allows teams to create, share, and maintain consistent UI design and style guides in real-time. Designers use it to design interfaces of websites, apps, and other digital products that are consistent and easily shareable with other designers.

Read how Porsche uses Figma and UXPin together to create consistent interfaces at scale: Code or Design – Which is a Better Source of Truth?

Storybook

Storybook is a tool for developers that use it to create and maintain UI components, enabling designers and developers to ensure consistency and proper integration of design elements. UXPin integrates with Storybook, so designers and developers can share coded components as a single source of truth.

The integration works by allowing designers and developers to use real UI components from Storybook directly within UXPin. Here’s how:

1. Component Sync: UXPin imports Storybook’s components, enabling designers to drag and drop them into UXPin prototypes.
2. Live Preview: Design changes in UXPin reflect in real-time, using the actual code components from Storybook.
3. Shared Libraries: Both tools use the same source of truth, ensuring that design and development stay aligned and consistent with the latest UI components.

Read more about the integration: Storybook and UXPin integration.

Level up Design Consistency with UXPin

Consistency in UI is a huge undertaking, and it’s easy for some parts to slip through the cracks. The end goal is, of course, a perfectly consistent and in-sync interface, but that’s not always possible right out of the gate.

For startups, you can try an MVP (minimum viable product). Even if the product starts out with some inconsistencies, your team can iron them out one by one over time once you start receiving feedback.

If you’re making updates to an existing product, it can be more difficult to remain consistent. This is where the right prototyping software comes in handy. UXPin allows you to build interactive prototypes fast and keep them in line with your design system. Discover UXPin Merge.

The post Design Consistency Guide UI and UX Best Practices appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

The Double Diamond design process is a widely used methodology for identifying a problem and developing a solution. This outcomes-based framework encourages creativity and innovation while focusing on the core issue and its impact on end-users.

It was introduced by the British Council so that designers could follow a standardized design process and make that process super clear, with visual representation that outlines distinct phases: Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver.

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What is the Double Diamond?

The Double Diamond model is a framework for innovation and design developed by the British Design Council in 2005. The Design Council wanted a simple design process for delivering projects, no matter the methods and tools used.

The design framework features two diamonds:

• a diamond that represents the problem.
• a diamond that stands for the solution.

Designers work within these two diamonds. They help them to truly understand the problem and thoroughly test their solutions.

Once designers identify a core issue in the first diamond, they create a design brief as a foundation for the second. The second diamond focuses on prototyping and testing a solution until its ready for release. 

Why Are There Diamonds in this Process?

The Double Diamond design model was developed as a response to the need for a standardized design process description that could be universally applied across various design disciplines. Before its introduction, there was a lack of a cohesive framework that could describe the entire design process from start to finish, which led to inconsistencies and inefficiencies in design practices.

The Double Diamond we know as a design framework came from the British Design Council, but the inspiration for this process came from Hungarian-American linguist Béla H. Bánáthy’s divergence-convergence model.

Béla’s model looks very similar to the design framework where he used the first diamond to explore an issue widely and deeply (divergent thinking) and then took an appropriate focused action (convergent thinking.)

Diamond One – Discovering and Defining the Problem

The first diamond is about UX research and exploration, often referred to as the “problem space”–similar to the empathize and define stages of the design thinking process. 

Designers start by researching the problem and user needs. This phase might include reviewing analytics and UX artifacts, interviewing end-users, conducting a service safari, and other early-phase research methods.

In phase two, designers use discovery phase research to define the problem and how it impacts users. Design teams may iterate over phases one and two a few times until they get to the core issue. Next, they synthetize all the insights together.

At the end of phase two, designers create a design brief to guide the second half of the design process towards finding an appropriate solution.

Diamond Two – Developing and Delivering the Solution

The second diamond is about ideating, prototyping, and testing to find a suitable solution. 

