5 Common UX/UI Mistakes New Designers Make

Just as with any profession, mistakes are to be made – and UX/UI is no different. There’s nothing wrong if you make mistakes. The most important thing is you learn what your mistakes are and, above all, you learn from them.

In this article, we are going to discuss some of the common UX/UI mistakes every new designer – sometimes even seasoned designers – make. Whether you’re a new or veteran designer, you should keep an eye on your potential mistakes and strive to change them.

If you’re wondering if you’re doing anything wrong with your design or why there always seems to be something “off” with your work, then this article is definitely for you. So, without any further ado, let’s get started!

5 Common UX/UI Mistakes New Designers Make

1) Not applying “responsive design” to the design

Responsive design is simply an approach to design wherein the design adjusts to various screen sizes. Back in the day, most designs were only made for the standard desktop size. However, since the advent of tablet and mobile screens, designers began to make designs that will fit on virtually all screen sizes – desktop, tablet and mobile screens. This design approach is called “responsive design”.

However, despite the increased use of mobile devices, some designs are still not responsive. This is not good because “non-responsive designs” can negatively affect the user experience for mobile devices. For instance, a website’s logo that looks perfectly normal for a desktop screen would eat a lot of space when viewed from a mobile screen! Or worse – a crucial CTA button of a website goes “missing” when viewed from a mobile device because the design does not adjust to the smaller screen!

With that being said, with very few exceptions, designers should apply responsive design to their designs.

2) Not doing user research

Some designers tend to skip user research because they think that they know their users already. They have this concept of what their users would be and what they, the designer, think their users want. The problem with this is that, you don’t really know your potential users need or want – you only “know” what you think your potential users needs and wants.

So, how would you know what your users want from your design? By doing research! And, when you actually do research, you might be surprised to find out that what you think they want and what they actually want is sometimes vastly different!

3) Too much creativity at the expense of usability

UX/UI design is as creative as other creative endeavors such as writing, painting, creating music, etc. And as with other creative from different fields, UX/UI designers, being the creatives that they are, have this urge to create something new for their design – sometimes, to the point of even “reinventing the wheel”.

Don’t get this wrong: there’s absolutely nothing wrong with creativity or putting your own twist to the design. However, creativity should not overlook or come at the expense of usability and overall user experience. If it does, then your users will certainly not be happy!

A typical example of this is using custom icons that are relatively less familiar. While the designer may be happy with his/her work, the users will end up being confused and happy with the experience. Ultimately, if the usability and overall user experience is too compromised, users will abandon your design.

4) Poor or unintuitive navigation

Navigation should come in an easy, convenient and logical manner. Above all, the navigation elements should be placed where they are conventionally placed simply because most users expect them to be there. For example, a website’s menu is almost always on the top because users intuitively look for them at the top when they need the menu – it’s quite hard to imagine having the menu at the bottom of the page!

That being said, some design have poor or unintuitive navigation. Some designers rearranged the navigation flowchart perhaps to add their own twist to the design (see #3). As mentioned with the last point, it may look good with the designer, but certainly not for the users!

The remedy here is simple: simply put the elements where the users would typically look for them. There’s no need to break the convention nor reinvent the wheel if everybody’s happy with it! However, if you really want to rearrange your navigation flow, make sure that your new navigation flow is intuitive, logical and convenient for the users.

5) Less emphasis on content

Some designers put less emphasis on content when designing their project. This typically results to content that does not properly fit to the overall design – oversized fonts, words that exceed the text space, poor placing for images/videos, etc.

Content is arguably the most important part of the design simply because this is what your users will put into your design. Content is what personalizes the design. Therefore, every designer should keep an eye on how content will fit on their overall design.