User Experience Guidelines

Best practices for creating intuitive and effective user experiences

UX Principles

Core Principles

Clarity

Eliminate ambiguity. Make sure interfaces are easy to understand and actions are self-evident. Users should never have to guess how to accomplish a task.

Visibility

Make important elements visible and easily accessible. Users shouldn't have to remember information from one part of the interface to another.

Feedback

Provide clear feedback for all user actions. Users should always know what's happening and whether their actions were successful or not.

Consistency

Use consistent patterns, behaviors, and visual elements throughout the interface. This reduces cognitive load and helps users learn the system faster.

Error Prevention

Design interfaces that prevent errors before they occur. When errors do happen, make them easy to recover from.

Efficiency

Minimize the steps required to complete tasks. Respect users' time and effort by making interactions as efficient as possible.

Applying UX Principles

Do
  • Design with user goals in mind, not just features
  • Prioritize common tasks and make them easily accessible
  • Use progressive disclosure to manage complexity
  • Provide clear paths forward at every step
  • Design for different user expertise levels
  • Test designs with real users early and often
Don't
  • Prioritize aesthetics over usability
  • Add features without considering their impact on the overall experience
  • Force users to adapt to your mental model
  • Ignore established patterns without good reason
  • Make users think more than necessary
  • Assume users will read instructions

UX Resources

UX Research Templates
  • User interview scripts
  • Usability test plans
  • Heuristic evaluation checklists
  • User persona templates
  • Journey mapping worksheets
UX Tools
  • Prototyping tools (Figma, Adobe XD)
  • User testing platforms (UserTesting, Maze)
  • Analytics tools (Google Analytics, Hotjar)
  • Survey tools (SurveyMonkey, Typeform)
  • Collaboration tools (Miro, FigJam)
Recommended Reading
  • "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug
  • "The Design of Everyday Things" by Don Norman
  • "Hooked" by Nir Eyal
  • "Just Enough Research" by Erika Hall
  • "Measuring the User Experience" by Tom Tullis