The develop phase is a busy stage of the Double Diamond framework where teams use various tools and methods, including:

• Workshops and brainstorming: gathering as a team to ideate, hypothesize, conduct experiments, and discuss possible solutions. 
• Low-fidelity design: sketches, wireframes, paper prototypes, and other lo-fi methods designers use to develop and test many ideas quickly.
• Cross-functional collaboration: designers meet with engineers, product owners, and other stakeholders to discuss ideas for feedback on possible challenges and constraints.

The development phase is an iterable process of ideation, prototyping, and testing several ideas until designers identify a single solution with the most potential to:

• Solve the problem
• Align with user needs
• Meet budget and technical constraints

In some circumstances, designers choose a single solution or select their best two or three ideas for high-fidelity prototyping and testing in the deliver phase. The first goal is to eliminate those that don’t work until you arrive at a single solution.

Once designers arrive at a single solution, they conduct further testing to refine the final prototype. During this round of testing, designers focus on usability and user experience to ensure the final result satisfies the design brief and stakeholders.

If designers encounter a problem, they return to the develop phase to find a solution, iterating and testing until they find a solution.

Once prototyping and testing are complete, design teams prepare for the design handoff, including documentation, annotations, assets, and other instructions engineers will use to develop the final product for release.

Lastly, design teams must conduct a UX audit and quality assurance to ensure the final release meets the project’s requirements, business goals, and user needs.

Who follows Double Diamond Design Framework?

The Double Diamond design framework is widely adopted by various organizations and professionals across different industries.

1. IDEO: As a pioneer in design thinking, IDEO incorporates the Double Diamond framework to structure its innovation processes. Tim Brown, co-chair at IDEO, has often highlighted the framework’s value in understanding problems before jumping to solutions​.
2. Design Council: The British Design Council, which developed the Double Diamond model, extensively uses and promotes this framework as a standard for best practices in design​.
3. Google: Google’s design sprints and product development processes often reflect the principles of the Double Diamond, focusing on deep problem understanding and iterative solution development.
4. Microsoft: Microsoft integrates the Double Diamond framework in its user experience and product design processes, particularly in teams focused on user-centered design and innovation.
5. University Design Programs: Many university programs, such as those at Stanford’s d.school and the Royal College of Art, teach the Double Diamond framework as part of their design thinking and innovation curricula. It provides students with a structured approach to tackling complex design challenges.
6. Charities and NGOs: Organizations like the Red Cross and UNICEF use the Double Diamond framework to design and implement programs that effectively address the needs of the communities they serve, ensuring a deep understanding of problems.

4 Phases of the Double Diamond Design Process

The Double Diamond design process comprises two diamonds and four phases (also called the four Ds):

1. Discover
2. Define
3. Develop
4. Deliver

Discover

Objective: To understand the problem space thoroughly by gathering insights and exploring the broader context of the design challenge.

• Activities: This phase involves extensive research, both qualitative and quantitative. Techniques include desk research, field studies, user interviews, focus groups, and observations. The goal is to gather as much relevant information as possible about the problem, the users, and the context in which the problem exists​.
• Outcome: A deep understanding of the problem space, including user needs, pain points, and opportunities for innovation. This phase aims to challenge assumptions and uncover insights that will inform the next phase​.

Define

Objective: To synthesize the insights gathered during the Discover phase into a clear and actionable problem statement.

• Activities: In this phase, designers analyze and organize the data collected. Techniques such as affinity diagrams, root-cause analysis, and the “5 Whys” method are used to identify the core issues and refine the problem definition. Design synthesis helps in distilling complex information into clear insights​.
• Outcome: A well-defined problem statement or design brief that provides a focused direction for developing solutions. This phase sets the stage for ideation and prototyping by clearly articulating what needs to be addressed​.

Develop

Objective: To ideate and prototype multiple potential solutions to the defined problem.

• Activities: This phase involves brainstorming, sketching, and creating prototypes. Tools like personas, wireframes, and Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) are used to visualize and test ideas. The development phase encourages divergent thinking, allowing for the exploration of various solutions and approaches​.
• Outcome: A range of prototypes or preliminary solutions that can be tested and iterated upon. The goal is to explore different ideas and refine them through feedback and testing, ensuring that the solutions are viable and effective​.

