It’s important in UX design to create a project that is not confusing and avoids causing stress to its visitors because the user experience represents a priority and must be intuitive and effortless. So, here comes the designer's role, which is preventing users from having a confusing navigation experience when interacting with a website or product.
In order to make sure that all visitor interactions are smooth and issue-free, designers should follow certain rules and recommendations that are crucial in UX design.
In this article, you will learn how to create a UX design that users find easy to navigate through while being visually appealing at the same time.
Usability UX Heuristics represent general rules, also known as guidelines, that should be followed by specialists and designers in order to create a website, app, or a design product that is at the same time easy to use and understand.
There are 10 Usability rules that Jakon Nielsen along with Rolf Molich developed in 1990 focusing on the basic usability recommendations that every app or website should have in order to work properly.
Although it has been quite some time since Nielsen and Molich developed these rules, they still apply today to all UX designs, because besides the modern elements and animations, the design structure remains the same. So, usability UX heuristics represent general rules that all users must follow to create great digital products for users.
1. Visibility of System Status
This first principle is a crucial one in UX design because it focuses on keeping all users informed about their actions on the website or app. What can be more trustworthy than a digital product that offers feedback and it’s predictable? That's exactly what X does - and it's the best example for a real-life case study of aesthetics and usability in one app.
If all websites or apps implement this System Status, users will learn much faster what the immediate result of their actions and can determine what is the next step. The loading indicators when something is processed in the product represent the perfect example of this rule.
2. Match Between the System And The Real World
It’s important to integrate real-world objects directly into app icons or processes in order to make them all more logical.
Users are more likely to use an app that has icons and other elements that are similar to real-world objects because they will know how to use and interact with it. For example, the alarm app has a clock icon in order to be easily recognized by users. Same with the mail, calendar, telephone, and other apps.
3. User Control And Freedom
It’s true that users always make different mistakes or change their minds after interacting with something, so it’s important to have a feature that can revert their actions. Considered by some users an “emergency exit”, this feature should allow them to cancel or undo certain actions without a lot of effort.
This way, users will feel less anxious when navigating through a digital product.
4. Consistency and Standards
Every design must have consistency in elements and the overall interface in order to avoid any confusion. When all the elements, icons, and images are created with the same structure, the cognitive load will significantly decrease, making people less stressed when navigating.
Visual consistency focuses on elements such as menus, labels, and fonts. Functional consistency ensures that all the website or app’s controls and components function in a similar way to make the digital product more predictable. Also, the internal and external standards ensure that visual and functional consistency can be maintained throughout the entire design.
5. Error Prevention
A good design should always avoid certain problems that users might experience in their navigation experience. The perfect example is a delete button that can be accidentally clicked and have a document or folder permanently deleted.
To avoid all the frustration that might occur, creating a warning message will be the best way to confirm the user’s decision before finalizing the process.
6. Recognition Rather Than Recall
Almost all these rules aim to reduce the user’s cognitive load, and so does this rule. It’s important to create and maintain other options visible in the design when looking for something. Users are more likely to recognize a certain element or feature rather than remember it without any help. Try an integrate this UX Heuristic principle with the one that matches the real-world elements in order to transform any design into a recognizable digital product.
7. Flexibility and Efficiency of Use
A certain system should allow a higher level of flexibility to accommodate the different needs of users. It’s important to display for every process or action the basic functions that can be accessed by everyone, such as shortcuts. This way, your design will allow users to simplify their tasks and streamline the overall workflow.
8. Minimalist Design
The minimalism principle is all about maintaining a design simple and clean without unnecessary elements that are most likely to distract the user from the main action. Every design should indeed be visually appealing in order to attract the user’s attention, but it should not have additional elements that don’t have a specific purpose.
9. Help Users Recognize And Recover From Errors
This rule must ensure that users will easily recognize their errors and recover from them without additional offers. The system must always indicate a certain product and provide a solution for it. For example, when choosing your password for any account, the system tells users when the password may maybe too weak and how they can improve it immediately.
10. Help and Documentation
In the best scenario, a website or app should not require any further explanations, but it’s important to offer users additional information to make sure that they understand how to complete certain actions or tasks.
PRO Tip: make sure that all these rules and recommendations are integrated correctly into the digital product, designers have unlimited options for usability testing. There are a lot of user testing tools available that provide an easy-to-use interface and perform a lot of usability tests. With these, every designer can make sure that all these standards are working smoothly to ensure the best user experience.
We at uinkits understand the importance of great user experiences and creating amazing UI designs. That’s why we’ve developed a Figma UI Kit with design components that include these essential UI elements that enable you to design intuitive and user-friendly interfaces effortlessly.
“You press the button, we do the rest.” – Kodak.
Inspired by this iconic tagline from Kodak, we believe in simplifying the design process for you. Our Figma UI Kit, uinkits, is a complete design system with UI components that allows you, as a UI UX designer, to create your products as quickly as pressing a button.
Our design system includes UI components, icons, variables, cards, buttons and everything you need for your design process. All you have to do is take your UI design component needed, and you’re ready to use it in your designs!
