We had a great talk with Bjarne Stroustrup, the designer and original implementer of C++. He is also the author of The C++ Programming Language (Fourth Edition), A Tour of C++ (Second Edition), Programming: Principles and Practice Using C++ (Second Edition), and many popular academic publications.
Enjoy the full interview below!
UX laws are an invaluable tool, providing guidelines for designers that ensure we don’t have to continually reinvent the wheel when crafting experiences for the web.
However, UX laws tend to be devised by scientists and psychologists — people who are more than comfortable with the exceptions and allowances of academic language. By the time they filter down to us in the trenches, the language has invariably been over-simplified, and the wisdom behind the idea diluted.
Today we’re going to look at seven well-known and commonly cited rules of UX design that too many designers get wrong.
Jakob’s Law, named for the UX researcher Jakob Nielsen, states that users spend most of their time on other sites and as a result prefer sites that work the same way as the sites they already know.
Jakob’s Law has often been used to limit experimentation and encourage the adoption of common design patterns in the name of usability.
However, the word ‘prefer’ is hugely loaded. While it’s true that a user will more easily understand a familiar design pattern, they do not necessarily prefer familiar experiences.
It has been widely proved that new experiences boost our mood and that new experiences improve our memory. If your goal is a memorable site that leaves users with a positive impression, introducing novelty is a sound decision.
The Goal Gradient Hypothesis assumes that the closer users are to their goal, the more likely they are to complete it.
It’s an attractive theory, especially in e-commerce, where it is often used to justify simplifying the initial purchase process and postponing complexity to move users along the funnel — a typical example is leaving shipping charges until the final step.
However, anyone who has studied e-commerce analytics will know that cart abandonment is a huge issue. In North America, shopping cart abandonment is as high as 74%.
We don’t always know what the user’s goals are, and they may not match ours. It may be that users are treating your shopping cart as a bookmark feature, it may be that they have a last-minute change of heart, or they may be horrified by the shipping charges.
While providing a user with an indication of their progress is demonstrably helpful, artificially inflating their proximity to your preferred goal may actually hinder conversions.
Never in the whole of human history has any scientific statement been as misunderstood as Miller’s Law.
Miller’s Law states that an average person can only hold seven, plus or minus two (i.e., 5–9) items in their working memory. This has frequently been used to restrict UI navigation to no more than five items.
However, Miller’s Law does not apply to items being displayed. While it’s true that too many options can lead to choice paralysis, a human being is capable of considering more than nine different items.
Miller’s Law only applies to UI elements like carousels, which have been widely discredited for other reasons.
Edmund Burke once said, “Beauty is the promise of happiness.” That belief is central to the Aesthetic-Usability Effect, which posits that users expect aesthetically pleasing designs to be more usable.
Designers often use this as a justification for grey-on-grey text, slick animations, and minimal navigation.
Critical to understanding this is that just because users expect a design to be usable does not mean that it is or that they will find it so. Expectations can quickly be dashed, and disappointment often compounds negative experiences.
The Peak-End Rule states that users judge an experience based on how they felt at the peak and the end, rather than an average of the experience.
Designers commonly use the Peak-End Rule to focus design resources on the primary goal of each experience (e.g. adding an item to a cart) and the closing experience (e.g. paying for the item).
However, while the Peak-End Law is perfectly valid, it cannot apply to open experiences like websites when it is impossible to identify a user’s starting or ending point.
Additionally, it is easy to see every interaction on a website as a peak and even easier to make assumptions as to which peak is most important. As such, while designing for peaks is attractive, it’s more important to design for exceptions.
In the 1950s, Paul Fitts demonstrated that the distance to, and size of a target, affect the error rate of selecting that target. In other words, it’s harder to tap a small button and exponentially harder to tap a small button that is further away.
UX designers commonly apply this law when considering mobile breakpoints due to the relatively small viewport. However, mobile viewports tend not to be large enough for any distance to affect tap accuracy.
Fitts’ Law can be applied to desktop breakpoints, as the distances on a large monitor can be enough to have an impact. However, the majority of large viewports use a mouse, which allows for positional corrections before tapping.
Tappable targets should be large enough to be easily selected, spaced sufficiently, and tab-selection should be enabled. But distance has minimal impact on web design.
No collection of UX laws would be complete without Occam’s Razor; unfortunately, this is another law that is commonly misapplied.
Occam’s Razor states that given any choice, the option with the least assumptions (note: not necessarily the simplest, as it is often misquoted) is the correct choice.
In an industry in which we have numerous options to test, measure, and analyze our user interfaces, you shouldn’t need to make assumptions. Even when we don’t need extensive UX testing, we can make decisions based on other designers’ findings.
Occam’s Razor is a classic design trap: the key to avoiding it is to recognize that it’s not your assumptions that matter, it’s the users’. As such, Occam’s Razor applies to a user’s experience, not a design process.
The post 7 UX Laws You’Re Probably Getting Wrong first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.
Enabled by the rise of transformers in Natural Language Processing (NLP), we’ve seen a flurry of astounding deep learning models for writing code in recent years. Computer programs that can write computer programs, generally known as the program synthesis problem, have been of research interest since at least the late 1960s (pdf) and early 1970s.
In the 2010s and 2020s, program synthesis research has been re-invigorated by the success of attention-based models in other sequence domains, namely the strategy of pre-training massive attention-based neural models (transformers) with millions or billions of parameters on hundreds of gigabytes of text.
In scanning the IT landscape, the call for DevOps engineers remains toward the top of many companies’ priorities. A nationwide search through various job posting sites returns literally thousands of DevOps opportunities. However, reviewing these job postings shows that the skillsets required are widely varied. In comparison, software development job descriptions and requirements tend to have a narrower focus – broadly speaking, a language and a particular framework. DevOps job descriptions and requirements range from implementing continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) processes, to building infrastructure, to configuration management, to cloud operations, to writing code in any number of languages, and so on. It’s an impressive and intimidating list. Have you considered joining the DevOps wave but have been challenged in getting a clear picture of what DevOps is or means? If so, you’re not alone.