Deliver

Objective: To finalize and implement the best solution, and to evaluate its impact.

• Activities: In this phase, the most promising prototypes are refined and developed into final products or solutions. This involves extensive testing, validation, and iteration based on user feedback. Surveys, usability testing, and pilot programs are common methods used to gather final insights before launch.
• Outcome: A polished, user-validated product or solution that addresses the initial problem effectively. The Deliver phase also includes post-launch evaluation and gathering feedback to inform future improvements and iterations​.

How to use Double Diamond Design Process

Here’s a practical example of using a double diamon design process in your workflow.

Phase 1: Discover

1. User Research: Conduct interviews and surveys with target users.
2. Market Research: Study competitors and industry trends.
3. Stakeholder Interviews: Gather insights from stakeholders.
4. Empathy Mapping: Create empathy maps to understand user emotions and motivations.

Phase 2: Define

1. Synthesize Data: Use affinity diagrams to identify patterns.
2. Problem Statement: Develop a clear and concise problem statement.
3. User Journey Mapping: Map user journeys to pinpoint pain points.
4. Design Brief: Draft a brief outlining project goals and constraints.

Phase 3: Develop

1. Ideation: Brainstorm solutions through collaborative workshops.
2. Prototyping: Create wireframes and sketches.
3. User Testing: Test prototypes with real users.
4. Iteration: Refine designs based on feedback.

Phase 4: Deliver

1. High-Fidelity Prototypes: Finalize design details in high-fidelity mockups.
2. Development: Build the site with close collaboration between designers and developers.
3. Quality Assurance: Conduct extensive testing.
4. Launch and Monitor: Launch the site and continuously monitor performance for further improvements.

By following the double diamond design process, you ensure a thorough and user-centered approach to designing a new site, maximizing the chances of its success by deeply understanding user needs, exploring and refining solutions, and effectively implementing and launching the final product.

Try End-to-End UX Design With UXPin

Prototyping and testing are significant in the end-to-end design process, including the Double Diamond framework. Designers must use high-quality prototypes to thoroughly test potential solutions and achieve accurate results.

Unfortunately, high-fidelity prototyping can be slow with certain tools, which isn’t ideal when testing many ideas in the Double Diamond design process.

With fully interactive design from UXPin, designers don’t have to compromise on quality for speed. They can build high-fidelity prototypes that look and function like the final product. Better prototypes yield accurate results during testing, allowing designers to go beyond what’s possible with image-based design tools.

UXPin also comes standard with built-in design libraries, allowing design teams to drag and drop components to build high-fidelity mockups in minutes. In a few clicks, they can add Interactions to create prototypes with code-like functionality, including:

• States: create multiple states for any element, each with separate properties and interactions.
• Variables: capture user inputs and take action based on the data to create dynamic, personalized user experiences during testing.
• Conditional Interactions: create “if-then” and “if-else” rules to execute different reactions to user actions and inputs.
• Expressions: design functions to perform complex operations traditionally only available with code, including form validation, computational components, simulate password authentication, and more.

No matter the framework, UXPin can enhance your design process to create better user experiences for your customers. Sign up for a free trial and discover the possibilities of code-based design with UXPin.

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Are you searching for the best UX tool? If so, then you might have noticed that the tools out there vary greatly in terms of the features they offer. Because of that, it can be hard to assess if the user experience software you’re considering genuinely has all you need. Or, even, if you’ll need to get multiple design tools just to create a prototype from start to finish.

Luckily, all hope is not lost, as there is a way to find the perfect design software for your upcoming project. We’ll show you what key features you should be looking for and why they are necessary for the design process that makes product development fast and easy.

Looking for a tool that will support your development and design collaboration? Try UXPin for free.

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How should your UX tool help you in the design process?

There are seven key features that you should check off your list while searching for the right UX design platform. You’ll want to look for design software that: 

It has real-time collaboration

Real-time collaboration will allow you to work together with your team on the same project whether team members are in the same room or not. This increases productivity and enables those who are working remotely to interact with other team members in real time. UXPin, for example, features advanced collaboration abilities that allow you to get feedback on projects, leave comments, and even share prototypes.

