This COVID-19 Lockdown, Learn New Skills and Design your own UX!

This COVID-19 Lockdown, Learn New Skills and Design your own UX!

Stuck home and waiting for the COVID-19 lockdown to end? It is perhaps time to lay back and learn something new. Anyways, the last time most of us voluntarily learnt something was probably back at college.

While we are all held indoors and cut off from our social lives, it is important that we take care of our mental health and keep ourselves motivated and happy. A sense of achievement surely makes one feel happy and on top of the world!

We at Yellow Slice are happy to share all the resources you would need to update your skills and become independent enough to design your own UX interface. We really hope that you try your hands on designing and reach out for any help or resources you would need.

If you are designing a website, it is quite possible that you do not know where to begin from. Deciding on the graphics, content, navigation, etc can be very taxing especially when one does not know where to begin from.

While delivering a fulfilling UX is no cakewalk, following a framework provides us with a basic structure about what goes where and how certain elements should be and make everything fall in place in a convenient manner.

A right UX is one which fine-tunes the interplay between visuals, information, psychology and easy navigation for an interface that provides optimal usability.

For user experience, technology and human interaction are the main factor to be taken care of. Here are some factors that form the foundation of a UX interface.

Psychology and Persuasion:

It is important to acknowledge the impact of emotions on decision making.

For the UX to have a more goal-oriented psychological impact, it is important that the following factors are taken care of:

1. The process should be perceived to be easy and user-friendly.
2. Visuals should be soft and appealing enough to trigger actions.
3. The text should be well spaced and easily readable to ensure that it receives its due importance and is not simply scanned through.
4. Ensure that the content is relatable. There is a reason marketers stress on storytelling through one’s products.
5. Place your product in such a manner that it screams attention and triggers sales.

Behaviour:

There are three main models of behaviour that are used whenever a user is on the web application: motivation, ability and trigger. Thus, it is important that behavioural patterns are triggered using appropriate motivational strategies.

Pop-ups or prompts with discount codes are a great way to trigger sales! This is another method of motivating behaviours that favour the website.

To properly understand how human behaviour is connected with UX

1. With the use of some strategies, the user is motivated to use or work with the interface.
2. To make someone motivated in their product, companies offer some discounts or rewards to them, this will directly trigger its behaviour and make them happy.

Visual Design:

Aesthetics are as important as any other element and should not be neglected at any cost.

A well thought visual design finds the right balance between the images, layouts, text, colours, theme and any audio-visual effects. However, ensure that does not have adverse effects on the loading time of the interface.

Here is a comprehensive checklist to follow while working on the visual design:

1. Even though different forms of content and graphics are used, they should look united and in sync.
2. Ensure that space is adequately used and in the most optimal manner by determining a hierarchy of content.
3. The scale or size of the on-screen content should be just ideal to the total space available.
4. Work the colours well. We emphasise on using the psychological pretexts of various colours to make a better impact.
5. Have a consistent design and colour scheme throughout all the pages. This adds an element of familiarity.
6. Symmetry with an occasional twist is always recommended.

Usability:

Unlike popular belief, usability is much more than just about the factor of ease of use of the product. It is about navigation, architecture, information as well as the load time. It is an interface’s usability that dictates how a user would react and would make decisions that favour the website.

If one aims for utmost usability, it is suggested that he/she incorporates the following elements:

1. Clear CTAs. Everyone is here with a purpose. We want them to fulfil them with utmost satisfaction.
2. Easy Navigation. Ensure that navigation buttons are easily acceptable.
3. Have a clear structure with easy switching between two webpages. A navigation trail would be of immense use for an information-driven website.

Interaction:

Even if it is passive, one is interacting with his app or website.

With the emergence of virtual assistants and Artificial Intelligence enabled chatbots interaction has taken a front seat. Be it simple storytelling or videos sharing testimonials, interactions are here to stay!

Here is how you can make your interaction on the website better:

1. Have a chatbot or a virtual assistant. If it helps, there is no looking back.
2. Deliver what the audience is looking for.
3. Predict the next action and design relevant navigation.

Content:

While everything else is back-end and ancillary, it is the content that is published that a visitor generates value out of.

During your content creation ensure that:

1. The content generates value.
2. It is the right balance of textual and graphical.
3. Any information being sought is easily accessible.

Besides, there are also multiple standardised UX Frameworks available online. Some of them include:

Hierarchy of User Experience Needs:

This framework symbolises hierarchy in a pyramid shape helping a designer prioritise various aspects of UX designing, that pyramid will consist of various factors such as-

• Desirability
• Confidence
• Features
• Usability
• Availability

UX Honeycomb:

For someone who wants to work on better technical details, this seems perfect. Here, UX design is broken into 7 parts viz. useful, desirable, accessible, credible, findable, usable, and valuable.

Elements of User Experience:

However, if someone wants to gain maximum conceptual knowledge, then this is the goto UX framework for the website/app owner, with the use of this particular element-oriented framework for User Experience you would be able to know the actual meaning of the design of the web application.

Factors considered in this framework are-

• Visual design
• Information design
• Site objectives
• Interaction design
• User needs

While designing one’s own UX is intriguing and fun, it does take a lot of expertise to design a UX that delivers. We at Yellow Slice are always here to offer UX designing services along with UX Consultations and Audit!

Stay indoors, grow your skills and stay happy.

FAQs For Learning Skills and Design for UX

Can I self-teach myself in UX design?

We at Yellow Slice are happy to share all the resources you would need to update your skills and become independent enough to design your own UX interface.

How do I create a personal UX project?

To create a personal UX project, it is important that one keep these things in mind, psychology, persuasion behaviour, visual design, usability, interaction, content, the hierarchy of user experience needs, and elements of user experience.

Is learning UI UX difficult?

UI UX is a field that requires a lot of creativity and critical thinking. It can be difficult to learn at first, but once you get the hang of it, it can be extremely rewarding.