While many organizations have DevOps teams, even within a single organization, there are likely to be multiple roles within a DevOps team. Why is that? The reason is that DevOps is a process, and various roles within a DevOps team each contribute to the process. The DevOps process is a product of the evolution of Agile development processes. With Agile, production-quality software is iteratively delivered, which drives the need to deploy software more often. The process of getting software into production needed to be streamlined, thus the DevOps movement and process was born.
The underlying theme of this month’s collection of new tools and resources is development. Almost every tool here makes dev a little easier, quicker, or plain fun. There are a few great tutorials in the mix to help you get into the spirit of trying new things and techniques.
Here’s what is new for designers this month…
Cryptofonts is a huge open-source library of icons that represent cryptocurrencies. There are more than 1,500 CSS and SVG elements in the collection. Cryptofonts includes all scalable vector icons that you can customize by size, color, shadow, or practically anything else. They work with Sketch, Photoshop, Illustrator, Adobe XD, Figma, and Invision Studio, and there’s no JavaScript.
Reasonable Colors is an open-source color system for building accessible and beautiful color palettes. Colors are built using a coded chart. Each color comes in six numbered shades. The difference between their shade numbers can infer the contrast between any two shades. The differences correspond to WCAG contrast ratios to help you create an accessible palette. This is a smart project and a valuable tool if you work on projects where color contrast and accessibility are essential (which is all of them).
Chalk.ist is a fun tool to make your code snippets look amazing. Add your code (there’s a vast language selector), pick some colors and backgrounds, and then download it as a shareable image. Your code has never looked so beautiful!
WeekToDo is a free minimalist weekly planner. Improve productivity by defining and managing your week and life easily and intuitively. Plus, this tool is focused on privacy with data that is stored on your computer (in your web browser or the application). The only person who has access to it is you.
Bio.Link is a tool that collects all your links – from social media to blog posts to any other kind of link you want to share. It’s free to use, includes 15 design themes, visitor stats, and is super fast.
Spacers are a set of three-dimensional space characters that you can use in projects. Characters are in multiple poses and ultra high-def formats to play with.
11ty is a super simple, static website generator. Try it for small projects and read the documentation to see everything you can do with this tool.
Scrollex is a react library that lets you build beautiful scroll experiences using minimal code. You can create scroll animations in all kinds of combinations – vertical, horizontal, almost anything you want to try. The documentation is fun and easy to understand if you’re going to see how it works.
GetCam is an app that lets you turn your smartphone into a webcam for your computer. It works with any iPhone and a Mac or Windows computer. It works with most video conference and streaming tools as well as browser-based apps.
Flatfile is a data onboarding platform that intuitively makes sense of the jumbled data customers import and transforms it into the format you rely on. You won’t have any more messy spreadsheets or have to build a custom tool.
Loaders is a collection of free loaders and spinners for web projects. They are built with HTML, CSS, and SVG and are available for React and copypasta.
Lexical is an extensible JavaScript web text-editor framework emphasizing reliability, accessibility, and performance. It’s made for developers, so you can easily prototype and build features with confidence. Combined with a highly extensible architecture, Lexical allows developers to create unique text editing experiences that scale in size and functionality.
This tutorial is a primer on why the img element is such a powerful tool in your development box. Images are so prominent that they are part of the most important content in over 70% of pages on both mobile and desktop, according to the largest contentful paint metric. This post takes you through how to better optimize and improve core web vitals simultaneously.
Building a Combined CSS-Aspect-Ratio-Grid provides two solutions for creating the title effect. You can define an aspect ratio for the row or use Flexbox with a little flex grow magic. Learn how to try it both ways.
QIndR is a QR code generator made for events and appointments. The form is designed to capture your event information so you can quickly build and use a QR code for listings and even allow users to add it to their calendars! It’s super quick and easy to use.
On-Scroll Text Repetition Animation shows you how to create an on-scroll animation that shows repeated fragments of a big text element. This is a fun and easy lesson that you can use right away.
Eight Colors won’t do anything for your productivity, but it is a fun game that you may not be able to stop playing. It is a block-shifting game with the goal to shift circular blocks to reach the target given.
Creative Vintage is a pair of typefaces including a thin script and vintage slab serif (with rough and smooth styles). The pair is designed to work together for various uses or can be used independently.
Hardbop is a vintage-style typeface with a lot of personality. It would work great for display, and the family includes seven full-style character sets.
Kocha is a funky ligature-style typeface perfect for lighter design elements, including logos or packaging. It includes clean and rough versions.
Magnify is a large font family with 16 styles and plenty of fun alternates. You can use it straight or with the more funky styles that create less traditional character forms.
Stacker is a fun and futuristic style font with a triple outline style. Use it for display when you really want to make an impression.
The post Exciting New Tools for Designers, May 2022 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.
There are long-standing patterns in design that help us understand what the user wants and which solution will work best. These are referred to as design patterns. This article will explain how patterns help us appropriately construct an interface. We’ll dissect features like buttons, navigation, accordions, and date selection with examples.
This article will be helpful to both new and experienced designers who want to learn more about how to use interactive features and when to use them. If you’ve been in the industry for more than a year, you’ll know that nothing is black and white and that multiple ways can address the same problem depending on the situation.
First, consider the following question: which of the buttons depicted in the graphic is better?
The first button will appear to be the obvious choice for many people. Indeed, it is a well-known pattern that most people will recognize; it is the perfect solution for many projects. However, if customers understand the context, they are less concerned with the shape; therefore, there is no need for the designer to think in stereotypical terms. The context or states of a button can demonstrate that it is a button. When we place the cursor at an interactive feature on one website, it turns into a circle. “View” will be written inside the circle. The interface will be less cluttered as a result, and you will be able to clearly show the user that they are dealing with an interactive interface.
