14 UX Design Tips and Tricks from the Pros
Last updated on November 28th, 2023 at 02:08 pm
UX design in marketing is a decades-long profession that is constantly changing. The constant changes within the UX design discipline can bring challenges to UX designers. Designers must navigate and learn about the new changes and methods to create the best design for their clients.
To make things easier for UX designers, here are 14 tips and tricks from the pros to help you succeed in the design industry.
What Is UX Design?
UX design is “user experience,” a trade that fuses skills like market research, product development, strategy, and design. User experience refers to the entire experience of someone interacting with a product.
For example, the user is the individual navigating a call or message on their phone, while the UX designer is the creator of the seamless and easily navigable interface.
The primary objective of the UX designer is to provide the best experience possible for the user. The product should make the user feel like they are gaining from or taking value from it to provide a high-quality experience.
In addition, the product should be working, aim to be user-friendly, and, in general, have a pleasant appearance.
Brief History of UX Design
If a snippet of history about UX design seems unnecessary, think again. The history of UX design is a valuable piece of knowledge for aspiring UX designers, current designers in the field, or those who just want to learn something new.
Many hear the term UX design and think applications, websites, and other software with an interface – would be correct.
However, we can trace UX design back to 4,000 B.C., which is around 6,000 years ago.
4,000 B.C. Feng Shui
Feng Shui is an ancient Chinese concept that refers to how spatial layout affects energy flow in a space. While the description of Feng Shui may not sound like UX design, the components of the concept mirror those UX designs.
To elaborate, Feng Shui focuses on arranging furniture, materials, and colors in a physical space. The arranging of objects is done to make the user feel they exist in a harmonious, productive, and comfortable space.
500 B.C. Ergonomics
It’s argued that ancient Greek civilizations designed using ergonomics. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, ergonomics is “the scientific study of people and their working conditions, especially done to improve effectiveness.”
In short, ergonomics is similar to UX design. However, ergonomics uses data and other design principles to create a completely optimized space for the user. Moreover, this scientific design concept recognizes humans and their interactions with the objects in their environment.
The 1990s
The 1990s was a significant era for UX design. Notably, here are some of the UX design contributors of the 90s.
1955: Henry Dreyfuss
Henry Dreyfuss was an Industrial Engineer. He transformed products, like the Hoover vacuum, telephones, and John Deere tractors. He designed products by making them safer and more comfortable, with increased usability in mind.
1966: Walt Disney
With the opening of the first Disneyland in Anaheim, California, Walt Disney created “Mickey’s 10 Commandments.” These principles mirror many concepts of UX design in marketing today, such as understanding the audience, promoting clarity, and cleanliness, and avoiding overload.
The 1970s: Apple
Apple’s first Macintosh featured a consumer product with a user interface, mouse, and experience.
1995: Don Norman
While UX design was already happening, Don Norman was the coiner of the title UX. In addition, he was the first to have the job description: User Experience Architect. Norman valued the user over the software.
UX Design in Marketing?
Marketing is essentially advertising and promotional work of a product or service. The marketing profession includes market research as well. The motivation for marketers is to target the users of their products or services successfully.
For example, a toy company’s target audience is children and parents. In many ways, the work processes of marketing and UX design overlap and flow together.
To illustrate UX design in marketing, the designer creates a pleasing interface that attracts and keeps users engaged, while the marketer provides suggestions backed by research, product testing, and more.
14 UX Design Tips and Tricks from the Pros
Here are 14 tips and tricks you should know when using UX design in marketing.
1. Know Your Audience
As Disney, Norman, and other contributors of UX design preached, know your audience. The skill of knowing your audience requires necessary research, i.e., user research.
User research means collecting consumer data through feedback, surveys, etc., to understand the target audience’s needs, wants, and emotions.
2. Avoid Cognitive Overload
UX designers should create designs with a short attention span in mind. Remember, no user wants to be spammed with content overload. To avoid overloading your audience, designers should limit the number of options, things, etc., displayed to the user.
Maximizing functionality and usability means striving for a minimalist user interface, and only content makes users feel they are gaining value by interacting.
3. Make Tasks Quick
When a user logs onto a website, more often than not, they have a reason. If, for example, a user navigates directly to a company website looking to purchase a specific product, they should be able to navigate to that said product easily.
4. Prioritize Speed
A slow-loading website will repel users. Compared to just fifty years ago, much of the population has a very short attention span, arguably partly because of all the daily information thrown at the users.
A designer should ensure that when a user enters a website, it loads fast enough that the user won’t get impatient and decide to leave.
5. Anything Clickable Should be Animated
Buttons should have the following things:
- Clearly show the user they’ve clicked with animation,
- Easily clickable with space around them, and
- Visible using contrasting colors.
6. Use FAQ or Hints Instead of Help
The tip here is simple: users would rather click on FAQ pages or hints instead of help pages.
7. Be Flexible With Your Design Process
Every UX design project has different demands, agendas, and tasks, so there’s never going to be one design process journey. At the same time, every UX design project will likely include tasks such as research, analysis, design, etc.
8. Adjust Colors to Contrast
High-contrast colors manipulate the brain into thinking the visual is more important than a low-contrast color image, which is called a high-relevance object. While the client likely would not ask the UX designer for this, if it weren’t high contrast, they wouldn’t be satisfied because they wouldn’t experience the effect of high contrast colors.
9. Always Conduct Research
While pre-research can be tedious and costly, UX designers must consider the research step as necessary. Designers who fail to research their target audience and design needs properly will likely fail to empathize and meet the true needs of their audience.
10. Don’t Be Afraid to Ask Questions
Asking questions is the quickest way to know you’re on the right track. In the end, asking questions over guessing or blindly creating will save you time in the long run.
It’s better to ask questions to save time and follow your client’s vision to the best of your ability.
11. Always Add a Search Bar
Every phone, computer, or tech user can identify a search bar and understand the purpose of the said search bar. If a user navigates to a webpage, they know they can type keywords of the thing they are searching for in the search bar to resolve their query quickly.
12. Avoid All-Capitalization
It’s best to avoid capitalizing things like titles, tabs, headings, etc., as it is harder to read the title case. The purpose of UX design is to create products that are easy to navigate and understand, so, in this case, putting a sentence in all caps is the opposite of a good UX design.
13. Use Icons that are Universally Understood
Always use icons or symbols that are quickly understandable. For example, social icons, a lightbulb, and a messaging symbol are simple icons that most, if not all, users understand the meaning of.
Using simple icons makes for a quicker, seamless user experience.
14. Calculate ROI for Enterprise UX
Enterprise UX is a combination of UX design and enterprise system research. When working with an enterprise, conducting a platform audit is crucial.
A platform audit is an examination of all systems in place at an enterprise. The audit provides information on the “workflows and processes and the user personas who interface with the system.”
After an audit, calculate the Return On Investment (ROI) to help you decide on your first task. Check out this article on calculating the ROI of enterprise UX.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, you’ve gained some new knowledge about UX design in marketing after reading through our 14 tips and tricks from pro-UX designers. Always remember the importance of your work. In other words, never settle for less than you deserve, and don’t be afraid to walk away from a client offering less than the compensation you deserve.
