This is a YouTube video titled "Power of Signifiers in Design: Enhance Your UX Skills" created in June 2024. The content is a detailed monologue or lecture explaining the concept of signifiers in user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design. It covers the importance of signifiers in guiding users, reducing cognitive load, improving engagement, and preventing errors, supported by neuroscience and industry research. The speaker also shares case studies such as Dropbox to illustrate the impact of effective signifiers on user satisfaction and task efficiency. The video is educational and aimed at designers or those interested in UX/UI design principles.
88% of the users who use website mobile app return back to their car, return back to their homepage. It's because of bad user experience. It's because of the engagement is bad. Have you ever wondered why it is in this video? I'm going to break you a major reason for it, which is called signifier. How do you signify the user? How do you communicate the user that this particular signal, this particular icon, this particular image corresponds to this Meaning if that engagement is not there, people lose interest and then they go back. That is why the conversion rates drop down. The kind of lead generation happens is low and people who are able to engage in the content is getting low. It's all because of designing poor signifiers. In this video I'm going to break down what is that signifiers and how to improve that. Okay, let's jump in. In the world of UI design, people don't understand this basic terminology called signifier because signifier is very easy, very easy to understand. It's not a very complicated term. That's why we take it too granted and we don't consciously implement any of these things. Things. First, let's understand what is this particular concept? Okay, the definition is very simple. See, it's an indication. It's a signal. It's. It's a way in which you guide the user through your signifiers. See, it. It is, it is. It could be anything. Like you can do it in a button, you can do it in an arrow, you can do it in a figure, you can do it using links up to you. Okay, it's all the way in which you can do. Maybe you can use it. Use using auditory way, you can use by tactile way. So the methods is very different, but on the concept it is called indicators. Okay? That's the name itself is a signifier. When you take why it is very important in design, it provides a clarity and it affords the people to go and use it Affordance. Like how do I afford it to take it? Like, let's say this is how it could be taken. This is how it can be taken. So the way in which the affordances it's there signifies the user that this should be holded like this, this should be taken like this, this should be used like this. So that's applicable for physical as well as digital products. And also it enhances the user experience. What are the neuroscience backing behind it? See, we have to understand the neuroscience, okay? Because then and only we can see the patterns, how it can be really seen in a Very clear way. Human brain is wired to recognize certain patterns. That's how we use clusters, we use families, we use certain signifiers. If it is relatable to our experience, we'll take it out. Or else what happens is we will not take it very seriously, will just ignore it. It goes away in your memory, how people can remember your user in your application user experience for a longer time. By understanding this neuroscience background and then creating the relativity for your user and the signifier, what you're doing. That's why it's very difficult. That's why it's very, it's very, it's not very correct to design something very different. Then there is no relativity for the user and the application. What you're designing, people will think it's not for me. Okay? So that relativity needs to be there because the brain quickly processes this information and understand what actions to take. And this is rooted in the ability to recognize and respond. And also, if you design too much high, the cognitive load will be very high and people will feel overwhelmed. So signifiers helps to manage the cognitive load by providing clear directions and what users can do. And when it comes to memory, like people remember this, I already told you this. If the retention is not high, user experience will be definitely back to. Okay, so the next part, what you're going to see, let's understand the major statistics and information regarding this, because we should not only understand what it is and what are the. What are the change which is required to make a signifier, why it is happening, but let us understand in the industry how much impactful it is. Because let me give you very significant understanding. Whatever is the time required to complete a task. If it takes too much of the time, then the signifier has not given a proper value. Maybe the icon, maybe the. What you call the 3D model icon. Whatever you're making, or maybe the graphics, whatever you're making, maybe the interface, what you're trying to communicate is not really signifying a proper meaning. Okay. In fact, this delays the time. The study by Nielsen Norman Groups proved that it can increase the task time by up to 25 percentage. Also, 88% of the users report higher satisfaction rate with interfaces which are better signifiers. It is significantly high. Almost 90% of the people and also research from Interaction Design foundation showed that interfaces with effective signifiers can reduce the error up to 30%. Let's say if you're working in a medical industry, aeronautical, what happens if you make an error? Very big disaster and a catastrophe happens. So the error prevention is Very important in terms of high critical fields. That's why the signifier plays a major role. The way in which you put an arrow, the way in which it communicates the meaning, it all matters a lot. If the understanding was different, then the people will take a wrong decision. And in the middle of the air, when the flight is flying, it's gone. Right? So that much of importance. It is. And also a report by Design Management Institute found that 20 percentage higher engagement rate appears. Engagement is very important because it helps users in terms of conversion ratio in terms of making them as a lead or a customer. So businesses are thriving majorly on this particular user interface path. That's why the UI UX designers are more needed than before to make sure these things are happening. Implementing in a proper way or else it would be still be done with a conventional testing guy or a coding guy would do it would develop a very good interface. But a UI UX designer can go very specific and understand the cognitive ability of the human and how the signifier can connect and then create a beautiful design. Let me give you one case study. Okay? Four case studies. One is Dropbox. The problem is it is very difficult to understand the Dropbox interface. What happened is they created a step by step guide. They created a very guided process so that people can find what is relevant. You know, what are the reasons for that? By using these visual clues, they reduce the cognitive load. That's the neuroscience backing. Because of that, you will not believe 25 percentage increase has happened in the first few weeks of the usage. A brand or a product is really successful in the initial engagement. After that only people develop a perception that this is a very high quality brand product service, I can use it forever or else people unsubscribe.