Next, which of these two Skip and Sign Up buttons, each with a distinct design accent, is better?
Many people would most likely vote for the first couple. That was something I used to do as well. However, put yourself in the shoes of a user and observe what this interface expects of you. They also want us to collect data at registration, which they emphasize. You can, however, skip this step. Is it up to par? Yes, because many users are hesitant to register on the site and provide personal information. We decide for the user which action is a priority when we show this hierarchy of buttons. But why not let them make their own decision? This is becoming a more prevalent strategy nowadays. For example, we see two identically filled buttons at Nike: Register and Learn more.
Apple uses the Learn More and Buy buttons the same way. The latter isn’t a large red button that screams, “Buy now! Buy now!” The user also can decide what is more important right now.
And here’s another question: if you had to choose between Cancel and Save, which would you put first?
It’s difficult to say whether Cancel should be displayed first or Save. Assume I issue a command. Which is more important: having a button in the interface for the desired action or seeing all of the answer alternatives and then deciding? Designers frequently choose the second choice, but it is unimportant.
According to Nielsen Norman Group research, both the first and second patterns are understandable for customers. Android and iOS are two examples of this, as they use both methods. They all have their own set of benefits.
I enjoy how Apple handles this in macOS. The emphasis is on canceling the action if you are assigned an irreversible task (such as deleting data from the recycle bin). The user must fully comprehend that they cannot retrievd anything they delete.
So, when working with buttons, do the following:
I’ll also begin the navigation section with an example question. Consider a site’s navigational block and a logo (a circle on the slide). Is it better to put the logo in the middle of the navigation or on the left side?
Both options appear to be equivalent. However, according to various research, the upper left corner is still preferable. There are numerous explanations for this. Because we read from left to right, the logo is the first thing we see. It’s also a marker that tells the user where they came from.
The NNG research center conducted an interesting experiment on this topic. Users were tasked with purchasing a specific item from an online store. At the same time, the list did not include any well-known stores, only local businesses. Some sites’ logos were on the left side of the navigation, while others were in the middle. Commodities were purchased, but the users had no idea what was being tested in the trial. After a while, they were asked for the company’s name from which they purchased the merchandise on the internet. People remembered both the brand and the company name better when the logo was on the left. As a result, having the logo on the left is likely to be significantly better—especially for well-known organizations. Of course, this doesn’t stop a lot of websites from putting their logo in the middle of the navigation box.
Consider a site that displays page links in a burger-style menu. Is it better to hide all navigation in the burger or remove part of the elements and display them to the user?
According to research, it is preferable to highlight a part of the navigation. If you know what sections users visit first, you might be able to show them those sections immediately. However, the user must click on the icon and search through a comprehensive database for specific information. Therefore, it makes sense to expedite this process and immediately provide them with what they require.
This is true not only for mobile interfaces but also for desktop interfaces. In the example below, a directory must be opened independently to be viewed. When the focus of a user’s attention shifts, it irritates them. If a drop-down list displays when you open a menu, users are not always comfortable. After that, it must proceed from left to right, and so on. Therefore, it’s preferable to display the complete menu if possible.
When it comes to navigation, the issue of the menu’s number of items cannot be overlooked. The fewer options a user has, the easier it is for them to decide. It is suggested that 7-9 things are ideal on the internet. However, when there are a lot of sections, subcategories, and sub-subcategories (as in a marketplace), fitting everything into a minimal number of items isn’t always feasible.
There are various options in this instance. There are multiple tiers of menus that can be created. The website of the New York Times is an example. There is horizontal navigation and another burger on the upper left of the home page. A wide menu appears when you click it, with more sections at the bottom and more sections at the top. The fact that the New York Times is a vast resource justifies this. That is why the website’s designers placed the essential items on the horizontal while also indicating that there are other components. The menu is accessed using a button in the upper left corner. If the user is dissatisfied with the primary navigation, this placement enhances the likelihood that they will see the menu and click.
According to the three-click rule, the user must reach the needed information in three clicks. There is, however, no data to back this up. Users today are willing to spend significantly more time looking for information. For example, if we’re looking for a product at an online store, we browse to the appropriate department and then dig further into many subcategories until we find it. Then there’s more filtering, sorting, adding to comparisons, adding to cart, checkout, shipping, etc. This does not appear to fit within three clicks. As a result, don’t limit yourself to this guideline. It’s preferable to keep the navigation simple and obvious so that the user may rapidly reach his objectives.
Perhaps you could divide the interface so that the user chooses from 7-9 categories first, then another 7-9, then another 7-9, and so on till they reach the end. Although you shouldn’t make it too complicated by creating a hierarchy with ten to twenty levels—this is scarcely practical. Five catalog segments, in my opinion, are quite acceptable.
But what if there are a lot of subcategories, and you can’t sensibly divide them into 7-9 items? Here are two basic strategies to assist you: The first is a list of names in alphabetical order. The second point to consider is terminology. This may be seen with Amazon. Take a look at their home decor area, which is organized alphabetically by subcategories. This makes finding things much easier for the user. The essential requirement is that the name be correct and recognizable to the user. You should not use jargon, slang, or professional vocabulary.
In some places, I genuinely admire Amazon’s approach. The creators placed a couple of the most popular subcategories at the top of the list, then let the rest of them go in alphabetical order. This is an excellent solution to the problem because it allows you to display the most popular things first.
Avic follows suit. Apple products account for the majority of the company’s revenue. As a result, breaking up or hiding such products makes no sense; instead, they are removed from the catalog and relocated to the top, increasing the number of categories on the main page. Again, it appears that the user will have difficulty making a decision. However, if Apple is the primary source of revenue, it seems logical to feature this section right away.
