Style Guide
All design decisions made during the project are documented in a style guide. It ensures the essential consistency in style to all parts of the program or products by providing guidelines and solution examples.
The User Interface’s Blue Print
A style guide represents the full documentation of the design and covers all the rules of layout and design under the terms of generally acknowledged standards (e.g. ISO 9241). Special input fields or table behavior are described as precisely as the dynamic parts of interaction components.
By providing sample screens, the style guide also offers guidelines for the crafting of application parts that were not included in the design phase. The style guide thus provides the required level of consistency in a user interface and its consolidation throughout the development process.
As an international standard this norm describes the guidelines for human-computer interaction.Its main criteria are:
- Effectiveness of problem solving
- Efficiency of system handling
- User satisfaction
Conceptual Design
The results of the conceptual design include, for example, the following aspects:
- Basic navigation and the application’s layout
- Assignment of functionality to screen types and areas
- Input methods
- Strategies to support different grades of expertise
- Adaptation to different user roles
- Personalization
- Design pattern
- User support
- Controls
- Detailed interaction
- Sample screens
Visual Design
Apart from the conceptual specifications, the style guide also provides information for defining a user interface’s look:
- Measurements of distances and sizes
- Colors
- Graphics (icons as well as key visuals)
- Font types and sizes
- Formats of numbers, dates, addresses, etc.
- Form layouts
- Animations
- Standard assets such as splash screens, installation wizard, etc.
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Forms of PresentationA style guide is a living document and the ultimate reference for user interface development. Hence it needs to be user friendly. For this reason we also provide parts of the style guide in the form of comprehensive checklists. Additionally, the most important ground rules can be produced as quick reference booklets or style guide posters. We can also provide the style guide as a wiki to serve as a central, easy-to-update reference. By embedding it into the company’s intranet, the rules can quickly be extended with the knowledge the developers gain during the process. Due to the mass of information it consolidates, such a wiki often merges into a user interface toolbox that provides all the design assets. |
Roles
We develop the style guide in close coordination with you based on selected functional areas and usage scenarios. The distribution of work between our designers, and your domain experts, software developers and quality managers depends on many factors and has to be adjusted individually to the situation.
Of course, we are happy to support you in the subsequent application of the style guide to functional areas that were not included in the design phase.
Cross-Platform Compatibility
A consistent look and feel across the platforms gains significance in an environment where classic desktop software is joined by web and mobile applications. Different types of media require both design adjustments and a specifically tailored documentation in the form of a style guide or a design manual.