You can also save your project and flip through previously saved versions on command. For an enhanced collaboration environment, you can also integrate Slack and Jira. You can also see any edits made by team members, which helps keep everyone on the same page. 

It has convenient design handoffs

As you know, once the prototype process is complete, the next step is to hand the prototype off to developers so that they can create the finished product. Unfortunately, this process isn’t as simple as it seems. Most high-end tools like Adobe XD allow the user to share design documents with other team members. While this is a simple process, the problem is that your designs are typically going to be rendered in vectors. On the other hand, UXPin will render your designs in code.

Since the design documents will be rendered in code instead of vectors, developers will have a clear understanding of each component in your design. On top of that, when creating the final product, developers can refer to your coded designs, which results in a faster and more convenient development process. When it comes down to it, coded designs help ensure that there is no misunderstanding or complications while the team works on bringing the product to life.

It’s equipped with interactive prototyping

Interactive prototyping is becoming more and more popular because it allows you to explore different design ideas by creating an interactive environment that lets you put your idea to the test. It is also great when you want to explain a design or pitch an idea, as others will be able to better understand the value that your design offers. UXPin is equipped with interactive prototyping features, and with it, you can:

• Give engineers or stakeholders an interactive experience of your design so that they can fully understand and experience what your product will look like.
• Test your products with real-life users to gather more accurate feedback and data on how users will go about using your design.
• Design prototypes that function like the finished product by using features such as states, variables, advanced interactions, and more.
• Add details to make your prototypes look closer to the finished product by using the “auto-generate” feature that will add names, images, and more to your design.
• Create interactive components such as button hovers and conditional navigation flows so as to best show off your design. 

With UXPin, your prototypes don’t have to be static and non-clickable designs. Instead, you can create dynamic prototypes that accurately reflect the look, user experience, and functionality of the finished product. 

It helps stakeholders understand your design 

As you know, when it comes to designing a product, it is critical to make sure that stakeholders and other interested parties are on the same page. That is why it is important to keep them involved throughout the design process, from brainstorming new ideas to testing out your design.

So, you’ll want to make sure you have a UX tool that:

• Allows stakeholders to experience and test out prototypes and design components via an interactive experience. This will help them understand your design and how it will play out when it is finished.
• Gives stakeholders the ability to leave feedback on your designs throughout the design process. Tools like UXPin allow others to add comments and questions on designs. You can then easily reply to their feedback all without ever having to be in the same room as them.

It helps designers communicate with developers

Designers are not only responsible for creating the design, but also for showing developers how to create the finished product. And so, communication is critical—especially in this day and age where remote work is becoming more of the norm. Because of that, having the right communication tools have become an essential part of the design process.

So, using tools such as UXPin, you can ensure that there is better communication and understanding between you and the developers. With UXPin’s Merge technology, you can also use the Git repository and Storybook integrations which let designers use the same technology as developers so as to produce consistency between the two teams. Plus, there is no need for designers to compromise on their own design process. UXPin’s Merge technology ensures that there is no extra work that the designer needs to perform to achieve that level of consistency between the teams.

Lastly, because Merge is a tool that both developers and designers use, both will be able to work on projects together without complications.

It’s a tool that doesn’t require you to buy plugins

If you’re like me, then you may find it annoying whenever you buy a product only to find that many of its features are locked behind a paywall. Unfortunately, that can be the case with many design tools on the market. 

A lot of design software out there is lacking needed features. So, it is not uncommon for designers to find themselves having to purchase plugins to complete their product. 

Thankfully, you don’t have to buy any plugins when using UXPin as all the necessary features are built-in and come at no additional costs. In other words, UXPin comes with everything you need to carry out your design from start to finish.

It’s available on both Mac and Windows, and is cloud-based

Design tools like Figma are only web-based. Because of that, designers can run into compatibility issues when using different devices as well as various limitations. So, it is important to find design software that is compatible and available on multiple systems including Mac, Windows, and cloud-based systems.