The examples considered are based on simple navigation. However, not every task is like this in practice. You might want to do something entirely out of the ordinary in some circumstances. For example, you may have seen a developer’s website in France where you have to use the arrow keys on the keyboard to drive a car that rides between menu items to traverse between sections. This is a rare occurrence, and even though it appears to me to tackle a slightly different problem, it succeeds—and in the process, it generates an environment around the project.
Here’s another example of an impressive menu from the Warsaw Puppet Theater’s website. All navigation is done using symbolic images that appear to be on strings and move as you point at them, much like puppets. As a result, the user becomes more engaged in the navigation game. In the tradition of puppet theater, this approach produces a delightful ambiance.
Go over the following items before beginning to work with navigation:
Let’s get to the accordion now. First, let’s look at two different versions of this interface element: one with the chevron pointing down and one with the plus symbol. Which version of the icon do you think is better? Then there’s the question of whether the icon should be placed to the right or left of the text, independent of its type.
According to studies, users recognize accordions and are more likely to click on the text. They click on the icon 25% of the time when it’s on the right and 75% of the time the text it’s on the left. Does this mean there’s no need for the icon to be on the right? No, it’s pretty acceptable to put it there. In truth, it doesn’t matter where we put it; the important thing is that we put it somewhere and make it big enough to click on.
The only difference is that the procedure takes a little longer when you click on the icon. This is because individuals aim and try to click on the icon accurately. As a result, it is vital to create such an element large enough to work with comfortably. I would even propose enlarging the clickable area rather than the icon itself. The project “Dia,” in which the icons are as large as the accordion itself, appeals to me. This site is, I believe, simple and convenient for all users. Each cell is clickable and takes up the entire screen width in this example.
When it comes to the arrow’s direction, you shouldn’t always aim it right. Many users have learned that pointing the arrow to the right indicates heading to another page. Only the tiny area, text, and icon in the example below are clickable, and there is a button at the bottom with an arrow that points in the same direction as the accordion’s equivalent. However, the acts are distinct. When you click the accordion, it will open block down, and when you click the button, you will be redirected to another page. People may be perplexed by this.
Giving the user an accordion with no identifying signs is likewise not good. A person must know which aspect of the interface they are interacting with. You must either use an icon or demonstrate that the element is clickable. The only thing that indicates clickability in the example above is the changing appearance of the cursor when hovering over the text. However, it is not visible; it must be larger, or a term such as “Read” should be used. Without that, the user won’t be able to tell the accordion apart from the bold text selection.
As I previously stated, you must think out all interactive features in terms of states. If there was a positive, for example, it should change—or at least become a minus. As a result, the user will realize that the drop-down box can be hidden.
It’s inconvenient when the icon vanishes after you click on it. The user anticipates being able to close the block at the exact location where they first opened it. After all, they may not like the response that appears and may want to delete it right away. He’ll have to re-aim now that the button has been repositioned. Here’s an unusual example of an accordion plus that isn’t clickable. This is only true for mobile navigation. If the user has previously dealt with the desktop version, they may not recognize what’s wrong and believe it’s a bug when switching to the mobile version.
Imagine you’re charged with deciding whether to keep the open items or conceal them when the user opens others. On the one hand, if the items don’t shut, the symbol will not move because no items are transferring. On the other hand, if there is too much text, the user may have trouble navigating to the following question. As a result, it may be preferable to close superfluous blocks automatically. However, consider the number of responses in a specific accordion.
The accordion is a multipurpose element. Not only may it be utilized for the FAQ area, but also the checkout page. According to Baymard, more than 30% of online retailers worldwide accept payments through accordion-style checkouts, with the percentage in the United States being considerably higher at 56%.
This solution has several benefits. The user can first view the following steps to complete (say, which payment systems are accepted). You don’t even have to click “Next” or navigate to another website to accomplish this. Second, the accordion makes it simple to navigate from block to block to check data without having to reload the page and risk losing it. After all, if the user made a mistake in the first area and discovered it in the second, it’s simple to correct it here. You’d have to return to the previous page in a typical checkout and risk losing the information you’d filled out but hadn’t sent to the server.
You can also use an accordion to create menus. However, you must exercise caution in this situation. The parent accordion category in the example below has no content. As a result, if you repeatedly click on the items to collapse the accordion, the entire content area remains empty. In this situation, it’s also a good idea to include some information in this page section.
The fantastic, beautiful accordion on hover is another example. It is quite adaptable. Although there is no accordion in the mobile version, it is essentially just banners that translate to other links.
Another more extreme example created by evident admirers of such a solution is an accordion within an accordion. The entire site can be navigated using these blocks. It’s amazing.
In mobile interfaces, accordions are also essential for website design. They make it simple to conceal information. All navigation on The Guardian’s website is done through these blocks. The only thing that bothers me is that the parent categories aren’t clickable. A user does not have the choice of seeing all of the sports news. Only the subcategories “Football,” “Cricket,” “Rugby,” and so on are available. On the other hand, The Guardian has moved the parent categories on the front page, which is a reasonable answer to such an issue.
The Wall Street Journal, on the other hand, took a very different approach. They didn’t post the categories on the main page and instead crammed everything into a single block. When a user visits a category, however, there is the Main section. This allows you to navigate to the main parent section or a specific subcategory.
Let’s summarize the accordion:
The choice of date is the next crucial factor to consider when discussing design patterns. I’ll begin with a comparison, as is customary. Users of iOS 14 who have set the alarm clock time will be familiar with this scenario. What is the better option?
I like the first choice since it is more attractive and does not distort the font as much as the second. However, the first variant has a potential issue: it is difficult to modify and twist. After all, the space is limited, and the user must fit precisely into the spot. It’s worth noting that Apple decided to leave both alternatives open.
