50

TIPS
TO IMPROVE
USER INTERFACE

by Victor Ponamariov
Contents

Foreword 8

Typography

Put headlines closer to their respective area 9

Avoid justifying text in narrow columns 10

Break description text into a list of features 11

Make links look like links 12

Use proper line height 13

Center text container 14

Forms

Don't hide form tips 15

Place input labels correctly 16

Use progress elements in complex forms 17

Show password rules right away 18

Require fewer fields 19

Use reasonable width of inputs 20

Use labels instead of relying on placeholders 21

Don't use dropdowns if the number of options is small 22

Replace default file inputs with custom ones 23

Autofocus the first input 24

Validation

Autoscroll to the first error in large forms 25

Help users fill the form without errors 26

Consider positive as well as negative feedback 27

Show validation errors in the right place 28

Focus and Contrast

Use only one primary button 29

Put an overlay on images for better text contrast 30

Check text contrast 31

Grouping

Group form elements 32

Group logically related elements in the layout 33

Keep dangerous actions apart 34

Visuals

Consider removing borders 35

Use proper colors for table borders/striping 36

Watch your shadows 37

Dropdown trick 38

Usability

Put frequently used options on top 39

Add the copy to the clipboard button 40

Don't use complex forms in modals 41

Increase the clickable area 42

Don't rely on dots in gallery sliders 43

Consider removing confirmation modals 44

Label your icons 45

Provide further instructions 46

Indicate where the user is 47

Loading States

Leverage empty states 48

Use skeletons 49

Button loading state 50

Don't show loader right away 51

Smart/Progressive loaders 52

Misc

Icon inconsistency 53

Horizontal menu layout for links 54

Submitting verification code 55

Large data 56
Give users a visual hint that there is more content 57

Don't forget to put the post date 58

Foreword 8

Foreword

Hi there!

Recently I took a challenge. I tweeted one UI tip per day for

consecutive 50 days.

This way, I was trying to improve my UI/UX skills. And provide

some value for my followers.

Now I’ve put them all into a small book you’re reading right now.
It is my first try to write something. I’m pretty sure that there are
some mistakes.

Remember. Most things in our world are opinionated. The book

is not an exception.

These tips are recommendations, not strict rules. Some of them

are less opinionated, some of them more. But eventually, the
only advice you should follow is: be reasonable.

Victor.
Typography 9

Put headlines closer to their respective area

The proximity law states: objects that are close to each other
tend to be grouped together. The principle helps users follow
and organize information faster and more easily.

Headline
Headline

In the first picture the headline has the same distance between
the first and the second paragraphs.

In the second picture, the headline is placed closer to the text to

which it is related.

If you keep your headlines closer to their related text blocks it

will reduce the cognitive load.
Typography 10

Avoid justifying text in narrow columns

Justifying text in narrow columns is considered a bad practice.

The reason is justified text creates the "rivers" effect.

Rivers are the white gaps in the text when there is too much
space between words on consecutive text lines.

It makes the text look unbalanced and harder to read.

L o re m i p s u m d o l o r s i t a m e t , Donec ultricies lobortis libero.

consectetur adipiscing elit. Fusce Nullam vitae rhoncus nisi. Nullam at
hendrerit viverra pellentesque. euismod tortor, a suscipit nulla.
Donec aliquet mi orci, a varius metus Mauris id est et mauris rutrum
rhoncus eu. tincidunt.

Instead align text to the left.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, Donec ultricies lobortis libero.

consectetur adipiscing elit. Fusce Nullam vitae rhoncus nisi. Nullam at
hendrerit viverra pellentesque. euismod tortor, a suscipit nulla.
Donec aliquet mi orci, a varius metus Mauris id est et mauris rutrum
rhoncus eu. tincidunt.
Typography 11

Break description text into a list of features

Almost nobody will read your site entirely. People can barely
focus their attention for a few minutes. Instead, they scan sites.

What you can do is hook user attention.

One of the nice tricks is to use lists. You should list what is
listable.

This way you can also reduce the amount of text by removing
commas, conjunctions etc.

Arrange your photoshoots, client Arrange your photoshoots, client

meetings, private events and meetings and private events
automate appointment reminders to
reduce no-shows. Automate appointment
reminders
Do everything on the go and recuve
manual admin work, so you can focus
Reduce manual admin work
on your photography business

Focus on your photography

business
Typography 12

Make links look like links

Here is a screenshot from Twitter analytics. Can you guess if

there is a link to the tweet?

The link is the date of the tweet, which is impossible to guess.

