Tips on creating user interfaces and optimizing the user experience

Question

I am currently working on a project where a lot of user interaction is going to take place. There is also a commercial side as people can buy certain items and services.

In my opinion a good blend of user interface, speed and security is essential for these types of websites. It is fairly easy to use ajax and JavaScript nowadays to do almost everything, as there are a lot of libraries available such as jQuery and others. But this can have some performance and incompatibility issues. This can lead to users just going to the next website.

The overall look of the website is important too. Where to place certain buttons, where to place certain types of articles such as faq and support. Where and how to display error messages so that the user sees them but are not bothering him. And an overall color scheme is important too.

The basic question is: How to create an interface that triggers a user to buy/use your services

I know psychology also plays a huge role in how users interact with your website. The color scheme for example is important. When the colors are irritating on a website you just want to click away. I have not found any articles that explain those concept.

Does anyone have any tips and/or recourses where i can get some articles that guide you in making the correct choices for your website.

Answer 1

The best piece of advice IMHO:

You are a developer, not a designer. Don't try to be a designer because you are not.

Answer 2

Read Steve Krug's book: Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability

Answer 3

Adhere to some standard UI Design Principles:

1. The structure principle: Your design should organize the user interface purposefully, in meaningful and useful ways based on clear, consistent models that are apparent and recognizable to users, putting related things together and separating unrelated things, differentiating dissimilar things and making similar things resemble one another. The structure principle is concerned with your overall user interface architecture.
2. The simplicity principle: Your design should make simple, common tasks simple to do, communicating clearly and simply in the user’s own language, and providing good shortcuts that are meaningfully related to longer procedures.
3. The visibility principle: Your design should keep all needed options and materials for a given task visible without distracting the user with extraneous or redundant information. Good designs don’t overwhelm users with too many alternatives or confuse them with unneeded information.
4. The feedback principle: Your design should keep users informed of actions or interpretations, changes of state or condition, and errors or exceptions that are relevant and of interest to the user through clear, concise, and unambiguous language familiar to users.
5. The tolerance principle: Your design should be flexible and tolerant, reducing the cost of mistakes and misuse by allowing undoing and redoing, while also preventing errors wherever possible by tolerating varied inputs and sequences and by interpreting all reasonable actions reasonable.
6. The reuse principle: Your design should reuse internal and external components and behaviors, maintaining consistency with purpose rather than merely arbitrary consistency, thus reducing the need for users to rethink and remember.

Try to look for Websites or Web Application which has successfully achieved the goal you are looking to achieve, study their UI's, try to find common parameters & patterns which engages the user on their sites.

I always believe amazon is very good at keeping user engaged on website by showing relevant recommendations, what other people are looking types recommendations, people who bought this also bought this kind of recommendations.

Another good read: What should a developer know about interface design usability and user psychology

Also, Good Read on UI design considerations of e-commerce websites.