One of the most important things to keep in mind when designing a mobile application is to make sure your application is useful and intuitive. If the program is useless, then it has no real value to the user, and naturally no one has any reason to use it. And if the program is useful but requires a lot of learning costs, users will not be willing to invest in learning.
Good interface design can overcome these two problems:
For usability purposes, applications should be user-centric. Users install your application because they need to solve a pressing problem, which means your application must be useful. Consider carefully how users will try to accomplish their goals in their own way.
Give the interface enough clarity. In order to use the user interface they are presented with effectively, people must first be aware of what the interface is for and how it should be used. Therefore, never hesitate to consider whether the interface should be clear.
Here are my nine core principles to consider when creating a good user experience design:
1. Reduce clutter
Your user’s attention is a valuable resource for the user experience, and your design should allocate it wisely. If your user interface is cluttered with buttons, images, text, etc., it can lead to information overload and stress for users.
There was a famous phrase from Antoine de Saint-Exupery that “perfection is achieved not by being too good, but by being so good that it is not superfluous.” Similarly, in mobile design, it is important to get rid of all information that is not absolutely necessary because it reduces confusion and improves user understanding.
Here’s a simple rule of thumb: Save only one important action per screen. For your application, each screen should provide a separate action of real value to the user who uses it. This makes it easy to learn, easy to use, and easy to add or create when necessary. A hundred clear screens are preferable to a messy one.
Uber, for example, knows that the purpose of using the app is to hail a car, so there’s not much information in the app: it automatically locates the user based on geographic data, and the only thing the user needs to do is choose a car location.
2. Make navigation self-explanatory
Helping users navigate to the right place is an important part of any application. Good navigation design is like an invisible hand guiding the user’s journey. After all, it doesn’t matter how cool a feature or even the most compelling piece of content is if users can’t find it. Good mobile navigation follows the following basic principles:
(1) Navigation must be coherent. First, you should use appropriate markers (the right visual metaphor) so that navigation elements can be understood without additional explanation, and second, make sure that each navigation element (such as a chart) points to the right destination.
(2) Navigation must be consistent. Never move navigation controls to different locations or hide them on different pages. It’s easy to get lost.
(3) Navigation should convey the user’s current location. The inability to indicate the current location is probably the most common problem we see in application menus. “Where am I? Is one of the basic questions that users must answer in order to navigate successfully.
3. Create a seamless experience across platforms
You shouldn’t think of mobile design as isolated. Creating a seamless experience on mobile, desktop, and tablet is very important for users.
In the case of Apple Music, you set up a playlist on your Mac and soon see it on your iPhone. Apple realized that it was important to keep this data synchronized across platforms and create a seamless experience.
4, design finger friendly controls
Small controls are naturally more difficult to operate than large touch controls. When designing user interfaces for mobile devices, it’s best to make your controls large enough to be easily accessible to users.
The size of the control should be 7-10 mm, so that the user can accurately touch it with their fingers. ; On the other hand, the edge of the control should be visible when the user interacts with it, providing clear visual feedback to the user that they are actually touching the control itself.
Also, make sure there is appropriate white space between the different controls.
5. The text should be clear enough
Compared to desktop computers, smartphone screens are much smaller, which means that how to fit a large amount of information onto such a small screen is a challenge for mobile design. It may be tempting to think that you can compress all the information in size and still display a lot of content. However, you should put an end to this idea.
A rule of thumb for mobile devices: Text should be at least 11pt in size so that users can read it clearly without having to zoom in.
Readability can be improved by increasing line height or character spacing, and the right amount of white space can make even the most cluttered interfaces look cleaner.
Keep interface elements clearly visible
Use color and contrast to help users see and interpret your content. Choose primary, secondary, and accent colors that support the usability of your application, and make sure there is enough color contrast between different interface elements to allow users with poor vision to navigate your application.
For text with a background, make sure there is enough contrast between the color of the text and its background color to make parts of the text clear and easy to read. The W3C recommends the following ratios for contrast between text and image text:
The contrast between small text and its background color should be at least 4.5:1.
Large text (14 pt bold/18 pt regular and above) should have at least 3:1 contrast with its background color.
Using enough contrast is especially important on mobile phones: since users may use it outdoors, sunlight can reduce the contrast.
ICONS and other key elements should also follow the contrast recommendations above.
7. Design the layout and position of the control based on the touch point of the finger
Steven Hoover, in his study “How Users Really Use Mobile Devices,” found that 49% of people are used to using a single thumb for everything. In the image below, different colored areas of the screen indicate the difficulty level that the user’s thumb can reach, with green areas indicating easy to reach, yellow areas indicating thumb extension, and red areas requiring the user to change the way the device is held.
It’s important to put top menus, frequently used controls, and public actions in the green area, because one thumb can interact with them comfortably.
On the other hand, put negative actions (such as delete or erase) in the red zone where the finger can’t easily reach because we don’t want the user to accidentally interact with them.
8. Reduce the need for typing
Typing on a phone is a slow and error-prone process, so it’s best to minimize the amount of typing required in a mobile application.
Remove unnecessary input fields and keep the form short.
Where appropriate, use autocomplete or fill in user personalization data so that users enter minimal information.
9. Test your design
Your design works great on a large computer screen, but not half as well when tested on an actual phone screen. Even the most painstakingly designed user interfaces can contain hidden flaws in the real world, which is why we want real users to test our application on a variety of mobile devices. Think of your application as an evolving entity, using the results of analytics and user feedback to continually improve your user experience design.
As with any other design element, the guidelines mentioned in this article are probably only a few that we can start with. Try to filter these principles with your own ideas and find the ones that work best for you. It’s important to remember that design isn’t just for designers — it’s for users, for users.
Translation: https://uxplanet.org/mobile-ux-design-key-principles-dee1a632f9e6#.sn26p06x1