What Web Designers Need to Know About UI Patterns
UI patterns are a great way to meet and exceed the expectations of your clients. What are they and how can you use them correctly? Read on for some “UI Patterns 101.”
UI Patterns: For All Your Visual Hierarchy Needs
Your website needs to be usable to the average consumer. UI patterns are an excellent way to ensure that. Everything from making the site aesthetically pleasing to allowing the users an intuitive way to enter data is obtainable utilizing UI patterns.
While UI patterns are not a cure-all to design dilemmas, they are a great place to start. It is an especially good solution if you create websites on a regular basis. This method gives you a decent foundation for creating the site while still allowing you to customize fonts, colors, and content to provide personalized sites for different clients.
Navigation is the perfect place for UI patterns. Tabs and Menus can be attractive and comfortable to use. Do you want to encourage your guests to get involved in sharing the site socially? UI patterns are a great way to draw attention to social sharing opportunities. Finally, they are great for structuring content in a way that makes site navigation easy.
How UI Patterns Fir Into Your Designs
The primary way you will find yourself using UI patterns in your website design is when there needs to be some way to navigate the site. This is a basic need for just about every site. Other UI patterns will be used according to the type of website that you are creating. For example, an e-commerce site will use UI patterns to drive customers toward the shopping cart for purchases. A musician, on the other hand, will want guests pushed toward a calendar of upcoming shows.
The Wrong UI Pattern Could Be Disastrous
Let’s face it, if you use the wrong UI pattern the site can end up looking tacky. With that in mind, you need to ask yourself a few questions to determine which UI pattern will be best. First of all, why do you need to use a UI pattern? What is the issue that you are using it to fix? Can you find other sites where UI patterns have been used in a similar way? What are the common denominators when UI patterns are employed in this manner?
UI patterns abound on websites and in mobile apps today. They are attractive and can solve some UI logistics issues if you use them well.
