Techniques/Guidelines for User Interface Creation

GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE - visualizes complexity to make confusing and business technology issues clear, concise and concrete; helping people to make better, faster decisions, leading to action and results.

We've discussed examples of many principles and concepts of usability and user interface design in the previous blog posts. This feature lists down several concrete techniques and steps to be followed while creating a user interface. Future posts will cover most of these guidelines in depth with live examples.

• Consistency
  
  
  
  • Buttons/Menus in consistent places on all screens
  
  
  • Same wording in labels/titles and messages
  
  
  • Consistent color scheme
  
  
  
  


• Standardization
  
  
  
  • Setting standards and sticking to those; for example: Agile Modeling Standards
  
  
  
  


• Holding the line
  
  
  
  • Control over “unusual ideas” on how the screen should look like, by re-iteration of corporate goals, application needs and standards
  
  
  
  


• Explanation of rules
  
  
  
  • Application to “explain” rules to end-users to perform their tasks
  
  
  
  


• Navigation (external)
  
  
  
  • Easy access to relevant functional screens, from all screens
  
  
  
  


• Navigation (internal)
  
  
  
  • Co-relation of logical eye movement of user and the functional flow within a screen
  
  
  
  


• Terminology
  
  
  
  • Text (primary source of information for users) – proper choice of words
  
  
  • Less abbreviations; more complete words/sentences
  
  
  • Informative error messages
  
  
  
  


• Understanding UI widgets
  
  
  
  • Right widget for the right task
  
  
  
  


• Drawing parallel
  
  
  
  • Looking at other similar applications for standards/guidelines of usability
  
  
  • Avoiding imitation of user interface
  
  
  
  


• Color
  
  
  
  • Sparing use
  
  
  • Secondary indicator
  
  
  
  


• Contrast Rule
  
  
  
  • Dark text on Light background
  
  
  • Light text on Dark background
  
  
  
  


• Alignment
  
  
  
  • Organization of UI elements (left justified, right justified, etc.)
  
  
  
  


• Expecting mistakes
  
  
  
  • Designing for users to recover from their mistakes
  
  
  
  


• Intuitive design
  
  
  
  • Empowering users to make educative guesses for using the application
  
  
  
  


• Evolutionary approach
  
  
  
  • Mock-up, prototype leading to final output
  
  
  
  


• Grouping
  
  
  
  • Grouping logically connected items
  
  
  • Separating disconnected items
  
  
  
  

Remember, in order to reduce operating and opportunity costs, it's better to build it right the first time. More to follow on this subject...