5 tips to help you create a cleaner user interface

"Editor's note" writer Jake Rocheleau, social media enthusiast and internet entrepreneur. Based on his personal experience, he explained to us some tips on how to design minimalist Web interface. The minimalist design mentioned here is to eliminate all the extraneous elements, keep the design in the most basic state, and to put it simply, in fact, it is not so easy to use minimalism in today's web interface design, which is accustomed to gorgeous and gradual gradients.

"Pager is far" is the the 1930s famous architect Nokomis Rohe said a word, meaning "less is more", this is a kind of advocating simple, against excessive decoration design concept. And "Less is more" a similar idea is minimalism, it emphasizes the most important elements and content in the most prominent position, eliminate redundant elements, this is the web design process to consider the factors. The reason is very simple: less page elements, visitors naturally easy to focus on the site content and links. So let's listen to Jake Rocheleau's insights on how to design minimalist Web interfaces:

1. Necessary planning

Before embarking on the design, I suggest drawing a sketch to list the blocks that the site needs to contain. Then ask yourself if each block is important to the overall design and prioritize in terms of importance. For example, does the homepage need a sidebar? Does the sidebar contain important links that visitors need to enter? Of course, according to the different types of Web site, there is no standard answer, which requires the designer to carry out specific analysis of the situation.

Although there is no standard answer, but at least as a designer, which is good or bad you at least have a spectrum. When you understand which page elements are required and which are secondary, your work will be much easier. The site's page is like a jigsaw puzzle, each piece of scattered pictures have a place of their own, you lil, the picture will gradually enrich, misplaced, will not be complete.

2. The color of the site is not the more the better, the simplest way to start from the base color

A website, to the user left the first impression is not a site rich content, nor is the site reasonable layout, but the color of the site. To some extent, the success of web design depends largely on the use and collocation of color.

General beginners are very easy in the design of the use of too much color, in fact, the site is not more than the color of the better, generally controlled within three colors. Although this is not a mandatory rule, it is helpful in the initial design phase. If you take a closer look at some similar layouts, you'll find that they all try to follow a specific color scheme--one or two of the most common color combinations in black, white, gray, and three primary colors.

Once the color of the site is framed in a simple color scheme, there is more room for the content to play. Although it may be necessary to make color modifications later and add new styles, it is always possible to focus on a clean, neat interface at the outset, with excellent results.

3. Simple website Navigation

The website navigation design is the most can reflect the website interior optimization Detail Place, the first experience for users is critical, if users visit your site for the first time, navigation is not easy to use, it means that they are difficult to find the content, so naturally it is difficult to convey to users of your site can provide services.

This requires you to incorporate minimalist concepts into the design of Web site navigation. According to People's inertia thinking, navigation is not at the top of the page is at the bottom of the page, so in the design of navigation should try to follow this principle, to do so without any relevant technical background of "small white" users can easily use, of course, special circumstances can do special consideration. In addition to the navigation button with appropriate color or texture, from an aesthetic point of view, can better please the user.

4. Simplify, simplify and simplify page elements

The first step in achieving minimalist design or simplifying design instead of simply removing most of the pictures, you need to reconsider and simplify them, just as you would any other site, write down what you need: Logos, introductions, navigation, and so on, and then prioritize them by importance, and remove the extra elements, Lose them as much as possible so that the most important elements in the page achieve the desired effect.

5. Consistency of the overall design style of the page

It is important to maintain consistency in the overall design style of the page, including the overall layout of the page, matching graphics, color, text and other styles before and after the same. Because gives the user a familiar interface environment, brings the user the experience to be far better than puts the user in a new environment.

Summary

The simpler the user interface, the easier it will be for users, but the more work you can do to design a clean and concise user interface than you think. In the design, you should put yourself in the user's perspective to think about the problem, according to the user's vision to ask themselves. Also, be sure to remember a slogan: "Simple but not easy". If an arbitrary, simple "less" method is adopted, it may be many times worse than "many". Grasp the concept of "less is more" and minimalism, can embody the designer's "Real Kung Fu". These are just a few personal suggestions, and if you have similar or better insights, you are very welcome to participate in communication and discussion.

Via WDL

Source: http://www.leiphone.com/0709-danice-design-tips-user-interface.html