UX Themes – Best Practices

If you have a website, it is important that you choose UX themes that are favorable to the users in order to attract more visitors. The traffic of a website will mostly be determined by the number of users that are visiting it. On the other hand, the number of users that visit a website will be determined by the theme or design used on such a site. If a website has a user centered set of themes, then most definitely, it will attract more visitors. But how relevant are the User Experience themes or design? Importance Of a User Centered Theme There are different themes on different platforms on the market. Whether it is on a mobile or a website platform. For instance, in a number of mobile platforms, like Apple, they employ a number of themes in their systems. These include clarity, depth and difference. So why is it important to have a user centered design?
  •  Helps the user to comprehend the platform better.
  •  Create a greater opportunity for the user to interact freely with the available content on the interface.
  •  Give the user the freedom to explore the site and perform various functions: When you consider the user in your theme creation, you will picture every possible action that they may need to do. That will help you adjust and be at your best in offering them with a relevant platform. 
  • Generally, a user based theme will help meet their needs in every way possible. 

UX Themes – Best Practices 

As vital as the consideration of the user experience is in platform development, there are some practices that will help you be at your best is satisfying the users’ needs. Some of the best practices of user themes include: 1. Timing This is in the sense of the time taken by a user in going through your website or interface. The time taken should not be more to the extend of getting the user impatient. When you are designing your platform, the time that the users will take to get to their destined location will determine. There are some themes that are extra heavy, which takes time to load when it is running. It is important to have a catchy site, but why would you have a site that needs an interval of about 5 minutes to load a new page or feature? That would be inconvenient to the user.  Time Vs. Work Units When you are designing a time unit, you should have a ballpark idea of how long it will take a process to be executed. If you define the time units inaccurately, your users will find it inappropriate. In order to avoid miscalculation of time frames or units, you might want to use work units. Here, the number of files is recorded, according to the amount of work you have carried out. That will help the user track down their activities. 

2. Clarity The UX themes must clearly define the purpose of the website. You should design your website keeping in mind the foundation of it. The entire designing should have precision in defining the major concept of the website. If you are loading images and colors related, they should be generally relevant. This will entail aspects that include the following: • Color The theme color should be elegant enough and not extreme. If it is the background color, you should choose one that matches or perfectly lets readers to read the content. It is all about getting information to the user and if they cannot read the given content, then it would be a waste of time. • Images If it is a mobile phone platform, then the images uploaded must be relevant to the mobile phone industry. You wouldn’t upload clothing or footwear images on a mobile phone platform, that would be really irrelevant. Your images should make sense all in all. • Interface The general interface of the website should be easy to use. If one clicks on a link, they should be taken directly to the intended location. The interface should not be extra complex when you are designing your theme, the more complex it is, the less interested a user will be. 

3. Depth With the depth of your theme, it should go deeper in providing information to the user. Basically, the theme should be detailed and informative. Your users would like to learn more things than what they already know. And to top that, they would not want to simply get on your platform and cover every single detail of the website within a few minutes. You should ensure that the designed theme touches on different aspects of your website and above all, it should be entertaining. The depth of your theme here is not to fill your website with any content anyhow. Rather, it is a way of engaging the user with useful content and new things altogether. 

4. Difference This should not be confused with different content on one platform or theme. On the contrary, it is the practice of using unique, yet catchy content. When users come along platforms that have similar content and design, they would be less motivated in proceeding further. 

This means that you will need to have a unique way of designing your platform. Your User Experience theme should be different from the default design of many websites. Naturally, users are more attracted to a visual display, therefore, you must try your best at being slightly different. Especially when you have competitors on the market in the same field as you. The more unique you are, is the more attractive your website will be to the several users who visit. 

In general, You should try and restructure the problem that multiple users face in your platforms. You might want to research and be sure of the best things that your users prefer on your platform. It is recommended that you understand the taste of your users and do a research on how different other websites and organizations have their platforms. This will help you to come up with UX themes that are centered on your users and it will earn your website more reputation. bnr14
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Megan Wilson is user experience specialist & editor of UX Motel. She is also the Quality Assurance and UX Specialist at WalkMe Megan.w(at)walkme.com