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10 Ways to Spice Up a UI Design
Ways to improve the look and feel of your UI designs
Are your UI designs looking boring? Here are some of my favorite ways to give them a dash of personality.
1. Inject life into your copy
Whether it’s an onboarding screen or a loading message, users find delight in the small details. This is why companies like Old Spice and Geico have such a recognizable brand. By infusing humor and personality into their marketing, they create more memorable ads and content.
Aarron Walter, MailChimp’s director of user experience, says — “We’ve discovered that humor laced into copy, the personality of Freddie the MailChimp, and many easter eggs tucked into the workflow can transform an otherwise mundane task into an experience that people look forward to, and sometimes even miss.”
Injecting life into copy is the difference between saying “Loading…” and “Our team of highly trained monkeys is working on it.” It’s unexpected and provides a bit of entertainment for your user.
Good copy doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be humorous, either. It just means writing engaging and worth-reading copy.
Humor can also be excessive, and in some applications or industries, it just downright is not appropriate. As my friend Lianna writes on her website, punchlinecopy, “Mortuaries, surgeons, and nuclear power plants should stay out of the humor copy arena.”
Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit, said something in Tools of Titans that I loved — “Invest that little bit of time to make it a little bit more human or — depending on your brand — a little funnier, a little more different, or a little more whatever. It’ll be worth it, and that’s my challenge.”
When designing your next product, consider how you can tie the experience together with engaging or amusing copy.
