Common UX mistakes that you can avoid while designing

If you ask people about the importance of UI/UX design, you would be surprised by the ignorance that comes your way. A captivating UI/UX is the reason why you remember certain apps from the first use. And then there are ones that fail to make an impact or leave an ill impression on a user’s mind.

Every element that fills your app screen accounts for an overall experience as your user gets acquainted with your app. UI/UX design is one of the most crucial areas of website or app development.

This blog offers information on the top 5 mistakes that should be avoided to invite an enriching experience for your application.

Top 5 UI/UX Mistakes that should be Avoided while Designing:

Absence of Text Hierarchy:

Content is going to be an evident part of an application. Especially if you’re developing a web app. All the informational content is represented in textual format. Thus, it’s of utmost importance that your text is readable, organized, and arresting.

It’s a designer’s job to make comprehensive designs. Here are some things to keep in mind while designing.

• Use visible contrast between size, color, and weight to offer an evident view of the text.
• Always start with a big title that helps the user make note of the subject, you want to offer information on. Use smaller fonts and sub-headings to share the information you want to share.
• Use appropriate spacing in between texts and different blocks of texts with adequate white space in between.
• To get a better deal, you should be aware of website redesign cost.

A well-balanced hierarchy between different headings, sub-headings, body, and other elements of the screen invites the reader’s quick attention. Text hierarchy can be used to help users find exactly what they’re looking for without making them work for it.

Clear Call to Action:

‘Call to Actions’ (CTA) are strategically placed marketing options that aim to get your niche to respond by taking the necessary action. It is a hint to potential customers to make them aware of what can be done next if they’re interested in what you’re trying to offer. The call to action options is generally placed at the end of the page or at times in various places throughout a page.

Nowadays, many new businesses don’t include the call to action option in the marketing or sales pitches. This is due to one of the two reasons mentioned below.

1. Placing trust in the customer that they already know what to do if they want to learn more or buy the offered service or product.
2. The fear that a call to action is an annoying way to get a customer to do what you want.

You might think that the most prominent use of a call to action is the “Buy Now” or “Add to cart” buttons that you see but that is certainly not the case. At times a company sells high-priced products which can take time to convince a user. In such cases, a roadmap towards the sales will sound most appropriate. For example, you can say “Fill this request form to get a free quotation” or “call now to get a free estimate”.

Using a call to action is widely dependent on the type of business or service you want to promote. Understanding this with the help of a few examples, to promote and educate customers about your company one can use CTA like “Sign Up for a newsletter”, while something like “Follow us on Facebook for latest updates” can be used to increase your social media followers.

Some of the most frequently used action verbs are:

• Buy Now
• Download
• Click here for
• Order now
• Share
• Subscribe
• Register
• Sign Up

Making optimum use of call-to-actions can surge your sales up like no other promotional strategy.

Effectual Padding & Spacing:

Readers are always looking for the one information that they need at a particular instant in time. It is so important that you design your pages in such a way that the user finds what they are looking for as quickly as possible.

The best apps that we use today have made sure we get just what we need and when we need it, so they become hard to ignore. Using effectual padding and spacing to highlight what you want to offer can prove to be very satisfying for a user. Certain common options like “Buy Now” or “Sign-Up/Sign-in” are one of the first things a user looks for. Following well-structured padding and spacing practices can enhance the UX to a great extent.

While using spaces one should always opt for using equal-sized spacing around the logical blocks (e.g. left and right sides, and on top and bottom). If your page looks messy due to inappropriate spacings then users might not understand or give equal consideration to each of the offered sections.

Padding is the space inside a particular logical block whereas a margin is a space outside something. So, padding in a way highlights the option or feature that is available on that particular block. It gives the required limelight to the biggest and most important elements.

Confusing Iconography:

Icons are incredibly useful elements as they convey an exact meaning to an option while using a really small space on the screen. They’re the basic elements in small devices like a mobile phone.

While mobile applications use icons almost as buttons. Just check out Instagram, it’d offer you the exact information via icons. But this is not as simple as it sounds here.

If you look from a programmer’s perspective, they look for hours and days to design the just-right icon. This is because of this basic reason that they have to use an icon that is most simply understood by a user and not as per their filter or understanding of icons.

So, if you’re designing an app that appeals to a wide range of people belonging to different age groups, then you’d have to factor in the most obvious and simplest ways to help a user understand what you’re trying to say through an icon. Some important tips to choose the right icons include:

• Using equal line width after resizing.
• Setting an equal corner radius for every icon in your set.
• Using rectangular or rounded-shaped icons at different places.

Choosing the right icons will inevitably reduce a user’s hard work and offer them the quickest possible results. It can be a bit frustrating or time-consuming to choose just the right icons but always remember this “It only has to work once”.

Not Thinking Cross-Platform:

While thinking about design one has to make sure that the designs they choose are displayed in the same way on any screen irrespective of the platform. Some businesses work more with mobile applications and have a landing site for a promotional and informational basis.

Such apps are going to be accessed by a wide variety of users having different devices. Your app’s design won’t fit each screen with different aspect ratios, screen sizes, and different platforms until it is coded very intelligently. So, if you’re thinking of going launch apps for both platforms from the start then uniformity of design is something that you should definitely pay attention to.

It so always happens that certain UI elements function very well for mobile devices but not so much when subjected to desktops and vice versa. This is why it is important to test the design on as many devices as possible before the final launch.

Thinking cross-platform will help your designers develop and design an app in a more intelligent way. The process can be a bit cumbersome but will yield fruitful results if observed with the right practices.

How can you get Assist in Design & Development:

We have been designing web and mobile applications for a long time. It’s always a good option to seek help from professional web design services if you don’t want to deal with technical jargon. The expertise we’ve cultivated speaks volumes of the persistent hard work that has gone behind developing each and every project that we’ve undertaken.

The 100+ clients that have invested in us include one of the top real estate websites in the US. Other than our web and mobile app development services we have done some notable work with Augmented Reality. Some of our other evident feats are the On-Demand Apps that we’ve developed for our clients over the globe. We also offer MVP development services to businesses of all scales. Our development rates are the cheapest as compared to other European countries and the US. You should check Google's UX design certificate before hiring.