A positive first impression is essential to relationships. People look for trust and integrity, and they expect subsequent encounters to reflect and reinforce their first impression. The same principles apply to brands and their products. Design plays an important role in building lasting relationships with end users and, thus, in supporting the brand’s promise.
1. DEFINE UI BRAND SIGNATURES LINK
One approach is to define the UI elements that form the core building blocks of the user interface and, together, to create the interface’s unique character.
2. FOCUS THE PORTFOLIO OF PRODUCTS
Design and optimization efforts should be targeted at those products in the portfolio that matter most. A design priority matrix helps us understand where design efforts will pay off the most.
3. IDENTIFY THE CORE USER STORIES
Teams have faced several project kick-offs in which the initial list of requested features was lengthy, unfocused and impossible to build within the requested timeline. When dreaming up what a product should do, companies often lose sight of the fact that customers look for solutions that help them with very particular needs.
4. OPTIMIZE UI FLOWS AND ELEMENTS
Optimizing individual screens, flows and UI elements will reduce waiting times and keep users from thinking that they’re wasting their time.
5. DEFINE UI SCALING RULES
Building the most appealing design is like navigating a terrain with many hurdles. It is a continual balancing act between functionality, aesthetics, usability and performance. Some platforms demand more UI compromises than others. No matter what the platform’s constraints, the brand’s key signatures should remain.
6. USE A PERFORMANCE DASHBOARD
Clear communication among the team is critical to delivering a great product. We’ve encountered several situations where expectations of how a product should perform differed between marketers, designers and developers. Because performance is affected by the requirements and constraints of all of these disciplines, performance expectations need to be agreed on.
7. CHAMPION DEDICATED UI ENGINEERING SKILLS
Design has always gone hand in hand with technology. Being able to code high-performance user experiences is a specialist’s skill. It requires strong knowledge of front-end coding and a profound understanding of the design’s purpose.
The implementation of layout, graphics, animation and so on will have performance implications.
We’ve gone over seven guidelines that address performance relative to different aspects of mobile app design. Design choices affect performance, and so performance should be considered a key factor in the design process.
Courtesy of SmashingMagazine
