I promised in my last blog post to go into a little more detail about UI prototyping techniques for a winning email application. To outline these, I looked at various aspects of Google mail’s user interface design. Here are a few tips for UI prototyping that I have come up with as a result of my analysis.
One of the most important UI design rules, not just for an email application, is to have clear and consistent design. Of course, Google mail has a great number of developers, working on making it as user friendly and as simple as possible. It doesn’t mean that any other email service with significantly less resources cannot compete with it so don’t get discouraged.
UI prototyping rule number two is an appealing point of entry. What I like in Google mail’s starting page is that it lists the main benefits of using this particular email service. It also provides small and relevant images to help make it more vivid. Use a UI prototyping tool to create a mockup of your starting page. It is important that the text is concise and images correspond to the rest of the design. To create a winning entry page you may have to use your UI prototyping tool more than once to create and test different options.
Thirdly, I would like to address the design of the registration page. The rule is –less is more. Google fits the whole process in just one page, which I find a great idea. If you want to do the same make sure that it is not too cramped because it might intimidate and turn the users off. Similarly to the entry page, create a few different mockups in your UI prototyping tool and show them to colleagues or users to determine the best design.