What do you mean by “Simple Design”?- UI and UX

You must have heard designers say “Keep the Design Simple” but what do they really mean? Be it a website design, mobile UI Design or UX design, most of them do often talk about simplicity in the design. But, what actually a simple design is? We often relate it to the minimalist design approach as we think it means less.

We believe that by keeping our site content above the fold, we are allowing visitors to focus on bullets instead of paragraphs. Some designers have a practice of shortening the text content to half of the actual as it becomes more clear. But to tell you, simple is not less. A better definition of simple design would be “just enough”. We can define it as mentioned below.

 

“A simple design is one which is just enough for comprehension and is effective in pursuing and completing our goals”.

Important Read: Minimalist Approach Is The New Secret Of Mobile Apps Design

Simple design does not require hiding or shortening of website content. There are several ways you can achieve simplicity in the design. Here I  explain how.

 

• Have a Distinct idea (Not too many ideas or a partial idea)
• Improve clarity over time (Get rid of any useless details)
• Try to make it Consistent (Get rid of Unnecessarily Unique Interface or Messages)

Have a Distinct Idea

The distinct idea is:

• Binary- This approach is all about allowing users to value their agreement or not.
• Described in Simple Language- Should be clear about the issue or opportunity depending on the objectives.
• Frequent Repetition- The frequent tasks need to be reiterated wherever it seems essential.
• Likely to bring some Outcome- The ultimate goal of every problem or opportunity must be visible.

Improve Clarity over Time

Once you gain people’s interest, it’s time to let them invest time and mental energy. Even though the users find the application interesting, there are still some chances of complications. There are several ways to battle this out.

• Clear Navigations- The next goal is to make sure users are able to interact and able to understand how to act effectively within the interface.
• Progressive Disclosure- Put focus only on those details that help comprehend the current task.
• Obvious paths- Make sure to have a clear transition to the next level of detail.

 

User Consistency

If you want your users to tail around, you need to actually involve them into the application. Every feature needs to be accessible enough to seem joyous and feel like it’s worth investing time and energy.

You can be consistent through:

• Reinforcing Routines- Figure out similar processes and implement similar approaches.
• Building Patterns- Place similar components to the actual place so that users can act on intuition.
• Breaking Rules Periodically-  Sometimes. Breaking the rules to achieve uniqueness is fruitful.