UXPin works across systems and can be used through desktop apps as well as on the web. On top of that, you can even import your Figma design to UXPin so that you have access to more features and increase usability across systems. 

You’ll also be able to download UXPin to your computer or simply use the web-based version. By using the downloaded software, you will have the additional ability to work on projects when offline. 

What’s more, UXPin also has a mobile app view. This allows you to create and test prototypes for mobile devices, which greatly helps assess the user experience of an app.

Try UX Design with UXPin 

All in all, UXPin is really a one-stop solution for all designers. It comes with all the features you could need such as being able to scale a design on command or engage in interactive prototyping. 

UXPin also comes with some of the best collaboration features, which will allow you to cooperate seamlessly with your team—regardless of whether you’re all working remotely or not. Plus, it is available across devices and systems which will ensure that there are no compatibility issues among team members.

So, whether you’re building out a simple design or a complex system, UXPin has all the features you need to complete a project from start to finish. Try UXPin for free here.

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Unity in UI design is the cohesive arrangement of different elements within a user interface to create a visually harmonious and coherent experience for the end user. It involves organizing interface components such as buttons, icons, text, images, and other graphical elements in a way that they appear to belong together and form a unified whole.

This unity plays a crucial role in enhancing usability, aesthetics, and user satisfaction by creating a cohesive and well-integrated interface that communicates the intended message and facilitates user interactions.

In 2024, unity still remains to be an important principle of design. The evolution of design software and tools has given designers more flexibility and capabilities to achieve unity in innovative ways. For example, advanced software features allow for more precise control over layout, typography, and color palette, making it easier to maintain unity across various platforms.

Build a unified user interfaces and keep them so between design and development. UXPin is a prototyping tool that’s committed to making user interfaces unified. Use its functionalities to achieve a sense of unity that’s easy to replicate in code. Try UXPin for free.

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What is unity principle of design ?

The unity principle of design is a fundamental concept in graphic and UI design as well as art. It refers to the idea of creating visual harmony and cohesion within the web design or app design. It involves organizing elements of design in a way that they appear to belong together and form a cohesive whole.

By applying the unity principle of design, designers can get a clear message across while keeping the design is visually appealing and easy to understand.

How does unity in design enhance user experience?

A unified interface enhances the overall user experience by making it easier for users to understand and navigate the interface. When elements are cohesive and consistent, users can more intuitively interact with the interface, leading to a smoother and more enjoyable experience.

Think of a webpage that doesn’t follow unity as the principle of design. Its header probably contains a mixture of different fonts, sizes, and colors for the logo, navigation menu, and contact information. The logo design clashes with the rest of the page. The navigation menu items are scattered randomly, with no consistent spacing or alignment. Text blocks vary in font size, color, and alignment, making it difficult for users to follow the content flow.

The website lacks a cohesive visual identity and appears haphazardly thrown together. It overwhelms users with conflicting visual elements, making it difficult to navigate and engage with the content. Users may feel disoriented and frustrated due to the lack of unity in design, ultimately leading to a negative user experience and high bounce rates.

Now, imagine a web design that that effectively follows the principle of unity. The heading features a clean and elegant logo that reflects the brand’s identity, using a simple and cohesive color scheme. A minimalist navigation menu is prominently displayed, with clear and consistent typography and use of white space.

The website embodies a sense of unity and coherence throughout its design, creating a tranquil and inviting user experience. The consistent use of color, typography, imagery, and layout reinforces the website’s theme and brand identity. Users feel immersed in a harmonious environment, enhancing their engagement and enjoyment of the website.

This kind of unity can be achieved through visual unity and conceptual unity. Let’s differentiate between the two.

Conceptual unity vs visual unity

Conceptual unity and visual unity are two aspects of design that play critical roles in creating cohesive and effective compositions, whether in art, graphic design, product design, or digital interfaces. Understanding the differences between these two types of unity can help designers better execute their projects according to the intended message or function.

Conceptual Unity

Conceptual unity refers to the coherence of the ideas behind a design. It focuses on the underlying theme or narrative that ties all elements of the work together. This type of unity is achieved when all parts of the design support a common message or concept, making the overall purpose of the design clear to the viewer.