Consider what you’ll use the Date Picker for a while you’re creating it: a date range for booking hotels or planning excursions, a date to set a birthday or reminder, a date to indicate the time for a movie session, or for ordering a cab. This will impact the rest of the process of envisioning and designing this feature.
It’s critical, in my opinion, to describe the many ways in which the user obtains information right now. The four options are a calendar, a drum (more of a mobile solution), a conventional input area, and a drop-down list. Let’s look at a few distinct solutions that all deal with airline tickets. Wizz Air, for example, utilizes a calendar, but it’s a double one so that the customer can see two months at once.
But, if so, which start date should be specified? It seems it should be the next day, and the website shows this. However, studies have shown that users are not always happy when a date has already been set. People rarely purchase next-day plane tickets. Therefore this “default” setting will almost certainly need to be modified.
Qatar Airlines went even further by announcing a start and end date. Today is the first day of the program. Is that choice required if the user logs in at 23:58? The second issue is that there is no differentiation between the start and end dates and all days in between. Everything is painted in the same hue. Users want to see anchors for dates if they plan a long trip that begins in one location and concludes in another. People are used to being told that we begin and end at specific places. As a result, the user can be certain that the dates are correct.
Today, UIA puts both the departure and return dates on the calendar. We’ve already established that this isn’t ideal. It’s also challenging to select a destination because you have to first click on the list, then go to the dropdown, search for the country, etc. It’s a long and winding road. But, it appears to me that the main blunder is something else. The search results output is blank. If I select two destinations and dates, I may be informed that that destination has no available flights. If I go on to the following date on the calendar, there are no flights available. Overbooking is the only method to find out when they will arrive. I’m likely to use a third-party aggregator that gathers data from numerous airlines straightforwardly and conveniently.
SkyUp’s calendar is one of my favorites. It includes large fields that open up a large calendar, and it’s simple to set the trip’s start and end dates. It indicates days when there are no flights for a specific location, and you can view the price for each ticket right away. This is quite useful because it allows you to choose a day and a flight even before you click confirm.
Let us now turn our attention to the drum. You can enter nearly any information into such an element, including time, date, and other lists. Users may easily navigate this tool and jump between values.
The input field follows. We must consider the format if we allow the user to enter a date using the keyboard. For example, in different regions of the world, “12.10.2021” may be interpreted differently: for some, it may be October 12, while for others, it may be December 10. This is especially significant in the case of the following example site for renting a car in another country. The user must be aware of the format they are dealing with. In this circumstance, several experts advise that the user writes in text. However, there is the issue of localization: would the system recognize that the language is not global English but rather a more non-standard language? After all, the user can use abbreviations when writing. You must either instruct the user on how to do it or use other solutions, such as placing a calendar icon next to it. In this method, the user controls how the data is entered.
If the drop-down list is modest, such as months, there is nothing wrong with it. However, you may accumulate an excessively long list over time. Consider the website Ukrzaliznytsia. The time limit is one hour, and there are 24 items on the list. Perhaps a mixed approach is best here, where the user enters a few digits and then selects from a list.
This is precisely the approach used in Google Calendar. If you start writing 16 in the input box, the sub-options appear at 16:00, 16:15, 16:30, and 16:45 (according to the system’s set step of 15 minutes).
Let’s summarize calendars:
If you summarize everything above, the main recommendation is simple: before applying any design patterns, make sure you know what tasks the user should complete and how to solve them. Based on this, you can build an interface with gorgeous and, more significantly, human-friendly buttons, navigation, accordions, dates, and other features.
The post Design Patterns: How to Create Simple Interfaces first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.
Acquiring a new customer is difficult, but retaining an existing one is even more challenging. Yet, statistics show that efforts focused on retention bring way more value.
For instance, according to SmallBizGenius, 82% of companies agree that customer retention is cheaper than acquisition. Apart from that, 65% of a company’s revenue comes from existing clients, and increasing the investment in retention by only 5% already gives you a boost in profits by 25% to 95%. Impressive, right?
So what should you do to reach such results?
One component that impacts brand-client relationships is website design. This article will give you three design tricks that will encourage your customers to come back to your site more and more.
It is hard to imagine a website visitor who would spend more than five minutes (usually it’s way less) trying to figure out the navigation system on your website. If you have a loaded, complex site structure, you will not retain a customer.
Take Craigslist, for instance. Its navigation is not user-friendly, not to mention that it took over 30 seconds to load when the acceptable average load time should be no more than 1.7 seconds:
Here’s what proper website navigation presupposes:
Since we mentioned Craigslist, let’s take a look at its competitor AdPost, which has a better website structure:
Instead of listing all the product categories on the front page, like Craigslist, AdPost added them to the search menu, thus making the design more user-friendly and making the navigation cleaner.
If you have visitors coming to your website from around the world, you should not assume they know English. A survey by Weglot found some interesting results regarding the attitude of buyers to shopping on international websites:
So, there is no doubt that having your website localized to several languages can increase customer retention, especially considering the last stat.
To understand the proper practices of making a website multilingual, look at the examples of the best language learning apps. For instance, Preply has a drop-down menu where you can choose from multiple language options, including Polish, Ukrainian, German, and many more:
Translating your website to different languages will help the visitor understand the value of your product better. However, before you invest in localization, make sure you study the data on customer behaviors to understand which languages your audience speaks.
Some companies don’t bother much with designing their websites, especially when it comes to custom elements, such as visuals. However, research has shown that the focus on branding in website design increases customer commitment and e-loyalty, as a result.
Moreover, in the world of billions of websites, you need something that would help your business stand out. And custom illustrations are among those features that contribute to your site’s uniqueness.
Just take a quick look at the Emiozaki Web site. It includes personalized illustrations and animation created in the form of a tablet that substitutes the navigation menu:
This website reflects the brand’s tone and style, and animation adds emotion to UX. Apart from that, it’s also an excellent example of structuring a website.
