Whether you are creating a SaaS product, mobile application, or progressive web app, the process of designing a digital product requires a high level of organization and communication. Many design teams use UI style guides to keep the brand elements, messaging and design consistent. A UI style guide is a collection of design standards for UI elements and interactions of a web app product to ensure brand consistency.
UX designers, developers, and product teams are advised to use the same visual design style to streamline the design process and keep everyone aligned when designing a digital product. A UI style guide acts as a standard resource that includes all the important details related to a product’s user interface design. From typography to colors, layout, design elements, and a good UX Reserach a UI style guide include everything as per the brand guidelines.
A well-researched UI style guide ensures that every team member is following design principles throughout the design and development phase. Partnering with a web design agency in Dubai to develop a comprehensive UI style guide for your web or app project is a smart decision. It ensures smart design choices and aligns your product design with the overall look and feel of your brand.
If you are wondering how a UI style guide can help your web design team, here are some reasons to create a UI style guide for your upcoming design project.
Why Does Your Design Team Need a UI Style Guide?
Today many web design and UX design teams create a UI style guide before starting a web design or app development project. The purpose of creating a UI style guide is to ensure brand consistency, improve design collaboration and communication among the team members. Discussing every single detail about the design will help the design team to keep the design consistent even when introducing new features or functionality.
Failing to create a UI style guide will lead to visual and experiential consistencies, making it difficult for a UI/UX design team to create the intended look and feel of a digital product. Furthermore, it will annoy users and make them abandon the app, thus creating a negative brand impact.
How to Create a UI Style Guide?
- Overall, a UI style guide is a design and development tool important for creating a positive UX and a digital product’s user interface. Here are some benefits of creating one.
- A UI style guide helps the design and development team to communicate effectively.
- A robust UI style guide will help you create a consistent user interface design throughout the customer journey.
- Every team member, client and stakeholder can easily understand the visual process and work together to maintain visual consistency.
- You can change the style guide throughout the product development according to the latest web design trends.
When it comes to creating a UI style guide for your digital product design, it is important to record each and every design detail, interaction and element of your product. It is advised to list down all the design elements and UI components such as buttons, colors, typography, layouts, grids, navigation menus – to name a few.
Documentation of all UX design elements can’t be overlooked. Make sure to record hover states, animations, and other components. Don’t forget to add necessary design instructions, such as code snippets, file format, design tone, live elements and other important details to a UI style guide. It will make it easier for your design and development team to work together on a project.
What Elements to include in a UI Style Guide?
A UI style guide contains a multitude of design elements, the key is to create a list of relevant design components. Here is a list of design components you should include in a UI style guide:
i. Typography
Typography is an important interface design element that should be added to the style guide. Make sure to document clear instructions, such as font type, size, weight, and line height used throughout the product. Mention the font size and weight for titles, headings, subheadings, H1, H2, H3, text, and captions. When designing a website, it is important to check the font’s computability with different browsers and operating systems. Failing to do so will cause font inconsistencies in the design.
ii. Color Palette
It is an important design component that matters a lot for brand consistency and creating a tone of the digital product. The colour palette you choose should be consistent throughout the design process. Clearly define the color combinations you will use to maintain brand identity.
iii. Buttons
Buttons are a crucial component of a user interface design. Document the size, style, colour, placement, colour and other important details related to buttons.
iv. Iconography
With icons, you can improve the accessibility of your product and make it more user-friendly. You can use icons to organize similar functions, such as navigation, data and much more.
v. Layouts
With responsive layouts, you can organize the visual elements of your digital product. It helps designers maintain consistency when the user moves from one screen to another. A UI style guide should include spacing, padding, and placement details.
Other UI Components for UI Style Guide
Other UI components play a significant role in creating a positive user experience. Documenting the components used in the digital product will help web design teams to understand the function of each component. It will allow them to easily construct the UI of your product while instructing the team on how to use each component. Here is a list of UI components that designers should include in the style guide document:
- Modals
- Form elements
- Data tables
- Navigation menu
- Toolbars
- Checkboxes
- Page load indicator
- Slider
- Dropdown menu
- Pagination
- Alerts
Final Words
The goal of creating a style guide is to allow your design team and developers to use design elements to design, prototype and test products collectively. With a style guide, each team member can design, prototype and test products while exchanging feedback and essential ideas. It has become an important design and development tool to foster collaboration and understand the design language system. A web design agency can better guide you on using a UI style guide to create a sophisticated digital product, make iterations and deliver a consistent digital experience.
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