Designers decide

Design guides people through the in's and out's of our products. The visual aspects of the design are key tools in making this guidance effortless and intuitive for the user.

People rely on us, the designers, to have made decisions regarding what the most important and useful information for them is. Through clear visual hierarchies we weigh in, prioritize and choose in what order the information is presented as well as its level of importance.

This is highly important for us as designers to do because when done to perfection we end up with design that is both confident, reliable and relevant. If dont do it we will end up with frustrated users that wonders what we ask of them.

Establishing hierarchies

Typography, colour, placement and interaction are some powerful tool in establishing hierarchies in information.

Always make sure that we have prominent differences in the sizes of typography. Use as few different font sizes as possible to make it clear for our users in what order they should take in the information. Place elements of in such way that it emphasizes its place in the information hierarchy. Use our strong colours to highlight key information or a subtle greyscale to tone something down.

Use as few unique visual treatments of the visual design as possible at any given time to make the hierarchy clear.

To think about:

• Could someone using the product for the first time understand what you want them to do and in what order?
• What is the most important part of information on the interface?
• Do I have many elements that are unique in how they are treated? In that case, can I treat them the same as some other element?