First, when you click on a date you probably expect to get all
tweets you had that day.

Second, the link doesn’t look like a link. It’s gray and small.

Make sure users understand what are links without hovering

them.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
consectetur adipiscing elit. Fusce consectetur adipiscing elit. Fusce
hendrerit viverra pellentesque. hendrerit viverra pellentesque.
Typography 13

Use proper line height

Text line height should be proportional. The bigger the font size
is, the smaller the line height should be.

For headlines, the multiplier is ~1 - 1.4. For other text ~1.3 - 1.6

Line height

100%

100%

100%

Line height

110%

130%

150%
Typography 14

Center text container

Do not stretch the text container to the full width. Otherwise,

your eyes will move in Z-pattern. It will be hard to read.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Fusce bibendum et
tellus sit amet pellentesque. Mauris in turpis et enim bibendum eleifend nec
et metus. Quisque sagittis turpis at finibus consectetur.

THIS IS HARD TO FOLLOW

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,

consectetur adipiscing elit. Fusce
bibendum et tellus sit amet
pellentesque. Mauris in turpis et
enim bibendum eleifend nec et
metus. Quisque sagittis turpis at
finibus consectetur.

Pellentesque elit est, fringilla nec

semper sed, tristique ac ex. Lorem
ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur
adipiscing elit. Suspendisse
dignissim nibh ante, sed sollicitudin
quam blandit ac. Aenean efficitur at
sapien quis lacinia. Quisque
consequat vel augue sed ultricies.
Forms 15

Don't hide form tips

It looks like a good solution to hide hints under an icon because

we can save some space. The UI will look cleaner.

But. The spacing is usually not a problem.

While the user will need to take many additional actions. He

should hover every tooltip to find out what you wanted to say.

A better solution would be to display hints right away. For

example, below inputs.

Required

Leave empty if you don’t have any

We will send SMS to this number

Forms 16

Place input labels correctly

If you have a two-column layout, it would be best to place input

labels near inputs. Otherwise, users' eyes will move in Z-patter,
which is not recommended.

First Name:

Last Name:

Email:

Password:

First Name

Last Name

Email

Password
Forms 17

Use progress elements in complex forms

If you have a large complex form, break it into sections and

display them one at a time. At the same time, place a progress
element that highlights the current step.

That will reduce the reluctance users might have. Also, there is
the goal gradient effect that may motivate them to finish
completing the form.
Forms 18

Show password rules right away

If your password conforms to quite a few rules, show what you

require from the user right away.

Please do not wait until the user hits the submit button to show
him a set of errors.

Also, showing the requirements is not enough. When the user

fills the password form, highlight the satisfied rules.

This is how Mailchimp does it

Forms 19

Require fewer fields

The more fields you require,

the more significant becomes
the barrier for users to fill the
form.

You don’t need the user name

to let him use your app.

You don’t need the password

confirmation since he can
restore it via reset password
form.

You probably don’t even need

to verify user's email to let
them try your app out.

You can allow them to use the features that don’t require email
verification. And only ask it when they want to do something
crucial that requires verified email.
Forms 20

Use reasonable width of inputs

Do not try to fill the remaining space on your screen. Your forms
don’t have to be 100% wide.

The size of inputs can determine what type of content you

expect from the user.

For example, a zip code or phone number cannot have a

hundred characters.

Zip Code Zip Code

Phone Number Phone Number

Date Day Month Year

Forms 21

Use labels instead of relying on placeholders

Don’t use placeholders as labels.

While the user is filling the form, he might forget what you
asked him. To see the placeholder text, the user has to erase the
content in the input.

Plus, having labels is better for accessibility reasons.

In rare cases, though, you can omit labels. In a sign-in form, you
have only two inputs, so it’s okay to use placeholders.

First Name First Name

Last Name
Last Name

Email

Password Email

Password
Forms 22

Don't use dropdowns if the number of options is small

If you have a dropdown with up to 5-7 options, then display all

the options right away. Do not hide them under the dropdown.

Users will need to make more

clicks to select the option they
need. You have plenty of
options.

1. Radio buttons
2. Clickable tags/buttons
3. Clickable cards
4. Checkboxes (for multiple
selections)

Clickable tags/buttons Radio buttons

Clickable cards (may contain radio buttons)

Forms 23

Replace default file inputs with custom ones

Default file inputs look different in different browsers. Plus, they

have poor usability.

They don't have many things like image preview, size validation,
asynchronous uploading, etc.