Or, if you would like an example of a less loaded design, take a look at this personal portfolio by Victoire Douy. It also includes animations that add interactivity to the design. For instance, you can play with the shadow of the girl’s hand:
So, if you want your website to attract more customers and encourage them to hang out for longer, take the creative approach. Hiring an illustrator is, of course, costly, but it will help your site stand out.
As you can see, you’ll have to put in a lot of work to bring forward website design that increases online customer retention. You just have to employ our three best practices. Let’s quickly recap them:
The post 3 Quick Tricks to Boost Customer Retention first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.
We all know that psychology is a powerful tool. When used correctly, it can influence and persuade people to take action. In the world of web design, this is extremely important.
If you want to create an effective website that converts visitors into customers, you need to leverage web design psychology. Keep reading to find out more.
Your website design shouldn’t just make your website pretty. It should impress your visitors, hold their attention, and lead them to action.
That’s where web design psychology comes in. Each color, typeface, and space has a psychological significance, helping people connect to your website. These elements trigger subconscious reactions, which you must leverage to get that desired action.
It takes seconds for people to decide whether your website has all the choices and information you need. Web design psychology helps you, the designer, understand these subconscious processes and how to harness them.
The primary benefit of leveraging psychology in web design is talking to people in their language. It’s also talking in your language and finding common ground. That’s how you can build trust.
You want to use familiar colors and patterns, elements that make you stand out but also connect to people. You need visitors to understand what your website is about and where they can get more info quickly. Then, you have to push the right triggers. Comic Sans, for example, is a superb trigger, and we’ll discuss it below. Color, space, and lines also create a specific impact on how people perceive your website.
More importantly, all these elements set the tone for visitors’ engagement with your website.
Now you understand why knowing the basics of human psychology is essential in web design. Let’s see how you can leverage it!
Gestalt psychology shows how these elements below influence your visitors:
The Target Jobs website is an excellent example here because:
Each shape has a different subconscious association:
Just look at the AT&T website. Everything showcases community and tranquility, from the round logo to the horizontal lines delimiting each section.
But this website is anything but dull. Notice how each CTA button (“learn more,” “enroll now”) is followed by a tiny arrow. This shape uses a square angle split into two acute angles by the arrow’s body. As such, although small, the arrow suggests action and strength. Besides, the sections are arranged in squares, again a symbol of decision and power.
No matter what industry your business is part of, space is essential in web design. Don’t clutter your web pages even if your natural impulse is squeezing in as much information as possible.
Use plenty of white space and try to have a minimalistic approach. Identify the unique selling point on each page and help people focus on that.
Check out the DOGUE webpage. White spaces separate each essential element, so each section is presented clearly. The first thing you notice is the title and the image with the happy dogs. Then, your gaze moves to the slogan on the right-hand side. After that, you notice the sections below that huge “Dogue.” The next part of the website highlights the company’s services (e.g., groom, dine, play, etc.). Notice how each service is represented through a quick, easy-to-get keyword. Besides, the images depict these keywords perfectly. Even better, these images have whitish-grey backgrounds that blend with the white spaces between them. So although the website is more crowded than others, you won’t perceive it as messy or unclear.
SendInBlue, an email marketing service, uses a similar white space approach to their design, and it works great because website visitors can find what they want with much more ease, and it generally looks much cleaner.
The right colors can attract attention, maintain interest and even lead to action. Besides, color increases brand recognition by 80%.
Here’s the bare minimum you have to consider:
The Moat front page is a fantastic example of color:
Lending Bee Singapore uses color and white space to showcase user-generated content on its webpage:
Another excellent example of combining different colors to build trust is Identity Guard’s website, which provides identity theft protection services. As you can see on the website, they use a minimalistic white color combined with green, which is the official color at Trustpilot (one of the most popular review directories). This color selection helps to highlight the veracity of reviews along with the mention that these reviews are taken from Trustpilot.
A good web design is like a good outfit: it should be eye-catching but not too over the top.
The same is true of typefaces.
While a website should use various typefaces to add interest, it’s essential to use them in moderation. Too many different typefaces can be overwhelming and make your site look cluttered.
Instead, focus on using a few critical typefaces throughout your site, and use variations (like bold or italics) to add visual interest. For example, you might want to use a serif typeface for your headlines and a sans serif typeface for your body text.
Beyond simply looking good, fonts can also be used to guide users towards taking specific actions. For example, Sans-serif fonts like Arial or Helvetica are generally considered to be more readable online, making them a good choice for body text. On the other hand, scripts and decorative fonts are better suited for headlines or calls to action, as they help draw attention to essential elements on the page.
Marvel’s Captain Marvel page looks like something a 10-year-old would have designed in the 1990s. This web page is horrible from the glitters, gifs, crowded space, and the abominable Comic Sans typeface.
And that’s the point; avoiding plot-spoilers, Captain Marvel is linked to the 90s, and the retro look is part of that message. The moral of the webpage is that sometimes you have to be brave and break the rules if you want to convey a certain feeling to your audience. Marvel manages to do that with its simple design that acts as a time machine into the long-long-loooong past nineties.
If you want to keep your website visitors’ attention, maintain interest and lead to action, it’s essential to use the design principles above. By leveraging space, typefaces, arrangement, shapes, and colors in your web design, you can create a website that is both visually appealing and effective at getting your message across.
However, these principles are just guidelines. You should stay brave and use your intuition. Remember that the point of web design is speaking to your audience using their language.
The post Psychology in Web Design: How to Use it Right first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.
