It’s Clément again! Welcome to the 4th edition of the CU Design newsletter – a curated set of learnings, inspiration, resources, and tips.

If you’re not familiar with CUxD (Cornell User Experience Design), we’re a centralized community for UI, UX, and product designers at Cornell. We learn and grow together both professionally and socially!

This week’s topic is about user interfaces dos and don’ts! I’ll cover a few of the most important guidelines that help designing clean and efficient interfaces.

In most cases, radio buttons should be laid out vertically for better readability and accessibility. If a horizontal layout is necessary, there should be sufficient spacing between between buttons and labels to avoid confusion. Also, each radio button option should be visually distinct, for example with a border, to further enhance its visibility for users.

Since checkboxes are typically pretty small, it can be difficult to click them accurately. To improve usability, the tap target should be expanded by letting users select the option by clicking the associated label.

When appropriate, use special symbols like parentheses, dashes, or slashes in the textfield’s placeholder. This provides users with a clear expectation of the required format and input length, which improves accuracy and reduces the chance of an error when submitting the form.

Use distinct cursor icons to indicate different interactions. A pointer (hand with an index finger) signals that an element is clickable, while a closed fist cursor indicates that an item can be dragged. These clear cursor states make interactions more intuitive and are an example of affordances.

The focus help users navigate interfaces using the keyboard, typically appearing when an element is selected via the Tab key. They’re usually represented by a ring or outline around the element. To ensure accessibility, the outline should have sufficient contrast to make it stand out clearly from other interactive elements when it’s selected.

I’m really proud of the design work I led for Bloomberg—it was my first time as a Project Manager for Design Consulting at Cornell, and I had the opportunity to deep dive into UX research. I leveraged both qualitative insights from user interviews and quantitative data from behavioral analysis to drive informed design decisions. Our project focused on enhancing news consumption for financial professionals on the go, while also marking my first experience designing for GenAI and Voice UI. This challenge pushed me to think about interaction design in new ways. Feel free to reach out if you’d like to chat more about my design experiences!

Some cool designs to for your dopamine hit!

Have any feedback or want to see something on the newsletter next week? Email us at [email protected] or reply directly to this email.

See you soon,

Clément @ CUxD