Instead of using inconsistent default browser inputs, you should

use a custom one.
Forms 24

Autofocus the first input input

When building a user-friendly interface, we aim to reduce the

number of actions users need to take. Ideally, we shouldn’t have
any interface at all.

A simple but nice trick is to autofocus the first input in the form.
This way user won’t need to do it manually.

First Name

Last Name

Email

Password
Validation 25

Autoscroll to the first error in large forms

Sometimes the size of a form can exceed the monitor viewport.

When the user scrolls down to the submit button and presses it,
some of the inputs placed above can be filled incorrectly. But
the user can't see them.

On the one hand, you have correctly working validation. On the

other hand, when the user clicks the submit button, nothing
happens for him.

A possible solution is to move users to the first invalid input that

contains an error description.

autoscroll to the
first error

user clicks
Validation 26

Help users fill the form without errors

Even though you should have form validation, it'd be the best
case if you users fill the form correctly on the first try. There are
some tricks on how you can do it.

1. Reduce the number of required fields

2. Pre-fill data if you can do so. For example, you can try to
guess the user's country, language, location, device, etc.

3. In login/signup forms provide social authentication methods.

4. Use masks for such fields as dates and phone numbers so

that users don't guess the correct format.

5. Visually show how long the content should be. For example,
don't make the input very wide for zip codes since it's not
realistic.

6. Limit the symbols that the input accepts. For zip code it's
reasonable to allow inputting only numbers.
Validation 27

Consider positive as well as negative feedback

If you have a complex form, it might be a good idea to show

users not only when he fails but also when he fills an input
correctly.

It gives users some assurance.

It might not be necessary for small forms like login. But if the
form consists of dozens of inputs with some tricky data
required, show a green tick if the field is filled correctly.

Email

[email protected]

Card Number

1111 2222 3333 4444

Phone Number

+1-111-30-4

Confirm
Validation 28

Show validation errors in the right place

One of the best choices is to place validation errors near inputs.

If you show an error that way, the user will be in the context of
what he's filling in.

While if you show it somewhere else, the user will have to match
the text and the input.

Plus, if you group errors in one place (e.g., at the bottom), it

might end up with many lines that's hard to read.
Focus and Contrast 29

Use only one primary button

You should show users one logically completed piece of

information at a time.

If you have a form, it should be related to one function and has

one primary button. The primary button usually has the brand
color.

One of the common mistakes is having too many primary

buttons.

Instead, you should have one primary button, while other

buttons/links should be secondary.
Focus and Contrast 30

Put an overlay on images for better text contrast

Sometimes you need some

text on an image. But you may
not know what the picture will
be.
This text is hard to read

Just putting text won’t work.

You have a few solutions here.

First, you can put a black

overlay on the image with
some opacity.

This text is easy to read

Another solution is to add

a background to the text,
so that the contrast looks
good.
This text is easy to read
Focus and Contrast 31

Check text contrast

There are three WCAG contrast levels: A, AA, and AAA. You’re
good if you have AA or AAA.

Having low contrast is a widespread mistake. A vast number of

sites fail to conform even to the AA level.

You can quickly check the contrast level with chrome developer
tools.

AA failed (2.3:1) AAA passed (9.36:1)

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consectetur adipiscing elit. consectetur adipiscing elit.
Morbi faucibus, dolor non Morbi faucibus, dolor non
dapibus elementum, magna dapibus elementum, magna
tellus sagittis sem, sit amet tellus sagittis sem, sit amet
dapibus odio nibh eget ligula. dapibus odio nibh eget ligula.
Fusce at quam elit. Fusce at quam elit.
Grouping 32

Group form elements

Proximity law states: "Objects that are near, or proximate to

each other, tend to be grouped together."

A common mistake is when input labels have the same spacing

between inputs. Without additional effort, you cannot easily say
to which input the label belongs.

"Whitespace is like air: it is necessary for design to breathe." –

Wojciech Zieliński

First Name First Name

Last Name
Last Name

Email
Email

Password

Password
Grouping 33

Group logically related elements in the layout

Miller's law states that the number of objects an average person

can hold in working memory is about seven plus or minus two.

You shouldn't take this literally, trying to fit elements in the

magic number. But you should place logically related elements
into groups and provide enough whitespace between them.

If your navigation has 10-15 links that are not divided into any
logical groups, then it'll be more challenging for users to
navigate through them.
Grouping 34

Keep dangerous actions apart

Actions that can lead to irreversible effects should be kept apart

from frequently used ones.

Don’t put such things as delete buttons, logout links, send

message buttons near other actions.