Ask any seasoned web app developer about their choice of programming language, and they are sure to mention PHP. PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML. As per Builtwith, 3,090,319 live websites are still using PHP. However, when it comes to developing massive projects without lag or stability issues, developers tend to use frameworks, and PHP has two remarkable frameworks: 1) Laravel and 2) Yii. Both frameworks have a lot of followers in terms of full-grown communities globally, and there may be questions arising about which to choose.
Laravel is a simple PHP framework frequently used for web-based or web application development initially created as a better alternative to Codeigniter. It is known for MVC Support, articulated ORM systems, reliability, modularity, and uncomplicated coding rules. Some of the key features of Laravel Framework are:
Todoist is a to-do list app that 25 million people rely on every day to keep their lives organized. As part of the Doist design team’s goals for 2021, we aimed to redesign the Todoist Android app to take advantage of the latest Google Material Design guidelines.
In this post, we cover the design decisions and processes behind redesigning the Todoist Android app for Material Design. We explore the Design and Android team’s collaboration practices that brought the app update to life, which resulted in winning the Material Design Award 2021 in the large screen category. Let’s get started!
When we started the project, our design implementation on Android was ready for a major overhaul. The last milestone redesign on Android was initiated after the release of the first Material Design guidelines in 2016. Since then the team successfully worked on continuous improvements to the Android app, but we saw the opportunity to improve Todoist on Android on a more holistic level.
We set out to clean up instances of older UI components, colors, and text styles and update them with the latest Material Design components. We observed that some interactions and navigational patterns had become inconsistent with what users were expecting on newer Android devices and were eager to modernize this experience. With new hardware and software changes in mind, we set out to make the experience on larger phones and tablets even better, so Todoist could take full advantage of the latest generation of devices. Material 2 and 3 provided an incredible new framework to rethink the current app experience. With this in mind, we set out to challenge what a modern Android app should look like and innovate on top of the default user experience.
The team set itself the goal of redesigning our Todoist Android app and aspiring to make it the best-designed productivity app on Android. The project was ambitious and scheduled to take several months to complete. We set ourselves the following targets while working on the project:
The project was kicked off by reviewing the current Todoist Android app implementation, noting down what areas needed to be fixed and what was up to date. While reviewing, we took screenshots of the app implementation for reference. This way we could easily see the current state of the app and compare it to the new design proposals that would be created. Once the review process was finalized, we had a comprehensive overview of the current state of the app and the layout, component, and styling changes we wanted to make.
We continued the project by studying the latest Material Design Guidelines, assessing the components and practices that were most relevant to Todoist.
When the project kicked off in February 2021, Material 2 was the most recent version of their design system. Since Material 2 had already been released for quite some time, we anticipated that design changes to Material would be announced soon at the Google I/O event in May 2021. Rather than wait, because we expected the changes to be iterative, we pushed ahead with our work.
We identified 25 components and UI patterns that we wanted to change across the app. The changes included buttons, forms, menus, sheets, navigation drawer, app bar, system bars, text and color styles, and more. We started by creating a table view in a Dropbox Paper document with the component changes and references links to Google’s Material Design Guidelines.
This components list was a starting point for discussion to plan the scope and complexity of the changes. Close async discussions between the design and development team in Twist and Dropbox Paper comments helped us make decisions about scope and complexity early on and set a solid foundation for the project.
In the initial Material Design study, we also researched inspiring Material Design apps, Material studies, Play Store apps, and Google Workspace apps to learn from their execution.
We started out by studying the Material Design Award Winners 2020 and tested out the products that were showcased. The showcased winners struck a good balance between implementing the Material Design Guidelines while maintaining their own product’s brand within the system. This balance between Google’s guidelines and the Todoist brand was also key for us to get right and so we strived to find this mix across the work we created and implemented in the project.
Along with the MDA winners, we researched the Material Studies that Google produced to showcase what apps could look like with branding and Material Design guidelines applied. It was a great reference to see how far components could be customized while maintaining the core platform principles. The Reply case study in particular offered valuable insight to us as its content type and layout came closest to Todoist. It showcased how components like the app bar, navigation drawer, and large screen layouts worked while being customized.
We continued our research by searching the Google Play store for inspiring app examples. Google Tasks, Press, Periodic Table, and Kayak stood out to us as the level of polish and quality of the apps were on par with the experience we were aspiring to create.
Sometime later in the project when Material You was released (more on that later), we stumbled upon the Google Workspace apps blog post which previewed Material 3 changes that Google was introducing to their own products. It offered a great glimpse at what was to come before the Material 3 Design Guidelines were officially released. This post sparked new internal discussions and further design explorations that we considered for future Todoist Android updates.
As we started to define the new Todoist Android app design language and document the changes, we opted to create a design framework, focusing on creating components rather than designing every screen in the app. This allowed us to consistently apply the design system in the app. We did so by using the previously defined component list that we created during the review and study process.
Core screens from different areas of the app were chosen to demonstrate how the components could be applied. We chose to mock up the Todoist project view, navigation drawer menu, project view edit screen, settings, and project detail view, among others. These screens gave us a good overview of how buttons, forms, drawers, lists, and other components would work together and in different states; selected, pressed, disabled, etc.
During the project, we were transitioning our Doist design system to Figma and started creating our first components in the new Doist Product Android Library. We started by using some components from the Material Design UI kit – Components library from the official Google Figma resource file and added them to our Doist design system. We then continued to build up the Product Android Library file with our Todoist-specific components such as task list & board views, detail views, sheets, colors, typography, etc.
We continued by documenting color and typography changes that were based on the Material Design guidelines. The design team opted to implement a new Design Token framework that would share the same values between our design system and the development implementation. The development team would output the values they had in the current implementation and the design team would analyze which values were needed and which could be merged, changed, or deleted. This informed the new Design Token color and typography system which we then documented and discussed with the team to implement. Later in the project, we were happy to see a similar token system introduced by Material 3 in the latest guidelines which validated our thinking and principles behind the new design system.
