What are the general principles of UI design

There are various approaches to UI design principles categorization. Quite often they can be rather subjective.

Here is one possible version of these principles:

• Visual hierarchy helps distinguish various elements and emphasizes the level of importance of each one of them. Shows that some elements are more important than others or need to draw attention.
• Consistency maintains the established style throughout the site/page, making sure that every element follows the same design.
• Clarity ensures that every element is easy to understand and navigate through.
• Accessibility makes the site accessible to all users.
• Responsiveness makes the site/page adaptive to various devices and screen sizes.
• Feedback lets users know when they interact with various elements (button is clicked, input field is focused, etc.).
• Efficiency makes navigation through the page/site or interaction with its elements easier and more straightforward (simplifying both, when possible).
• Aesthetics makes overall design appealing and engaging (probably one of the most subjective areas).

However, there is another approach that can be more specific to what actually needs to be applied to a web site or an application. Such principles can be narrowed down to the following:

• White space
• Alignment
• Contrast
• Scale
• Typography

I have talked about that approach in more details in this post on my Medium blog.

Thank you for reading.