Day 91 - What Speed Should Your UI Animations Be

Good  timing and duration for animated UIs are around 200ms to 500ms seconds.  This is more of an art than a science. Always test and adjust how fast your animation is.  Smaller animations will be in the 100ms or 200ms range, while larger animations that have more area to cover will be in the higher ranges.

Day 81 - User Interface Learnability

A UI should be easy to use from the first time a customer interacts with it.  If the interface isn't approachable or if it's confusing, people will abandon it quickly. The amount of functionality presented to the user should be limited to precisely what the user requires to accomplish the task.

Day 63 - UI Layout - Try Single Columns Instead of Multi-Columns

Multiple columns break the eye flow and work flow. However a single column design will give you more control over the narrative. There's also plenty of room in the single column design for inline help and error messaging.

Having a single column leads to more scrolling. But don't feel perturbed into having scrolling if it's necessary.  Good tab ordering can help with this. User testing should give more objective results.

Try a single column layout and lead people through a story.  At the end of your story present your users with a call to action.

Day 14 - Quick Tips User Interface Design

Remember these are guidelines, not rules. Try these:

1. Try a single column layout instead of multiple columns to narrow distractions. Include a call to action at the end.
2. Try consolidating similar or duplicate functions into one in order to reduce fragmentation and confusion.
3. Reduce choices.  Too many choices may cause indecision on the part of the user.
4. Be direct in your content. If you're copy is using words like "maybe", "probably", or "perhaps" then this is an opportunity for you to be more authoritative.
5. Try fewer form fields and engage your users quickly.  Every form field you add makes the experience more labor intensive, increases friction, and makes it more likely that your user will drop off.

Day 12 - Understand the User's Goals, Needs, and Tasks - Model the Solution

1. Task Modeling - understanding what people want and how to design for them.
2. Find out the steps people go through and the decisions they need to make. Then base your designs around that.
3. UX is often stuck in academia. Talk to real users.
4. With the task model, you're aligning design experiences that fit with how people expect things to work in practice.
5. Think from the user's perspective first, but utilize systems thinking, holistic thinking about the overall experience.
6. Empathy - understand and share your user's experience and emotion.
7. Constantly check in with your users to make sure the UI is on point. But the goal is to be able to tell the story without showing the interface.
8. All the details in every page and component of your product should contribute to the overall experience.