Kelley Gordon is a former NN/G employee who published widely-used guidance on visual design, design specs and the designer-developer relationship, and the fundamentals of UI components including buttons, icons, and grids.
Even people with limited drawing abilities can learn to sketch a wireframe if they learn a few common conventions used to represent various design elements.
To support the user experience, colors need to be combined wisely so that they work together well, do not overwhelm, and communicate the same kind of information everywhere in the interface.
When visual design elements appear clearly different (for example, have contrasting colors) users easily deduce that the contrasting item is different or special in some way. So if it actually is different, this enhances usability.
We made the 10 heuristics’ posters easy to read and understand by iterating through multiple versions and improving each based on user-centered principles and methods.
A clear visual hierarchy guides the eye to the most important elements on the page. It can be created through variations in color and contrast, scale, and grouping.
Users pay more attention to big things than to small things, and this design principle can be used to prioritize a user experience design, such as a web page or application screen.
