Design Principles: Visual and Text elements

When writing any text for a user interface, you should ensure that the language of the text can be understood by all users and consider the user’s age and their relative experience. For example, a user interface designed for a child will probably have a few short sentences in simple language, while a user interface for an older person may have more text using more complex language. Don’t automatically assume that the user knows something. Users will learn at different paces and some users may forget easily. The language you use should be positive and should encourage users rather than making them feel fearful of using the user interface. For example, if you are designing a user interface that has several screens, don’t assume that the user will know that they need to swipe their finger across the screen to move to a different screen

Although it is not always possible, you should try to keep the amount of technical language to a minimum. The complexity of the language should match the user skill level. An expert user will be able to read and understand technical language, but a novice user may not. If the user does not understand the information they may not know what they need to do, which can cause frustration. For example, here is an initial design for a search facility for a website. The word ‘parameter’ may be difficult for some users to understand

Too much information onscreen can be difficult to read. Alternatively too little and the user may not understand what they need to do.

A good idea is to only include information on the screen that is needed to complete a task. You should explain only one concept on one screen or one area of the screen. If a user sees irrelevant information, they will become confused.

It’s important to keep your sentences as short as possible. When giving instructions, you should also keep the language as simple as possible. This will make instructions easier to read and understand

White space is unused space on a screen and can be any colour. The amount of information that is given should be linked to this. If a page has a lot of white space, then it will have more information on it. However, if there is not a lot of white space, then the amount of information given will need to be reduced. It is important to balance the amount of information with the amount of white space so that the screen does not look cluttered