Table of Contents
The five principles of UX are user-centricity, consistency, hierarchy, accessibility, and usability. Together, they form the decision-making backbone behind every mobile app that feels intuitive, looks polished, and actually retains users.
Whether you are a product designer building screens in Figma or a startup founder reviewing your team's first prototype, these principles determine whether your app delights people or frustrates them. Getting them right early saves months of redesign and costly development rework.
This guide breaks down each principle with clear definitions, shows you how to apply them directly inside Figma using components, auto layout, and prototyping, and highlights the common mistakes that undermine even experienced design teams.
What is UX Design and Why Do Principles Matter
UX Design Defined in Simple Terms
UX design is the process of shaping how a person experiences a digital product. It covers everything a user thinks, feels, and does when they interact with your mobile app. This includes the flow between screens, the placement of buttons, the clarity of text, and the speed at which someone can complete a task.
UX is not just how something looks. That is UI. UX is how something works, how it feels, and whether the person using it can accomplish their goal without confusion. A login screen with beautiful typography but a confusing password reset flow is good UI and bad UX.
In Figma, UX design happens when you map user flows, build interactive prototypes, test navigation patterns, and structure your frames around real user tasks rather than aesthetic preferences alone.
Why UX Principles Are the Foundation of Great Mobile Apps
Principles give design teams a shared language for making decisions. Without them, every screen becomes a debate about personal taste. With them, you have objective criteria to evaluate whether a design choice serves the user.
Mobile apps face unique constraints. Screens are small. Attention spans are short. Users interact with thumbs, not cursors. In this environment, principles are not abstract theory. They are survival tools. An app that violates consistency confuses users. An app that ignores hierarchy buries its most important features. An app that skips usability testing launches with friction that drives uninstalls.
Research from the Baymard Institute shows that nearly 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned, with poor UX cited as a leading factor. For mobile apps, the stakes are even higher. Users decide within seconds whether your app is worth their time.
When your team agrees on core UX principles before opening Figma, you build faster, argue less, and ship products that users actually want to keep on their home screen.
The 5 Principles of UX Every Designer Should Know
1. User-Centricity: Design Around Real People
User-centricity means every design decision starts with the person using the product, not the stakeholder requesting features, not the developer suggesting shortcuts, and not the designer chasing trends.
This principle requires you to understand who your users are, what they need, what frustrates them, and how they behave in real contexts. It means conducting user research before sketching wireframes. It means validating assumptions with real feedback instead of guessing.
In practice, user-centricity looks like this: before designing a checkout flow for a mobile commerce app, you interview five target users about their buying habits. You discover they abandon carts when forced to create an account. So you design a guest checkout option as the primary path. That single insight, rooted in user-centricity, can lift conversion rates dramatically.
User-centricity is not a one-time activity. It is a continuous loop. You research, design, test, learn, and refine. Every sprint should include some form of user input, whether that is a full usability study or a quick five-second test on a new screen.
For product teams and founders, this principle also means resisting the urge to add features because competitors have them. If your users do not need it, it does not belong in your app. Simplicity driven by user understanding always outperforms feature bloat driven by assumption.
2. Consistency: Build Predictable, Trustworthy Interfaces
Consistency means similar elements look and behave the same way throughout your entire app. When a user learns how one part of your interface works, that knowledge should transfer to every other part.
There are four layers of consistency that matter in mobile app design:
Visual consistency means using the same colors, typography, spacing, and iconography across every screen. If your primary button is blue and rounded on the home screen, it should be blue and rounded on the settings screen.
Functional consistency means interactive elements behave predictably. If swiping left deletes an item in one list, swiping left should not do something completely different in another list.
Internal consistency refers to patterns within your own product. Your app should feel like one cohesive experience, not a collection of screens designed by different people on different days.
External consistency means aligning with platform conventions. iOS users expect certain navigation patterns. Android users expect others. Respecting these conventions reduces the learning curve for new users.
Inconsistency erodes trust. When a button changes color or position without reason, users hesitate. They start second-guessing the interface. That hesitation creates friction, and friction causes abandonment.
Design systems solve this at scale. When you build a component library in Figma with defined styles, variants, and usage rules, consistency becomes automatic rather than aspirational.
3. Hierarchy: Guide Users With Clear Visual Structure
Hierarchy is how you organize information so users see the most important things first. It is the difference between a screen that communicates instantly and a screen that overwhelms.
Visual hierarchy uses size, color, contrast, spacing, and position to create a clear reading order. The largest, boldest element on a screen gets attention first. Secondary information should be visually quieter. Supporting details should recede further.
On mobile, hierarchy is critical because screen space is limited. You cannot show everything at once. You must decide what matters most on each screen and make that element unmistakably prominent.
