Zlatan Hajrudinovic

Executing a plan without a formal design means you’re making design decisions. Whether consciously or not, you’re inevitably filling in the gaps, making assumptions, and shaping the user experience as you go. That’s why I want to share a few practical pieces of advice to help you avoid some of the common pitfalls. Before We Dive Into the Top 10: A Few General Best Practices Ask for 10 Minutes of Experience When building larger features or entirely new flows, consider consulting with a senior designer or an experienced peer. A 10-minute conversation can prevent hours of rework or a poor user experience that may persist because it is too expensive to change. Early decisions, like how to structure navigation or organize content, often have long-term consequences. Use a Design System (Even a Basic One) Using a pre-built design system, such as Material UI, Tailwind UI, Ant Design, or any design system already integrated into your application, is one of the easiest ways to avoid visual and accessibility pitfalls. These systems come with proven spacing and typography scales, color palettes, and well-designed components that handle interactivity and responsiveness out of the box, allowing you to focus on logic and functionality. Let Someone Else Click Through It A quick review from a colleague, whether they’re a designer or not, can uncover issues you might miss, from layout inconsistencies to unclear interactions. Share your work with teammates, stakeholders, or clients. If possible, get quick feedback from an actual user: ask them to complete a task you’ve just built and observe their performance. Top 10 UX/UI Tips: 1: Clearly Show the User’s Current Location When users land on a page, they should instantly know their location within the application. Use clear page titles, highlight the active navigation item, and include breadcrumbs for deeply nested hierarchies (more than three levels). This removes uncertainty and helps users stay oriented. 2: Make Important Features Easy to Access If a feature is used often, don’t make users dig for it. Surface key actions where they’re most relevant, and consider shortcuts for power users. Visibility should reflect importance. 3: Make the Primary Action Stand Out Every screen should have a clear “what now?” Users shouldn’t have to think about what the main action is. Make it visually distinct. A strong call to action reduces hesitation and guides flow. 4: Always Provide a Clear Way Out Users should never feel stuck or forced to complete something. Always offer a cancel, close, or back option, and make it visible. Giving users control and a sense of freedom improves confidence and trust. 5: Label Actions Clearly — Use Verbs Important buttons and links should describe exactly what they do, no guessing. Use verbs that match the action (like “Save Draft” or “Invite User”) and avoid vague terms like “Submit” unless the context is obvious. 6: Group Related Elements Together Things that belong together should look like they belong together. Place labels next to their fields, related controls side by side, and keep actions close to the content they affect. Visual grouping reduces friction and speeds up comprehension. 7: Prevent Mistakes Before They Happen Think ahead to what users might do wrong and gently guide them away from it. In user flows, look for steps that lead to dead ends or unclear next actions. For forms, placeholder hints, and default values can all help users succeed the first time. It’s better to prevent a problem than to recover from one. 8: Write Friendly Error Messages Sometimes we need error messages, but we shouldn’t show error codes or vague alerts. Instead, tell users what went wrong in plain language, and ideally, what to do next. Empathy in errors goes a long way in making the experience feel thoughtful. 9: Confirm Destructive Actions If an action cannot be undone and is not trivial to perform again, especially actions like deleting data or removing users, always ask for confirmation. Use strong cues, such as modals, colors, and wording, to signal that the action is important. A simple "Are you sure?" can prevent potential damage. 10: Follow Established Patterns (In the App or Elsewhere) Consistency makes interfaces feel familiar and intuitive. Reuse visual and interaction patterns already present in your app, as users are used to them. If there is nothing to reuse, borrow from tools your users already know, such as Google, Slack, Notion etc., depending on your user profile. Closing Notes You definitely don’t need a most delightful design to build a usable, thoughtful interface. With a few solid principles and a bit of pattern awareness, you can make good design decisions right in your code. These tips won’t replace a designer, but they may help you build something users can trust, use, and even enjoy.  "No Designs? Let’s Make It Work: Top 10 UX/UI Tips for Software Engineers" Tech Bite was brought to you by Zlatan Hajrudinović, Senior UX/UI Designer at Atlantbh. (more…)