The power off button located directly above the delete key

Visuals 35

Consider removing borders

Often user interface looks much cleaner without borders. When

founders or developers work alone without a designer, they
tend to overuse borders.

An alternative would be using background colors (without

borders) or shadows. Or even don't use anything at all.
Visuals 36

Use proper colors for table borders/striping

Two rules can help you make your table look better.

If you don't have many rows - omit bordering or striping them.

Instead, enlarge the whitespace between rows.

If you have a massive table with many rows and columns, it will
be hard to navigate through it. In this case, you can stripe your
stripe or border it.

But pay special attention to the colors. They should be subtle

and barely noticeable.

Otherwise, the table will look bad.

Visuals 37

Watch your shadows

Your shadows should be soft and have a slight presence.

Also, it would be better to avoid using borders simultaneously

since it might be hard to make them look good together.
Visuals 38

Dropdown trick

This one is easier to illustrate than describe. In the Namecheap

DNS records editor, there is a dropdown for adding a new
record.

In the first case, they have a dropdown with some options that
exactly fit the dropdown.

But it’s impossible to guess that there are, in fact, more options.
Especially on MacOS, when the scrollbars are hidden.

All you need to do in this case is increase the dropdown height

to give users a clue that more options exist.
Usability 39

Put frequently used options on top

The fewer actions the user should take to achieve his goal - the
better. One of the tricks is to provide frequently used options
right away.

If somebody needs another option, he will have to do more

work. But by providing frequently used options, we can reduce
the amount of effort for others.

You can also remember what users often select and then show
it on the top. It perfectly suits search results.

Country… Country…

Afghanistan United States of America

Albania Afghanistan

Algeria Albania

American Samoa Algeria

American Samoa
Usability 40

Add the copy to the clipboard button

You should add the "copy to clipboard" button for links, images,
tokens etc. In other words, for everything that users have to
copy & paste manually.

Google drive document sharing

carbon.now.sh image copying to clipboard

Usability 41

Don't use complex forms in modals

Modals themselves have a lot of disadvantages. But here is a

specific case.

Imagine you have a table of entities and the "add new" button.

When you click the button, you have two options: redirect the
user to a new page or show a modal.

In the latter, you might encounter the following problems:

1. It’s harder to implement a specific URL that will show the

form. Without the URL you cannot share it.

2. If the form doesn't fit the modal you'll have a scroll. It might

lead to such things as a not-visible submit button.

3. The user can accidentally close the modal in the middle of

filling it.

4. On mobile devices, modals take a bit more space than if we

place the form on a separate page.

To sum up: avoid putting complex forms in modals and don't

overuse them too much.
Usability 42

Increase the clickable area

Fitt's law reads: The time to acquire a target is a function of the

distance to and size of the target.

In other words, the bigger the object is, the easier it is to hit it.

For small controls, you can add an invisible clickable area that
will help users hitting them.

It is crucial on mobile devices.

The invisible area is easy to achieve by simply using paddings for

HTML elements.

Features Pricing FAQ Contact Us Features Pricing FAQ Contact Us

Usability 43

Don't rely on dots in gallery sliders

Dots have poor usability

because it's hard to hit them.

They are completely unusable

on mobile devices.

You have many other options.

Display clickable part of

previous / next images

Make left & right areas of the

image clickable.

Pay attention that the clickable

area should be big enough.
Usability 44

Consider removing confirmation modals

Confirmation modals don’t

work. You almost
Are you sure you want to
delete this item? automatically click yes,
because it became our habit.
Cancel Delete

It’s a problem if you cannot

restore important information.

It would be much better to

allow the user to restore
The item has been
successfully deleted deleted information.

RESTORE In OS, when you delete a file, it

goes to the trash bin at first.

But if the user asked something that cannot be undone, it's not
an option.

In this case, you should enhance your confirmation. You can ask
your users to do some manual work. For example, by asking
them to type something manually.
Usability 45

Label your icons

Since there is no standard of what each icon means, you should

label your icons.

The same icon can mean different things. Every developer and
designer has his own opinion of what it should represent.

I found an excellent article explaining in detail why you should

label your icons, so I'd better leave it here for further reading.

Select Language Explore

Recent Refresh
Usability 46

Provide further instructions

You shouldn't leave users without any clue of what they should
do next.

Some examples of doing it wrong:

An error occurs, and you show users what happened, but you
don't tell them what to do next.

The user googled your site and clicked on the link, but instead,
he got a 404 error. Page is not found. But you didn't give him
instructions on what to do next.