Consider a food delivery app's restaurant listing screen. The hierarchy should be: restaurant name first (large, bold), then rating and delivery time (medium, supporting), then cuisine type and distance (smaller, tertiary). If all of these elements are the same size and weight, the user's eye has nowhere to land. They scan aimlessly and leave.
Hierarchy also applies to interaction design. Primary actions like "Add to Cart" or "Continue" should be visually dominant. Secondary actions like "Save for Later" should be present but subordinate. Destructive actions like "Delete Account" should be visually de-emphasized and require confirmation.
Information architecture is hierarchy at the structural level. How you organize your navigation, how you group related features, and how you sequence screens in a flow all reflect hierarchical thinking. A well-structured app lets users find what they need in three taps or fewer.
4. Accessibility: Design for Every User, Every Context
Accessibility means designing products that people with diverse abilities and circumstances can use effectively. This includes users with visual impairments, motor disabilities, cognitive differences, and situational limitations like bright sunlight or one-handed use.
Accessibility is not an edge case. The World Health Organization estimates that over 1.3 billion people globally experience significant disability. Beyond permanent disabilities, every mobile user encounters temporary or situational accessibility challenges. A parent holding a baby uses their phone one-handed. A commuter in bright sunlight struggles with low-contrast text. A user in a noisy environment cannot rely on audio cues.
Practical accessibility in mobile design includes:
Color contrast. Text must have sufficient contrast against its background. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) recommend a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for body text and 3:1 for large text.
Touch targets. Buttons and interactive elements should be at least 44x44 points on iOS and 48x48 dp on Android. Small tap targets cause misclicks, especially for users with motor impairments.
Screen reader support. Every meaningful image needs alt text. Every interactive element needs a clear label. Navigation order should follow a logical sequence that makes sense when read aloud.
Text scalability. Your layouts should accommodate users who increase their system font size. If your design breaks at 200% text scaling, it fails accessibility.
Motion sensitivity. Animations should respect the "reduce motion" system setting. Excessive or rapid animations can trigger vestibular disorders in some users.
Designing for accessibility does not mean compromising aesthetics. It means making intentional choices about contrast, spacing, labeling, and interaction patterns that serve the widest possible audience. The result is almost always a better experience for everyone, not just users with disabilities.
5. Usability: Make Every Interaction Effortless
Usability is the measure of how easily and efficiently a user can accomplish their goals within your app. A usable product is learnable, efficient, memorable, error-tolerant, and satisfying.
Jakob Nielsen's usability heuristics provide a practical framework. Key heuristics for mobile app design include:
Visibility of system status. The app should always keep users informed about what is happening. Loading indicators, progress bars, success confirmations, and error messages all contribute to system status visibility. When a user submits a form and nothing visibly happens, they tap again. And again. Now you have duplicate submissions and a frustrated user.
Error prevention and recovery. Good design prevents errors before they happen. Disabling a "Submit" button until all required fields are complete is error prevention. Providing a clear, specific error message with instructions to fix it is error recovery. "Something went wrong" is not error recovery. "Your password must include at least 8 characters and one number" is.
Recognition over recall. Users should not have to remember information from one screen to use on another. Show recently viewed items. Pre-fill form fields with known data. Use icons alongside text labels so users recognize functions instead of memorizing them.
Flexibility and efficiency. Accommodate both novice and expert users. A first-time user needs clear onboarding. A returning power user needs shortcuts. Gesture-based navigation, saved preferences, and smart defaults all serve efficiency.
Minimalist design. Every element on a screen should serve a purpose. If it does not help the user complete their task, it competes for attention with elements that do. Removing unnecessary elements is one of the most impactful usability improvements you can make.
Usability is validated through testing, not assumption. You cannot know if your app is usable until you watch real people try to use it. Usability testing does not require a lab or a large budget. Five users testing a Figma prototype will reveal the majority of critical issues.
How to Apply the 5 UX Principles in Figma
Mapping User-Centricity With Figma Personas and Flows
User-centricity starts before you design a single screen. In Figma, create a dedicated research page within your project file. Build persona cards that capture your target users' goals, frustrations, technical comfort level, and context of use.
Use FigJam or Figma's whiteboard features to map user journey flows. Plot the steps a user takes from opening the app to completing their primary task. Identify decision points, potential drop-offs, and moments of delight. This map becomes your design blueprint.
When you start designing screens, reference your personas constantly. Before adding a feature or interaction, ask: does this serve the user we defined, or does it serve our internal assumptions? Pin your persona frames at the top of your Figma project so they stay visible during every design session.
