TOPIC
8 Golden Rules of Interface Design
Evolution of Golden Rules: refining principles in UI Design for diverse interactive systems
Requests to distill the extensive field of user interface design into a concise set of principles are common. Formulating "Golden Rules" applicable across various interactive systems has proven valuable, drawing from three decades of experience. These principles require validation and customization for specific design domains. The original compilation from 1985, including its latest iteration in the Sixth edition, is recognized as a valuable guide for students and designers. Experts such as Jakob Nielsen, Jeff Johnson, and others have further enriched these rules, contributing variations to the ongoing discourse. Outlined below are the principles from Section 3.3.4 of the Sixth edition of "Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction" by Shneiderman et al. (Pearson, May 2016). While these fundamental principles serve as a foundation, their application requires interpretation, refinement, and extension for each unique design environment. They offer a valuable starting point for designers across mobile, desktop, and web platforms, focusing on enhancing users' productivity and fostering a sense of competence, mastery, and control.
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Maintain consistency: Ensure consistent sequences of actions, terminology, and visual elements throughout the interface, with understandable and limited exceptions.
Prioritize universal usability: Account for diverse user needs, embracing plasticity in design to accommodate differences in expertise, age, abilities, international considerations, and technological diversity.
Provide informative feedback: Furnish interface feedback for every user action, varying in intensity based on the frequency and significance of the action.
Design dialogs for closure: Organize sequences of actions into cohesive groups with a clear beginning, middle, and end, offering informative feedback upon completion.
Error prevention: Design interfaces to minimize serious errors, providing constructive instructions for recovery when errors occur.
Allow easy reversal of actions: Maximize reversibility to alleviate user anxiety, promoting exploration of unfamiliar options.
Maintain user control: Empower experienced users by ensuring they feel in command of the interface, avoiding surprises, changes in familiar behavior, and tedious sequences.
Reduce short-term memory load: Mitigate users' short-term memory constraints by presenting information consistently, avoiding unnecessary reentry, and compacting lengthy forms.