Master the golden rules of UI design

(Image credit: Future)

There are certain UI design rules that can help ensure effective user interface design. When they get broken, it's often because of a misunderstanding of what UI design is about. UI design is not only visual design, nor is it UX design in its entirety – but it does combine elements of each. 

UI design is about usability. That means that it's not just form that's important, but rather how form aids function. Great UI design is a mixture of clarity and efficiency, and the golden rules of UI design proposed below can help to achieve that through typography, colour palettes, CTAs, components, and design systems. 

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Previously a design blog editor at Toptal and SitePoint, and before that a freelance product/UX designer and web developer for several years, Daniel Schwarz now advocates for better UX design alongside industry leaders such as InVision, Adobe, Net Magazine, and more. In his free time, Daniel loves gaming, café culture and Wikipedia, and also travels perpetually when there isn’t a pandemic.

With contributions from