What Is Consistency?
Consistency in UI design is concerned with making sure elements in a user interface are uniform. They’ll look and behave the same way. This helps constantly prove a user’s assumptions about the user interface right, creating a sense of control, familiarity, and reliability.
Benefits of Consistency in UI Design
1.Increased Usability
Consistency makes it easier for your users to navigate and use your app because they don’t have to learn new ropes to get around. They know what to expect either because they’ve learned it previously within your app or elsewhere. Naturally, this will help make your users feel comfortable, happy, and will motivate them to remain engaged with your app.
2.Eliminates Confusion
Consistent user interfaces facilitate communication. Use visual consistency to prioritize content, make it navigable, or highlight important bits of it. By using consistency to create a logical structure and to clearly define where users can find what, you’ll spare yourself confused and frustrated users.
3.Evoke an Emotional Response
Consistency in UI design can make it easier for users to navigate and use your app. This will help your users feel confident in their ability to manage what’s under their thumbs and will evoke a positive emotional response resulting from a pleasant experience.
Techniques of Creating Visually Consistent User Interface Design
1.Use Heat Maps to Understand User’s Behavior
Often when making web design decisions, most of the designers (if not all) rely on Google Analytics. However, using this kind of traditional method lets you know about the number of users who visited your web page and clicked on things within that page, but it doesn’t tell you why the users landed on your page.
Of course, getting to know about “why” instead of “how” can help you create a user interface design that ensures better usability. This is where the ‘Heat Maps’ come in handy. They help you know about the points in your website design that received maximum attention from your visitors.
2.Making the Proper Use of White Spaces
Whitespace is one of the most undervalued parameters in web design – seen by users as empty, or a waste of space. However, it is one of the most viable means to maintaining visual consistency between the elements of a UI design.
Whitespace is referred to as the spacing between the different elements of a website. Most importantly, whitespace help in making the content easier to read. Additionally, it helps scan the elements of a web page quickly.
3.Using the Right Contrast for all Elements of UI Design
The third technique that can be used to create visual consistency in UI design is to make use of the right contrast for elements like shapes, sizes, colors, etc. For example, using a light color for the main navigation menu such as white, while using a bright color background like yellow makes the menu items visually inconsistent and difficult to read. The same is the case with font size and other design elements. Using the wrong contrast for elements results in making the visual hierarchy for your site unclear to the users.
