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Ahmad Al-Bashrawi,CSM,CMMI 21 2 2

8 Characteristics Of Successful User

Interfaces
Published on November 12, 2016

There is a lot of information out there about various interface design techniques and
patterns you can use when crafting your user interfaces and websites, solutions to
common problems and general usability recommendations. Following guidelines from
experts will likely lead you towards creating a good user interface but what exactly is
a good interface? What are the characteristics of an effective user interface?

Here are 8 things I consider a good user interface needs to be:

1. Clear

2. Concise

3. Familiar
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6. Attractive
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7. Efficient Follow Write an articl

8. Forgiving

Lets take a closer look at each.

1. Clear

Clarity is the most important element of user interface design. Indeed, the whole
purpose of user interface design is to enable people to interact with your system by
communicating meaning and function. If people cant figure out how your application
works or where to go on your website theyll get confused and frustrated.

2. Concise

Clarity in a user interface is great, however, you should be careful not to fall into the
trap of over-clarifying. It is easy to add definitions and explanations, but every time you
do that you add mass. Your interface grows. Add too many explanations and your users
will have to spend too much time reading through them.

Keep things clear but also keep things concise. When you can explain a feature in one
sentence instead of three, do it. When you can label an item with one word instead of
two, do it. Save the valuable time of your users by keeping things concise. Keeping
things clear and concise at the same time isnt easy and takes time and effort to achieve,
but the rewards are great.

3. Familiar

Many designers strive to make their interfaces intuitive. But what does intuitive really
mean? It means something that can be naturally and instinctively understood and
comprehended. But how can you make something intuitive? You do it by making it
familiar.

Familiar is just that: something which appears like something else youve encountered
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the Windows 10 app. Get the app When youre familiar with something, you know how it behaves you know
what to expect. Identify things that are familiar to your users and integrate them into
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your user interface. For example, tabs are familiar because 10they mimic tabs on folders.Try Premium
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You figure out that clicking on a tab will navigate you to that section and that the rest of
the tabsAhmad Al-Bashrawi,CSM,CMMI
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4. Responsive

Responsive means a couple of things. First of all, responsive means fast. The interface,
if not the software behind it, should work fast. Waiting for things to load and using
laggy and slow interfaces is frustrating. Seeing things load quickly, or at the very least,
an interface that loads quickly (even if the content is yet to catch up) improves the user
experience.

Responsive also means the interface provides some form of feedback. The interface
should talk back to the user to inform them about whats happening. Have you pressed
that button successfully? How would you know? The button should display a pressed
state to give that feedback. Perhaps the button text could change to Loading and its
state disabled. Is the software stuck or is the content loading? Play a spinning wheel or
show a progress bar to keep the user in the loop.

5. Consistent

I think that adapting to any given context is smart, however, there is still a level of
consistency that an interface should maintain throughout.

Consistent interfaces allow users to develop usage patterns theyll learn what the
different buttons, tabs, icons and other interface elements look like and will recognize
them and realize what they do in different contexts. Theyll also learn how certain
things work, and will be able to work out how to operate new features quicker,
extrapolating from those previous experiences.

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6. Attractive
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This one may be a little controversial but I believe a good interface should be attractive.
Attractive in a sense that it makes the use of that interface enjoyable. Yes, you can make
your UI simple, easy to use, efficient and responsive, and it will do its job well but if
you can go that extra step further and make it attractive, then you will make the
experience of using that interface truly satisfying. When your software is pleasant to
use, your customers or staff will not simply be using it theyll look forward to using
it.

There are of course many different types of software and websites, all produced for
different markets and audiences. What looks good for any one particular audience will
vary. This means that you should fashion the look and feel of your interface for your
audience. Also, aesthetics should be used in moderation and to reinforce function.

Adding a level of polish to the interface is different to loading it with superfluous eye-
candy.

7. Eicient

A user interface is the vehicle that takes you places. Those places are the different
functions of the software application or website. A good interface should allow you to
perform those functions faster and with less effort. Now, efficient sounds like a fairly
vague attribute if you combine all of the other things on this list, surely the interface
will end up being efficient? Almost, but not quite.

What you really really need to do to make an interface efficient is to figure out what
exactly the user is trying to achieve, and then let them do exactly that without any fuss.
You have to identify how your application should work what functions does it need
to have, what are the goals youre trying to achieve? Implement an interface that lets
people easily accomplish what they want instead of simply implementing access to a list
of features.

8. Forgiving

Nobody is perfect, and people are bound to make mistakes when using your software or
website. How well you can handle those mistakes will be an important indicator of your
softwares quality. Dont punish the user build a forgiving interface to remedy issues
that come up.

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A forgiving interface
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is one that can save your users from costly mistakes. For example,
if someone deletes an important piece of information, can they easily retrieve it or undo

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what do they see? Are they greeted with a cryptic error or do they get a helpful list of
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To conclude...

Working on achieving some of these characteristics may actually clash with working on
others. For example, by trying make an interface clear, you may be adding too many
descriptions and explanations, that end up making the whole thing big and bulky.
Cutting stuff out in an effort to make things concise may have the opposite effect of
making things ambiguous. Achieving a perfect balance takes skill and time, and each
solution will depend on a case by case basis.

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2 Comments

Fahd Al-Abdulqader 12mo

IT Service manager and so ware engineer

Nice article Ahmad and to the point.

Like Reply 2 Likes 1 Reply

Ahmad Al-Bashrawi,CSM,CMMI 12mo

Senior Systems Engineer at Naizak Global Engineering Systems

Thank you Fahd.

Like Reply

Peter Saalmann 11mo

...just do it- now ;-)

Thanks for sharing! I`m looking forward to more!

Like Reply 1 Like 1 Reply

Ahmad Al-Bashrawi,CSM,CMMI 11mo

Senior Systems Engineer at Naizak Global Engineering Systems

Thanks Peter.
Like Reply

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Ahmad Al-Bashrawi,CSM,CMMI
Senior Systems Engineer at Naizak Global Engineering Systems

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