Good/Bad UI/UX Design and How to Navigate in It to Succeed

Talking about design gets quite subjective. However, everything changes when you bring your product to the market. From this point on, you become dependent on industry trends and user feedback.

If you don't hit the right design, your product will simply be criticized or even become irrelevant to the audience.

Today I will explain the difference between good and bad design in the context of its impact on product viability.

Why Can Design Be Both a Trigger for Success and Failure of a Product?

Users often evaluate the product by its appearance. For example, before they decide whether to install the application or not, they may go to the Play Store or App Store and check out the app's screenshots.

If they find those screenshots appealing, they may install the app. However, how long they stick around will depend on the interface and graphical elements.?

Moreover, trends for app design change often. Thus, even if the product was once successful because of the great interface, tomorrow it could be a total turn-off for the audience.?

The Past Design Trends That Will Doom the Project Today

About 10 years ago, personalization of user interfaces was on trend. It was more about "branding," really. Samsung, LG, Motorola, BlackBerry, Apple, Lenovo, and other market players experimented with design. Each of the companies personalized the stock software on smartphones, turning it into works of digital art.

Countless colors, contrast, and pictures instead of monotones and gradients. And remember Xiaomi's custom firmware, back when they were still primarily a software company? Try rolling out a design like that today, and don't be surprised why the product has failed, no matter how functional or innovative it is, cause it won't appeal to most users.

Factors Influencing How the Audience Perceives Your Design

As we talk about today, design leans more towards practical elements, with visuals playing a supporting role.

That's why I've prepared 5 critically important factors in design that directly influence the audience's perception of digital products. Understanding them will help you build an app interface that effectively converts into profits.

Logic

First and foremost, your design must make sense. It means that interactive elements should correspond to the information on the screen and provide intuitive navigation between the functions. Thus, design encompasses the application's architecture.

For example, if you're creating a CRM, the system's design should be structured so that users can quickly access key functionality. The common practice is to display it on the dashboard.

Color Saturation (Digital Parrot)

There are two design themes: light and dark (black for AMOLED). That's it: no bright and saturated colors, contrasting fonts, JPEG images in the background, or other elements distracting from the program's content.

The user should focus specifically on the content, functions, and textual guidance on the screens. Therefore, only passive colors, smooth gradients, standard fonts (SF Pro, Roboto, etc.), and limited background contrast should be your companions when creating the design of your product.

Performance

The behavior and speed of software depend on design. Heavy fonts, animations, or video sequences instead of backgrounds, ad blocks, and everything from this repertoire can really slow things down. Sure, using server-side rendering to process graphics can help, but it's not a fix-all.

Therefore, it's a good idea to keep things light on visual elements and effects. Simpler is better, but faster.

"Freshness"

Using successful cases from a decade ago for modern projects is not a great move, really. Especially as you consider that the design trends have been quite stable since the release of the Material variation. Google and Apple still rely on it to design stock tools in Android and iOS systems.

Basic gradients, monotonous icons, slightly rounded control element edges, smooth transitions without heavy animation. This is all you need for your design to look fresh and original, even when you're up against the competition.

Adaptability

Classic monoblocks, smartphones with flexible displays with different aspect ratios, formats, and display technologies. To reach the widest audience possible, you've gotta make your product work on all of them.

A design based on PNG elements and cross-platform frameworks is the optimal solution that can provide you with maximum coverage of potential users.

Moreover, this will help retain the audience by offering them a smooth and organic user experience when interacting with the product across different devices.

Design Hacks to Make Your Design Stand Out

I've already shared a few tips, but that's no reason to skip additional life hacks. Anyway, just remember the golden rule of effective design – "Design should be universal."

You probably get what I mean, especially if you're using the latest smartphones from Samsung, Apple, or Google.

Indeed, these three manufacturers have embraced Material design (Samsung also, but in its own interpretation, OneUI) and succeeded. Now, they're setting the design trends that everyone else in the market, including digital product creators, are following.

Take Inspiration from Popular Brands

Get inspired by Apple, Google, and Samsung. The default designs of their apps appeal to their audience. So, your original software design could resonate with them too.

And hey, I'm not saying you should copy their design outright. You may replicate a concept while adhering to your platform's key features. For example, native OS gestures, integration of functions with stock commands, and so on.

Use Concise Graphics

You really don't need to go overboard with high-contrast and bright styles, an excessive number of distracting graphical elements, heavy animations, fancy handwritten fonts, and other digital clutter.

Stick to a neutral color palette (in corporate shades), unobtrusive gradients, limited rounding, simple animation, correct navigation logic, and interactive control elements. That's the perfect design formula.

This will help reduce the load on user devices and adapt the product for organic toning in both day and night color schemes.

Choose an Experienced Designer

Lastly, don't skimp on design. Otherwise, this could cost you profits and your spot in the market. Collaborate with professionals—hire experienced UI/UX designers, IT consultants and business analysts who keep track of the industry. They will help you implement modern and effective digital product design.

How your product looks and how users interact with it are what app design is all about. Sure, design trends come and go, but the core objectives and importance of design stay the same.

Do you think it's possible to ignore the trends in product design? Share your thoughts in the comments.