Our design and development teams are, by all definitions, experts in their field. But that doesn’t mean they’re complacent in their expertise. In June, we sent our Senior Interactive Designer, Kim Hecomovich, and Lead Developer, Allyson Beckers, to the Smashing Conference in New York to learn from other leading minds. They came back to the office with notebooks full of insights and quotes to share. To see the full picture of how they’re leading innovation in design and front-end development you’ll have to partner with our team on your next project. But, for now, we’re going to share three important design principles gleaned from the Smashing Conference.
Use context to define user interface (UI) elements
When I asked for some takeaways from the event, both Allyson and Kim were quick to include Alla Kholmatova’s presentation “Atoms, Modules and Other Fancy Particles.” Alla breaks down how to create a design process based on function and consistency.
Part of designing for function is providing context to every step of the process, even pieces that aren’t visible to the end user. By defining visual patterns, you will bring connections across the system that you are working within – which in turn will create visual consistency and reinforce the brand you are working with.
“Don’t let presentation affect your thinking about the function.”
A big part of designing for function is naming your modules in a way that facilitates ease of implementation. Instead of general names like “large button” or “small button,” add some personality. Adding context to the naming provides the designer with a reason for using a specific module over another similar one. Alla noted a large button named “boss button” would reinforce that it should be the main call to action on a page and be designed as the focal point. These unseen pieces of design can go a long way for creating an effective and efficient user experience.
Conversions start with forms, design accordingly
Just about 100% of clients want their digital efforts to turn into conversions and revenue. Since the ultimate goal of digital marketing is to achieve that return on investment, conversion points should be designed intelligently. At Smashing Conf, Aaron Gustafson spoke about highly effective forms.
A form is your last point of contact for a user before they become a lead, client or customer. It shouldn’t be glossed over in the design process. Only necessary information should be collected and ease-of-use should be the main concern. Gustafson spoke about making your form fields friendly, not only in the language that you use and in the amount of fields you have, but also on the development side as well.
“Eliminate the noise, make every field fight for its place in the form.”
Balance best-practices with pushing the envelope
An overall theme across multiple presentations emerged during the conference: don’t be afraid to take chances and fail. Best-practices will provide a client with a good website, mobile app, or other online experience. In order to excel into the top 1%, it takes risk and innovation through failure—or better yet, through testing.
Brendan Dawes very succinctly told everyone to get messy, because “almost all good [things] begin with terrible first efforts.”
This has to be an ever-evolving process to continue striving for growth and innovation. “New” always performs best because it catches the user’s attention. Espen Brunborg noted that a completely irrelevant gorilla playing drums helped increase sales by 10%. But something new and outrageous will only work until users catch on and it begins to feels dated.
Both Kim and Allyson came back to Spyder Trap with a fourth major takeaway of the conference: The thrill of getting to see (and meet !!!) Seb Lester. He is an amazing typographer and artist with a long history of making type forms. Most recently, he’s internet famous for his calligraphy Instagram videos.
The two-day conference was an inspiring, amazing experience for our Spyder Trappers. Both would highly recommend it to any interactive designer or developer looking to broaden their knowledge of the interactive world that we live in. All of us here at Spyder Trap are looking forward to them using their new found knowledge to serve our clients with innovative projects.