The design documentation expanded to hold other edge-case mockups that could sit alongside the design system. We documented different responsive screen experiences between phones and tablets against the previous implementation. Additional sections were created to document the motion that should be used for certain components and screens by referencing existing Material Design guidelines examples or prototyping custom motion in Principle and After Effects. The design spec also touched on haptic feedback that should appear on touch targets, how dark mode should work across the new components, documenting Todoist themes within the new design language, and more.
At Doist, the benefit of the squad is that cross-team collaboration is built into the make-up of the team. Designers, developers, support, and product managers work together in a squad to deliver the project. This close collaboration from the start is key to bridging the gap between scope, estimations, design, development, and delivery. The squad discussed their findings on a daily basis and came up with the best plan of action together.
Designers started by creating components in Figma and shared them with developers in Dropbox Paper. We used screenshots to document the current implementation next to the new designs and linked to the default Google Material Design components. This allowed the team to compare all references in one place. Developers shared their feedback, adjustments would be brainstormed together as the designs were iterated.
Designers on the project would share their work in progress on a weekly basis with the rest of the design team in a design review Twist thread. Here details about the designs were discussed, alternatives mocked up and bigger picture plans made. Design reviews brought up topics like FAB (Floating Action Button) placement, theme options, accent color usage on components, consistency with other platforms, navigation options, and shadow elevation. After thorough discussions and alternative mockups were presented, the design team aimed to find the right balance between Material Design and Todoist brand guidelines. The development team, also part of the design reviews, gave their feedback on the solution and raised technical complexities early on.
Eventually, the design was stabilized and consistencies updated across components and mockups. The design spec was kept up to date so the development team could always review the latest designs in Figma.
As soon as the development process started, the Android team provided early screenshots and videos in Twist threads while they were implementing the design spec. This practice allowed us to review the app implementation early and often. Designers could review the development work and share feedback in Twist, which resulted in getting the implementation to a high quality. Alongside Twist discussions, the team set up a Todoist project to track ongoing issues and fix bugs. Designers logged new issues, developers would solve them and share the new implementation for designers to review.
When the team had the first stable version of the Android app, we shared it internally at Doist to get more insight and feedback. Other Doisters could access the redesign via a feature flag that could be turned on in the app settings and test the new version for however long they wanted. The feature flag system allowed people to give us early feedback on the design decisions we made and report bugs. Feedback was submitted by the wider team through a dedicated Twist thread and designers and developers could discuss how best to address the feedback during the active project implementation.
After we refined the app implementation further and addressed early feedback we opened up the app update to our beta users. Here users had access to the new Android redesign and were able to give us feedback. Our support team gathered feedback and shared it with us in a dedicated Twist thread. The squad aimed to analyze every comment and looked for patterns where we could make tweaks and improvements to the user experience.
As part of these tweaks, we made changes to how the bottom bar and navigation drawer worked. Some users reported frustrations with the way the new bottom navigation and menu drawer worked. In its first implementation, the drawer was half raised when opened and had to be swiped up to be raised again to see the full content list. This was an issue for some users as it was slower to get to the content below the list. So we decided to fully raise the drawer by default when opening. We also made it easier to open the navigation drawer by sliding up from the bottom app bar. This was a small shortcut but it enabled users to get to their content faster.
While we were in the testing phase and about to wrap up the project, Google unveiled Material You, and sometime later the Material 3 Guidelines were published. With the newly announced resources, we went back to study the latest guidelines and references we could find to see where the Todoist Android app redesign fits in and which adjustments we might need to make now or in the future.
Dynamic Color was a big new feature that was announced as part of the Material You update. As Todoist supports many different themes the Material You Dynamic Color feature seemed like a good fit for our product. We decided to prioritize this feature and implement Dynamic Color light and dark themes as part of our Todoist theme settings options.
To implement Dynamic Color, the development team started off by creating a demo prototype that utilized the Dynamic Color system and showcased how we could select from a range of color choices that the system defined based on the wallpaper choice. From there, we tried to incorporate system behavior in our design mockups. We designed a range of different color mockups and components to see which ones could fit with which components. We then came up with a color system that worked for the Todoist app and the new themes. These new Dynamic Color themes would sit alongside our current theme options in the Todoist app settings. From here users could choose between Dynamic Color Light and Dark themes.
Along with Dynamic Color, the team also created a customizable bottom app bar, allowing users to set up the app in a way that’s most convenient to their workflow. The location of the Dynamic Add Button can be changed to the center, left, or right corner of the screen. The order of the Menu, Search, and Notification buttons can be rearranged to best fit the ergonomics of the user’s dominant (left or right) hand and optimize their navigation patterns.
As critical beta feedback was addressed and stability tweaks were made, the squad felt ready to release the new Todoist Android app to the public. The team logged the issues that could not immediately be addressed for future reviews and updates.
The design and marketing team readied the launch by creating What’s New banner artwork and copy that are displayed within the app when launching the update. The Doist marketing team also created release notes and shared the app update announcements on our social channels. The brand and product design team worked together to create custom image assets and copy that summarised the project work in a simple and beautiful way.
After a successful launch of the redesigned Todoist for Android app, Google contacted Doist to announce that Todoist was selected as the Material Design Award 2021 winner in the Large Screen category. The team was excited to be recognized for their hard work and it felt like we achieved the goal we had set out to accomplish.
Internally, designers and developers continued to study and discuss the Material 3 updates. The design team started exploring mockups and design changes inspired by Material 3 and Google’s Workspace app updates. Some of our current Todoist explorations include changing the FAB styling, updating the app bar, further removing elevation shadows, and more. Here is a preview of what a future Todoist update could look like.
We hope these insights into Doist’s design process and collaboration practices have sparked your interest. Thank you for reading and stay tuned for future design updates!
The post Case Study: Redesigning Todoist for Android first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.
