The online space is awash with many companies trying to find a footing. Thus, communicating your brand value might be challenging with over 400 million active websites globally. Your business website is a platform that represents your mission and core values.
Why should consumers choose your brand? Conveying your brand’s worth through web products is not a walk in the park. That is why mood boards are essential tools when it comes to initiating the design process.
Mood boards help UI/UX designers translate a company’s product and service value into the language of online space. These tools are vital during the initial stages of the design process.
Incorporating these panels allows UX experts to identify unique brand features. Thus, users will easily understand your product’s personality and what you bring to the market. So, if you want optimal results from these inspiration boards, hire UI/UX designers knowledgeable about this design tool and able to deliver excellent results with it.
This article discusses the significance of mood boards in user experience design and explains why they are essential tools in the design process.
What Are Mood Boards?
It is imperative to understand what a mood board is and what it entails before we proceed to its importance in design. A mood board is defined as a visual panel that consolidates different elements guiding creative decisions. It is an organization of graphics, materials, content, and UI elements that will make up the design style or visual concept.
Since you are designing for human experiences, ensure you focus your mood board on satisfying users’ needs with effective design solutions. Besides creating website designs, mood boards are also used in designing apps, branding, and visualizing other design project elements.
Significance Of Using Mood Boards
As mentioned above, mood boards are critical in the initial phase of the design process. The panels guide the artistic direction of your product concept. Thus, UX/UI experts use mood boards to simplify the process.
Here are reasons why designers choose mood boards as major tools in their design projects.
Design Inspiration
As a designer, you might get drained over time, and your creative juices might stop flowing. When this happens, it can be quite challenging to push projects ahead. But with a detailed mood board in place, you can refresh your mind with inspiring design styles. You can get design inspiration from the mood board’s collection of images, fonts, styles, and UI elements.
Therefore, ensure you collect excellent references with a similar design style when creating your mood board. This approach will help you stick to the design direction and create flawless user experiences.
Easy Creation Process
There is no set standard for creating mood boards. You don’t have to follow a particular format; you can get inspiration from leaders in the industry or use any online software you desire. Whether you prefer ready-made templates or manual mood board creation, developing one is quite simple. Its simplicity and lack of confinement encourage you to become more creative as a designer.
Extensive Collection Of Ideas
There is no limit when it comes to collecting materials for your mod board. You can access tons of user interface design elements online to guide your design process. Thus, you’re free to choose inspiring product images, photographs, vector illustrations, logos, color palettes, templates, font styles, background textures, etc.
Enhanced Communication
Designers are not the only people who benefit from mood boards. The entire development team, stakeholders, and even the client get to understand the trajectory of product design better. Thus, mood boards act as a communication bridge between the concerned parties.
Sharing the mood board with your client is a good idea to get first-hand feedback. This way, the client can adjust the direction of your work, allowing you to implement changes in the initial stages. Giving your client the front-row seat to the design thinking process is crucial and prevents conflicts that might arise in the future.
Improved Productivity
As a UX designer, you need resources to improve work efficiency. Most clients want their products delivered as per the agreed timeframe. Thus, adopting an agile approach is crucial in enhancing productivity. One effective way is to use mood boards in the design process.
Letting your client participate in choosing the design style and UI elements solidifies trust, which also warrants impressive results. Besides, sharing the board with clients guarantees a smooth workflow without delays.
Tips To Create An Effective Mood Board
Now that you understand why designers need a mood board, let us explore a few insightful tips for creating one.
Purpose
The first step is to understand your design purpose. What emotion do you want to evoke in your users once they interact with your product? Once you know the brand’s goals, creating a perfect mood board will be easier.
Tone
An effective inspiration board needs an appropriate tone. So, find your brand tone through relevant keywords. Setting a unique tone will help users embrace your product easily.
Research
You can never go wrong with verifiable data as a UX designer. So, do your research well to identify relevant visual references. Conduct surveys, attend stakeholder meetings, and gather user insights to propel the project in the right direction.
Values
What does your client want to communicate in terms of value? It is imperative to have clear values from the start to guide the direction of the mood board. Ensure you capture the right mood for the brand.
Organize
Be selective when choosing the materials for your mood board. Each element should enhance the design direction and make an impact. Finally, organize your references strategically on the mood board. For instance, large images and phrases should convey more significant points on the board.
Key Takeaways
Developing new product designs is difficult and time-consuming, not forgetting the last-minute changes from the client and additional requirements. Apart from feeling drained, you might feel a lack of inspiration, which can kick in and stall the entire project.
Why not simplify your work by creating a mood board? Your design process will become more efficient, and you will never run out of creative ideas to push the project forward. With access to unlimited resources on the Internet, this tool is what you need to create stellar designs to meet your users’ needs effectively.