User logged in to your complex app. And there is no onboarding

or any hints of what he should do first.

So the general rule is that users shouldn't be stuck without any

clues of what to do next. There is a related heuristic called user
control and freedom.
Usability 47

Indicate where the user is

Users should always know where they are at every moment they
use your app.

Highlight navigation links. Add breadcrumbs if your site map is

complex.

There is a related usability heuristic, “Visibility of System Status”

Loading States 48

Leverage empty states

When you need to display a list of records, a common pattern

looks like this.

Credit Cards Add New

You don’t have any cards

But if there are no records, you can use available space for a
more informative and engaging message.

No Credit Cards
Please add some credit cart to your account

Add a credit card

Loading States 49

Use skeletons

If you use loaders when loading big content, you’ll have a layout
shift after the content was loaded. While if you use skeletons,
the height will stay the same.

It’s best to use loaders in such things as buttons. At the same

time, skeletons work well for layout / articles / large content.
Loading States 50

Button loading state

Buttons should keep the same

Button Text width when they turn into the
state of loading.

The layout shift happens when

you hide button content and
show loader instead.

The best solution here is to

make the text transparent.

It will ensure that the button

will have the same width
because the content has not
Button Text
changed. It became
transparent instead.

It will work even if you have

localization and the user has
changed the language.
Loading States 51

Don't show loader right away

Developers usually display the loader as soon as the content

started loading. But in reality, the content may be loaded in
traction of seconds, e.g., in ~0.2 seconds.

In this case, showing loaders would look like a flashing piece of

content. Things will look even worse in the case of displaying a
large piece of content, e.g., an article.

It would be best to wait sometime (e.g., 0.5 - 1 seconds) before

showing loaders to avoid the layout shift.
Loading States 52

Smart/Progressive loaders

Sometimes it happens that the content is loading for a long

time. It might be because of a slow connection or if you have
heavy calculations on the backend side.

In this case, when the loader is animated, and nothing happens

for 5-10 seconds, the user might not be sure if it's working or
not.

Instead of showing the same loading animation, you can provide

additional engaging content. For example, by saying, "Hmm, it
takes more than usual time...", "We're almost here..." etc.

It will give users some assurance that the app is working and not
broken.
Misc 53

Icon inconsistency

When you find some free icons on the web that belongs to
different packs, it might turn out that they have different styling.

- Different stroke width

- Filled / Outlined
- Coloured / Non-coloured
- Minimalistic / Complex

It'd be better, of course, to use a pack that has some consistent

styling.

But if you download a single icon that doesn't exist in the pack,
make sure it conforms to the styling you already have.
Misc 54

Horizontal menu layout for links

If your app is simple or doesn't have yet many pages, it might be

a good idea to use horizontal navigation instead of a vertical
one.

The reason is that the vertical navigation takes all viewport

height while horizontal one can be centered.

Also, horizontal navigation quite often has additional elements

as logo and user menu.

App Links

Logout/Profile
Logo App Links
Links

Free space

Container

Logout/Profile links
Misc 55

Submitting verification code

If your code is simple (e.g., has four digits), you might avoid
asking the user to click the submit button.

The probability that the user will enter it incorrectly is small

(especially if he copy-paste it from an email message). This way,
you can reduce the number of required actions.

Enter verification code Enter verification code

1 4 2 9 1 4 2 9

verifying…
Misc 56

Large data

A widespread case is when the design is made assuming that

the content data won't be extensive: emails, user names, article
titles - all that believed to be small.

But in reality, it happens very often that the content is large.

User name suddenly consists of few words, article's title has few
sentences.

In this case you the content should be handled appropriately. It

might be:

- Hiding overflowing content and putting dots ellipsis

- Forbidding users to enter lengthy content by limiting the
number of characters they can input
- Hiding part of the content and showing the user the "show
more" button

The main thing is not to forget that the data can be lengthy.
Misc 57

Give users a visual hint that there is more content

It is a pretty common trick to visually hint to users that there is

more content than they see at this moment.
Misc 58

Don't forget to put the post date

Our knowledge constantly evolves. The content written today

might be irrelevant tomorrow.

When I google something related to programming and find an

article without a date, there is no point in reading it because you
cannot be sure that it is not outdated.

The article might've been written five years ago. It's a huge time
range for programming.

The same applied to many areas of our life.

So, don't forget to put the post date.

 Thanks for reading!

If you have any questions, I’m always

available on Twitter.

Also, I share some UI/UX stuff there daily, so

don’t forget to check it out!