Digital trends have opened up new perspectives in graphic design with UX.
Also known as user experience, it has become a new competition for
designers.
More and more companies are demanding graphic design professionals
specialized in UX (user experience). That is why if you are a graphic designer
or passionate about content, you are in luck.
Both are disciplines that complement each other in the same figure since
graphic design takes care of the visual aspects, and the UX decides the
structure of the elements and information of a web page.
If you are a designer and want to improve your knowledge about UX, we bring
you 5 basic principles to improve your professional profile. In
this way, you will be at the forefront, and you will be a versatile designer.
Graphic design and UX
As we said, graphic design takes care of style, color, typography, and image.
Furthermore, the UX user experience expert decides what information appears and how it is presented.
In this sense, the UX shares the role of SEO in the generation of content and
the copywriter's creative ingenuity. The UX writing rule seeks to create
quality content that attracts and retains the user.
To offer visual designs and graphics capable of competing with the
competition, we also need to offer quality, original and unique content.
What is the relationship between Graphic Design
and UX?
The union of graphic design and user experience professionals represents a
professional profile with wide functionalities and capable of taking
responsibility for a project.
For example, it consists of combining the design and the visual aspect of a
web page with the content and text that will appear. In this way, the
professional offers a complete job that takes both aspects into account.
This is why the graphic design professional with UX knowledge is becoming
an increasingly important profession. His transversal vision allows him to
define an experience and a visual design that connects with the public.
As a consequence of the fact that the digital medium has more and more
weight, whether in web pages, e-commerce, or forms, the
graphic designer has more and more notions about what content to offer.
Moreover, less and less, the graphic designer decides a visual aspect without considering the information he writes, and its quality.
For you to understand how UX works within the designer's work, we bring you
5 basic principles that will show you the importance of graphic design based
on user experience.
UX Principles for Graphic Design
Here are 5 basic UX principles for graphic designers. All of them are laws
recognized as guides for creating an optimal user experience. Let's go there.
Hick's Law: decide fast or take it easy
This UX principle was defined by a British study by William Hick and Ray
Hyman. It is based on the number of stimuli and the reaction time.
In Graphic Design, this user experience law is based on "Keep It Simple". The
fewer stimuli, the more time we leave the user to decide. On the contrary,
many stimuli cause a high degree of tension and quick decision.
Depending on the situation, we can play with this balance of tension. For
For example, with the Bandersnatch from Black Mirror, we had to make 2
decisions in a short time to decide what the character did.
Von Restorff effect: BUY!
The psychiatrist Von Restorff, in 1933, came up with a principle widely used in
graphic design. In his experiment, he saw that the subjects remembered those
elements that stood out the most.
When we enter a web page, it consists of highlighting those elements that we
want to attract our user's attention. This UX principle reinforces the need
to underline or highlight those elements that matter to us to make it more
memorable.
Pragnanz's law: the less, the better
This principle, defined by a group of German psychologists in the 20th century,
is a basic graphic design principle that affects user experience. More than a
principle, it is a basic reminder in design and content, based on the
elements' simplification.
Human perception tends to adopt simple and straightforward forms. We
tended to take the elements that we see and summarize them in a way that
does not produce a great effort of attention.
This principle reminds us that less is better. The great inclusion of elements
and content, with a multitude of styles and colors, represents a great effort
that we cannot simplify.
That is why large logos tend to be very simple forms or the digital trend in web
pages are increasingly simplified.
Zeigarnik effect: half
Based on the Gestalt psychology of Bluma Zeigarnik, this principle is born in a
restaurant. She found that the waiters remembered the orders that had yet to
be finished better than those that had already been completed.
In 1927, with a group of subjects, he wanted to experiment with the hypothesis
that we remember better what we have halfway than what is already finished.
Subjects performed between 18 and 21 tasks, although they were suddenly
interrupted and consequently left unfinished. The conclusion was that the
subjects remembered better what they left halfway.
Miller's law: the 7 elements
We end with a UX principle widely used by the big brands, and that should be
taken into account in the Design Process.
This principle of user experience was defined by George Miller in 1956, in his
research on the limits and capacities of people to process information.
The Act Miller defines it for good UX; we must not show more than 7
elements, the maximum human mind retains. That is why navigation menus
are increasingly based on this principle.
Graphic Design and UX complement each other.
At Mastergraphicart.com, our graphic designers are very clear that
a good design goes through a good user experience. We cannot neglect the
content or offer a bad image.
That is why our web pages and applications are always based on the
creativity and originality of graphic design with the basic principles of user
experience.
