Common Mistakes in UI and UX Design

Common Mistakes in UI and UX Design

The goal of effective design is to help users seamlessly navigate through an app or website, complete their tasks efficiently, and resolve their issues. While perfection is unattainable, each design error detracts from the user experience and can impact a company’s success.

Whether you’re a designer or a product owner seeking UI/UX design services, recognizing common design mistakes can help you avoid them and create more effective products, leading to satisfied customers.

First, let’s ensure a clear understanding of UI and UX, as well as what constitutes good design.

Understanding UI and UX Design

In brief, UX design focuses on how a product feels, while UI design concerns how it looks. However, a more detailed explanation is necessary.

UX (User Experience) encompasses the overall experience a user has when interacting with a service or product. This includes everything from load times and customer support efficiency to how long it takes to complete a task. A UX designer’s goal is to make the product easy to use.

UI (User Interface) pertains to the user’s interaction with the interface. A UI designer ensures the usability of buttons, visibility of headers/CTAs/copy, and ease of navigation to personal accounts or other information. Their aim is to create an attractive and intuitive product.

Although discussed separately, UI and UX are inseparable. A good UI designer considers the user experience when designing buttons and forms, while a UX designer also focuses on interface details.

With this basic understanding of UI and UX, we can now better identify and avoid common design flaws.

Good UI/UX Design

The quality of a site or application is determined by how effectively users interact with it. With a well-designed product, users:

• Easily locate elements on the screen that help them solve their problems. Users should instantly understand their location and the actions required to achieve a specific outcome.
• Understand how to interact with any design element. Buttons should resemble buttons, input fields should look like input fields, and clickable items should be obviously clickable.
• Can predict the outcome of their interactions with elements. Design and text play crucial roles here. Buttons need clear, concise labels to communicate their function. If users are surprised by the results of their actions, it’s essential to identify the cause and make necessary adjustments.
• Experience responsive design. When users click the “Save” button, they should see a confirmation of their action. For file uploads, UI/UX designers should provide visual feedback: a spinning wheel for short uploads and a progress bar for longer ones.

Now, let’s analyze some common UI/UX design mistakes.

Common Mistakes in Interface Design

Prioritizing Creativity Over Usability

In the quest for creativity, it’s easy to forget that the primary purpose of design is to guide users to their goals in the most intuitive, efficient, and pleasant way possible.

Don’t hesitate to use popular design patterns. They enhance intuitiveness and won’t detract from your product’s uniqueness. Deviating too far from these patterns can lead to user confusion.

For example, consider a past version of Microsoft’s website. It displayed multiple products on one screen, which was visually appealing but made it difficult for users to focus. Clicking on a product redirected users to a detailed page that was creative and design-intensive but lacked a clear call to action for providing product details.

Overusing Animation

With the ease of creating animations today, some designers overuse them. Avoid animating everything without a purpose. Each design element should serve a specific function. For example, an animation can highlight something important or indicate that an element is interactive.

Ignoring Problems Some Users May Face

Designers often create user flows assuming a positive path where users know what to do and smoothly achieve their goals. However, it’s crucial to consider users who may get lost, make mistakes, or click the wrong button.

Implement notifications, action cancellations, and the ability to go back. Analyze how frequently users utilize undo and return functions. If these actions occur often, refine the interface.

Repeatedly confirming the same action can lead to habitual clicking of “OK.” In services involving significant consequences (e.g., sending money, messages), provide users the option to undo actions.

For instance, Gmail and Facebook Messenger offer a brief window to cancel actions like sending an email or forwarding a message.

cancel actions like sending an email or forwarding a message.

Using Incomprehensible Icons

Unique icons that aren’t immediately understandable should be labeled. While there are universal icons like Wi-Fi, back arrows, and crosses, even these can be confusing in the wrong context. During testing, ask users to interpret icons. If their responses differ from your expectations, label or change the icon.

Inconvenient Forms

Forms are crucial for user interaction on a landing page. While other elements passively provide information through pictures, videos, or text, forms require active user engagement.

Several issues can arise with form fields. For instance, avoid hiding field descriptions while the user is entering text, especially if the form has many fields. Users might get distracted and forget what to enter.

It’s also important to clearly indicate which fields are required and which are optional to minimize errors. For example, if a user doesn’t want to provide their phone number and submits the form without it (thinking it’s optional), they should receive an error notification.

How to Identify Design Mistakes

Don’t wait until the product release to gauge user reactions—identify issues during the prototype stage. Use clickable prototypes for user testing. If you only have static mockups, ask potential users questions about each screen, such as:

• What needs to be done here?
• What happens if you press this button?
• What should you do next to complete a task or reach a certain section?

Test your app with your target audience. Remember, what’s obvious to you as a designer may not be clear to others.

A poorly designed interface can lead to dissatisfied customers, loss of reputation, user churn, and decreased profits. If users struggle to solve their problems or understand the consequences of their actions, they won’t waste time figuring out your product—they’ll switch to a competitor’s service where everything is simple and clear.

Avoiding mistakes in UI/UX design provides a significant competitive advantage. Therefore, carefully consider each design decision, base them on research, and test thoroughly!