Characteristics of Conceptual Unity:

• Theme Consistency: All elements support a central theme or idea.
• Message Cohesion: Every part of the design contributes to a unified message, enhancing the communication of a specific concept or story.
• Emotional or Psychological Impact: The design evokes a consistent emotional response or intellectual engagement from the audience, aligned with the intended concept.

For example, in a marketing campaign, conceptual unity might be achieved through consistent messaging that aligns with the brand’s values across different media and platforms, even if the visual presentation varies.

Visual Unity

Visual unity, on the other hand, refers to the visual cohesiveness of elements within a design. It involves arranging the visual components in a way that they all feel part of a whole, usually by using consistent colors, shapes, sizes, or repeating patterns. Visual unity is crucial in guiding the viewer’s eye across the design and creating a sense of harmony and balance.

Characteristics of Visual Unity:

• Repetition: Repeating visual elements like colors, shapes, or textures throughout the design.
• Alignment: Arranging elements in a way that lines up along common axes or follows a specific grid structure.
• Proximity: Grouping related items close together to emphasize their relationship.
• Continuation: Creating a visual flow that leads the viewer’s eye through the design in a deliberate path.

Visual unity can be achieved through the consistent use of color schemes, typography, and layout structures across different pages, ensuring the site feels cohesive and navigable.

How to create unified design

Creating a unified design involves a thoughtful process that combines both conceptual and visual elements to produce a cohesive result.

Step 1: Fill out a design brief.

Detail the purpose, goals, and target audience of your design project. Include any specific messages or emotions you want to convey. Then, specify any necessary elements or constraints, such as branding guidelines, budget limits, or timelines. Remember to address potential challenges upfront to streamline the design process.

Step 2: Conduct a design workshop.

Get all relevant stakeholders involved in a design workshop, a dedicated time to brainstorm ideas and ensure that the expectations are aligned. Use the workshop to generate creative ideas and explore different approaches to the design. The workshop should end with a clear, agreed-upon direction for the visual and conceptual development of the project.

Step 3: Establish a visual style.

Decide on colors, typography, imagery, and overall aesthetic that align with the design brief. This style should visually communicate the intended message and appeal to the target audience. Then, create a style guide that will document these choices to maintain consistency throughout the design process.

Step 4: Gather content.

Before designing a mockup, start with content. Content-first design will help you determine how to create visual hierarchy and visual interest on the webpage or app page. It will also help you decide which elements should have more visual weight than others.

Step 5: Create a mockup.

Create detailed mockups of your design, which may include digital sketches or prototypes. Refine these mockups by continuously applying design principles to enhance visual and conceptual unity. For example, use balance and alignment to create a structured, aesthetically pleasing layout, arrange content to guide the viewer’s attention effectively, using contrast to highlight key areas, and more.

Step 6: Get feedback.

Have team members and stakeholders review the mockups, focusing on how well they meet the design brief and convey the intended message. If possible, gather feedback from potential users or members of your target audience to get insights into the effectiveness and appeal of your design.

Step 7: Hand the design to development.

Share with devs a prototype that contains specifications such as dimensions, behavior, and interactions. Provide comprehensive documentation to support the developers, including style guides and interaction descriptions. Maintain communication throughout the implementation phase to address any issues that may arise and ensure the design integrity is maintained.

Practice using unity in design

Unity in UI design is about organizing interface elements such as buttons, icons, text, and images in a cohesive manner, ultimately leading to improved usability and user satisfaction.

In 2024, unity remains a vital aspect of design, with advancements in design software providing designers with more tools to achieve it creatively. For instance, advanced features in software like precise layout control and color palette management contribute to maintaining unity across various platforms.

Tools like UXPin facilitate the creation of unified user interfaces by offering functionalities that streamline the design-to-development process. By leveraging such tools, designers can ensure that the unity achieved in design translates seamlessly into the final product. Create user interface designs that have a sense of unity. Try UXPin for free.

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