Imagine yourself on a remote Anatolian country road. With a vehicle of land, you are taking the roads you have never known, taking a breather and sipping a bit of coffee in the village cave, which looks like a Nuri Bilge Ceylan movie set… It can be a really wonderful feeling. Well, imagine that the above event happened to you while you were trying to catch a meeting or go shopping to the grocery store. Then it will probably stress you out. The feeling of being lost can be exciting, relaxing or soothing for you. But only when you really want to get lost. Getting lost in the chaos of daily life and our responsibilities can even be a source of anxiety for us.

Whether the subject is the real world or the virtual world; In our daily life, we all want to find our way without getting lost in order to fulfill our responsibilities and reach our goals. When you need to use a machine, a website site, a mobile app or any other tool, we want to know how to do it.

We live in a world where waste user experience and design are discussed and taken seriously. Designers try to make the users' work easier by regulating the use of all kinds of tools within the framework of certain principles. Again, sometimes it is possible to feel disappointed by feeling that we are lost in websites. User experience and interface design principles exist to protect users from this sense of loss and to make the goals as simple as possible for them.

Below are 5 design principles for mobile apps and website designs that will help keep visitors away from the feeling of being lost. Although these principles will be exemplified through websites and mobile applications, they are principles that apply to any area where a human and a machine touch each other. By interface we mean a search field, a menu button, a dialog box, a dialog box, a selection pointer, a tool palette, a drag and drop feature, a web form, a simple button, and much more.

The interface is also the power button on your computer or the volume button on your phone. Interfaces, every area where we humans interact with our machines is an interface. As our area of ​​expertise, interfaces in web design are also important. Because no matter how quality content is found on your website, the thing that makes that content available and consumable in terms of people is the interface design. With a bad interface and user experience, the world may remain unaware of your valuable content.

The principles may be very clear and understandable at first glance, but when you look at the internet world, you can see that even such clear and clear design principles are not followed. For this reason, we may have to underline what is open again. After so much explanation, it's time to move on to principles;

1. Understand Your Users and Streamline Their Goals

Designing a car dashboard and the interface of a website is basically based on the same principles. The purpose of both is to ensure the most comfortable use of existing technical components and facilities at the maximum level. In both, the problem stems from the same point. Users gain experience through your design without directly relating to the hardware and software that provide the available technical facilities. Just as no one puts their hand in the gearbox and shifts gears while driving, they do not record anything in the database themselves on websites.

It is your duty to understand the goals of the user and to make them accessible in the most comfortable and efficient way. It is essential to know the user.

Important questions that are inevitable to be asked when creating a user-oriented interface design are:

  • Who are the users?
  • What are the main functions the user will need?
  • Why is the user using this particular piece of software / hardware and what are their goals?
  • Can users with different experience levels access the software / hardware?
  • What is the most efficient way for the user to interact with software / hardware?

2. Make Your Interface Easy to Learn and Enjoyable to Use

How important is hardware and engineering knowledge for an iPhone owner? He's probably just sensitive to easy and fun to use. Expanding what can be done on a mobile phone using just two fingers has created a big brand. People prefer tools that are easy to understand and fun to use. Think of the Angry Birds legend; Pull and throw the angry bird with one finger. So much.

When it comes to creating an easy and fun interface for a website or app, intuition should be the key concept for you. I can explain the concept of intuition as follows; actions that you don't need to think about to understand how to do it, that you don't need new knowledge to do, that are based on behavior you have already been doing. Do you want to enlarge the picture? Just enlarge it with two fingers. When you want to throw the angry bird in the slingshot, pull it away without any complicated work, as you have done since childhood.

3. Be Consistent and Always Stay Consistent

The main purpose of a user experience-centered interface design is to create a comfortable experience that demands as little attention from the user as possible, based on intuitive behavior. To be able to build such an experience, you must be consistent. This consistency is not as simple as the choice of colors and fonts. You should react the same when the user behaves the same. It should not surprise the user by changing the build responses.

It is still possible to find websites whose basic components change depending on the page you are on. Essential components such as the location of a search bar, menu items or buttons should be in the same place and shape regardless of the pages. Changing them is like changing the gears of the car you drive according to the road. When you learn how to drive, you can change the gear without having to look at the gear, and you know the location of the gas and brake. Think of a design that you have to check them all out every time.

4. Make Your Design Talk To Your Users

I do not mean a conversation by talking here. When the user interacts with your website or mobile application, do not leave them alone. Let your user know what is happening.
Imagine filling out a contact form on a website. When you click the submit button, the refresh of the form as blank will make you doubt. "Did a mistake happen?", "Should I refill?"
When you receive a form, let your user know when they upload a picture, write a comment.
“Your form has been sent to us. A return will be provided as soon as possible ”,“ Your information has been forwarded to us ”or“ Today is my girlfriend's birthday, but I'll be back tomorrow ”... No matter what you say. Just don't leave your user alone with a lifeless interface.

5. Plan a Hassle-Free Experience and Be Hassle-Free

Testing is not the most enjoyable part of any job. But testing is a must for every design! The world is more competitive than ever. Nobody is unique in their market. For every brand and business, there are competitors looking out for mistakes. If you imagine customers who will notify you of a malfunction on your website and wait for you to correct it before purchasing, you are wrong. There is no such world.
Errors on your website do not have to be caused by software. A bad interface design is also a factor that will affect your customer experience. The best way to test this is to watch real people using your system. Are people having trouble finding targets on your website? How are the movements of internet users with different experiences?
In areas where competition is fierce, people will go to experience your opponent instead of getting lost in your interface. You should regularly analyze the behavior of your visitors who have reached the target and plan for improvements.

Result

How beautiful a website is does not directly affect its success. As someone who is sensitive about design, I can examine a website I like very much, show someone its design, and admire it. But the immediate next thing is whether this website is usable and useful. You don't endure a useless and useless website just because it's beautiful. As everyone says “Content is King” but content needs to be found and accessed.

The great thing about user experience-centric interface design is that it never stays in place. It brings together many different disciplines such as hardware and software engineering, ergonomics, psychology, sociology, linguistics, and computer science. Thus, it becomes a field that you need to constantly research, inspect and renew.