

Nielsen and Molich's 10 User Interface Design Guidelines
#XDESIGN STYLE AND FORMATTING GUIDE HOW TO#
This article will teach you how to follow the ten rules of thumb in your design work so you can further improve the usability, utility, and desirability of your designs. Further evidence of how their design teams incorporate these rules into their design process is reflected in the user interface guidelines published and shared by these companies. These heuristics have been reflected in many of the products designed by some of the most successful companies in the world such as Apple, Google, and Adobe. Learn to design with your user’s needs and expectations in mind by applying Jakob Nielsen and Rolf Molich’s Ten User Interface Guidelines. You can find various brand guidelines here: Gain a practical grasp of design guidelines with this Interaction Design Foundation course: įind Jakob Nielsen’s design guidelines for homepage usability here: “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” In all cases, it’s best to apply design guidelines with care, where you balance user data and insights with brand directives to create designs that users find intuitive and pleasurable. Google ’s Material Design is a good example of company specific design guidelines that relates both to branding and user experience. That’s why designers often use pictures or icons to represent information on mobile designs.Īuthor/Copyright holder: 200 Degrees. Moreover, when you design for mobile devices, you have to balance between brand consistency and maximal use of limited screen space. Designers also have to accommodate users’ cultural considerations (e.g., color use and text direction). Microsoft, Apple and Google are examples of companies that have exemplary standards (e.g., Google’s Material Design) for use in customization. Brands have various guidelines for designers to tailor dashboards to minimize cognitive load and maximize readability. It’s vital to give users what’s most fit for purpose. So, we have a design guideline to always show you where you are inside a course -so you don’t have to remember.ĭesign Guidelines + Careful Discretion = Successful Design One designer might interpret a guideline differently from another.Īt the Interaction Design Foundation, we follow the design principle that we use recognition rather than recall. Designers often apply design guidelines subjectively when they design products. So, the designer approaches the design principles and then uses design guidelines to determine the design rules. The guidelines reveal how to approach these. The principles represent general points of direction.

Use short sentences and draw users’ attention to causes and remedies.ĭesign rule: Use 20-pt, black Georgia on lavender background (#e6e6fa Hex). Here’s an example of how a designer might realize one of Jakob Nielsen’s ten design principles.ĭesign principle: Provide plain-language error messages to pinpoint problems and likely solutions.ĭesign Guideline: Write large-lettered, jargon-free text in web-safe font. Industry pioneers such as Don Norman and Jakob Nielsen identified areas which designers and developers should consider to design products that offer the best user experience. How you apply design guidelines also depends on the contexts of use, your design’s platform and the type of interaction users will have with it (e.g., voice-controlled). Likewise, you should also cater to users who have a wide range of disabilities.
