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Interface is everything.
It is what helps users find their way on a site, what helps site owners communicate their offerings appropriately, and what ties the two parties together.
As much as you want the perfect site experience for your users, it’s also important that the interface comes off appealing to them. Otherwise, they might just get bored on your site.
In this post, we’re going to look at a number of tips for making a site’s UI more attractive.
7 ways to create attractive site UI
1. Prioritize element definition
Every element on a site’s interface is a part of the overall site feel. If even one element feels out of place or hard to notice, it may impact the others in ways you never expected.
To make your site elements appear more defined, sharper, bolder, and less shadowy, you should prioritize using Multiple Drop Shadows or very subtle borders.
2. It is not compulsory to use 2 typefaces
A common theme in the UI world is the use of 2 Typefaces. Everywhere you go, that’s what you find people doing or telling you to do.
Well, there’s really no rule that says you can use 1 Typeface. It’s absolutely fine to use 1 typeface, provided you can combine the right weights and sizes.
Moreover, using 1 Typeface helps ensure that your results stay consistent.
3. Adopt optimal element size and placement
How big a graphic is or how far away it is can determine whether a user clicks on it or not. If you want good human-computer interaction on your site, you need to ensure all UI elements are made as big as possible and are as close to the user’s face as possible.
You can follow these simple hacks to ensure that:
- Plant the most important icons in areas users can hardly miss
- Enlarge icon sizes
- Give special attention and deeper color shades to primary actions or lighten the visual weight of secondary actions
4. Use 20pt or more for blog content
Today, some sites still have their homepages and blog pages created in the same font sizes. For example, you see the homepages written with 18pt fonts, and you get to the blog pages and still find the same font size.
This is bad UI. It’s bad for site readership, especially if your site creates more long-form content. If your site does more blogging, product description, web copies, etc., you should go for 20pt fonts and beyond. That way, it will be easier for users to navigate your site conveniently.
You can use a wireframe tool to test out a few scenarios during the design phase to see for yourself how this works.
5. Make the skip button visible
Not everyone will be cool with your site or app’s onboarding experience. And that’s cool. But one thing you shouldn’t do is force them to go through with it.
You need to implement the ‘Skip’ link and make it visible so that users can skip past the interface at any time.
6. Embrace ‘Same Style’ icons
UI has to do with anticipating what people will need to do on a site. And a big part of that anticipation is enabling consistency.
Speaking of consistency, all the icons in your UI kit must come in the same styles and sizes. This is to prevent unnecessary distraction for users and also to avoid coming off ‘Bad UI.’
Below is a snapshot showing a clear example of this.
The best way to ensure you will always have consistent icon sizing and styling is to create your own custom graphics. Stealing items from the internet is just a knock on the door of inconsistency.
7. Limit the usage of centered texts
It is necessary to keep site texts left-aligned as much as possible. This is because centered texts are now viewed, by most users, as a way of drawing attention to ‘Special Cases’ or ‘Important Updates.’
Placing centered texts all over the place might confuse visitors as to what’s really going on the site. At best, you should limit centered texts usage to headlines and small, special passages.
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This content is sponsored by Uday Tank.
