I'm not a designer by training and have no formal education in art or cognitive psychology, human factors, usability, or ergonomics but I often find myself tasked with coming up with the user experience for an application.<p>What are some UX hacks that you have, especially for people who have no formal training like myself who want to create a great experience for their website or mobile app.
Clarity of purpose. Focus on functionality.<p>My favorite sites get this right: Hacker News, Facebook, Google, Craigslist, Techmeme, Berkshire Hathaway, Dropbox, Espn (though I can't stand its automatic video play function).<p>Imo, many areas of design (e.g. graphic design) screw up functionality.<p>"Design is how it works."
If you have no training and want to create a great experience, the best advice is to get some training.<p>Can you imagine somebody walking into a symphony hall and saying, "OK, guys, I don't really know much about music, but I want to create a masterpiece. How do I do it?" What do you think the answer would be?<p>It's nice to imagine that areas outside your expertise can be conquered with just a few helpful tips and some elbow grease, but it's unlikely to yield anything above "mediocre." Whether a poor or uninspiring experience is good enough for you is a personal choice. But don't fool yourself about what you're creating. If you want to create something great, you need to get really good.
Get the concrete stuff right:<p>-Links should be underlined, and a different color. No exceptions.<p>-Get button padding right. (make the entire button clickable, not just the text).<p>-Pick the right verbs for buttons. ("Submit" "Delete" "Copy" etc... not "OK")<p>-Web-form Usability: <a href="http://theoatmeal.com/comics/shopping_cart" rel="nofollow">http://theoatmeal.com/comics/shopping_cart</a><p>-Do simple, task-based usability testing on real users.<p>-Etc.
Make it predictable - don't surprise a user by making ui fancier than it needs to be. Buttons for psychological 'triggering' actions (submit a form, start a process, fire a missile) and links for navigation between sets of information, etc. Reeducating users on how standard widgets work differently in your app kills the mood.