User flows in Figma also help during stakeholder reviews. Instead of presenting isolated screens, walk stakeholders through the complete journey. This shifts conversations from "I don't like this color" to "Does this flow make sense for our user?"
Building Consistency With Design Systems and Components
Figma's component system is purpose-built for consistency. Start by defining your foundational styles: color palette, typography scale, spacing grid, and elevation (shadow) system. Publish these as shared styles in a team library.
Build your core components: buttons (with variants for primary, secondary, disabled, and loading states), input fields, cards, navigation bars, tab bars, modals, and toast notifications. Use Figma's variant properties to manage states and sizes within a single component.
Name your components and styles with a clear, hierarchical naming convention. For example: Button/Primary/Default, Button/Primary/Hover, Button/Primary/Disabled. This naming structure makes components searchable and self-documenting.
Once your design system library is published, every designer on your team pulls from the same source of truth. When you update a component in the library, every instance across every file updates automatically. This is how you maintain consistency across hundreds of screens without manual auditing.
For startups and small teams, you do not need to build a design system from scratch. Start with a community resource like Figma's official Material Design or iOS design kits, then customize colors, typography, and components to match your brand.
Creating Visual Hierarchy Using Auto Layout and Typography
Figma's auto layout is your primary tool for enforcing hierarchy through spacing and structure. Use auto layout frames to control the vertical and horizontal rhythm of your screens. Define consistent padding and gap values that create clear separation between content groups.
Typography hierarchy in Figma starts with defining a type scale. A common mobile type scale includes:
- Display/Hero: 28-34px, bold. Used for screen titles and key numbers.
- Heading: 20-24px, semibold. Used for section headers.
- Subheading: 16-18px, medium. Used for card titles and labels.
- Body: 14-16px, regular. Used for paragraph text and descriptions.
- Caption: 12px, regular. Used for timestamps, metadata, and helper text.
Publish these as text styles in your Figma library. When every designer uses the same text styles, hierarchy becomes consistent across the entire app without manual checking.
Use color and opacity to reinforce hierarchy. Primary text should be high contrast (near black on white). Secondary text can use a medium gray. Tertiary or disabled text uses a lighter value. This layered approach tells the user's eye exactly where to look first.
Testing Accessibility With Figma Plugins
Figma's plugin ecosystem includes several tools that help you catch accessibility issues during design, not after development.
Stark is one of the most widely used accessibility plugins for Figma. It checks color contrast ratios against WCAG standards, simulates color blindness, and helps you audit touch target sizes. Run a contrast check on every screen before marking it as ready for development.
A11y - Color Contrast Checker provides quick pass/fail results for text and background color combinations. Use it whenever you introduce a new color pairing.
Able by Stark simulates how your designs appear to users with different types of color vision deficiency, including protanopia, deuteranopia, and tritanopia. If critical information relies solely on color (like a red error state with no icon or text), these simulations will reveal the problem.
Beyond plugins, manually check your designs for logical reading order. If a screen reader were to traverse your layout top-to-bottom, left-to-right, would the content make sense? Figma's layer panel reflects the reading order that developers will implement. Keep it organized.
Add annotations to your Figma files that specify alt text for images, aria labels for icons, and focus order for interactive elements. These annotations save developers significant time and prevent accessibility gaps during implementation.
Prototyping for Usability Testing Before Handoff
Figma's prototyping features let you test usability before writing a single line of code. Connect your frames with interactions that simulate the real app experience. Use smart animate for transitions, overlays for modals and bottom sheets, and scroll behaviors for long content screens.
Build your prototype around specific user tasks. If your app's primary task is "order food for delivery," create a prototype flow that covers: browse restaurants, select a restaurant, add items to cart, review cart, enter delivery address, and confirm order. Every screen in that flow should be connected and interactive.
Share your prototype link with five target users and observe them completing the task. Note where they hesitate, where they tap the wrong element, where they express confusion, and where they succeed easily. Five users will typically uncover about 85% of usability problems, according to Nielsen Norman Group's research.
Document your findings directly in Figma using comment pins or a dedicated "Usability Findings" page. Prioritize issues by severity: critical (blocks task completion), major (causes significant confusion), and minor (cosmetic or preference-based). Fix critical and major issues before handoff. Minor issues can enter the backlog.
This testing loop, prototype, test, iterate, is where the five UX principles prove their value. User-centricity drives the test plan. Consistency issues surface when users expect one behavior and get another. Hierarchy problems appear when users cannot find the primary action. Accessibility gaps emerge when participants struggle with contrast or tap targets. Usability failures become visible in real time.
Common UX Mistakes That Break These Principles
Designing for Yourself Instead of the User
This is the most common and most damaging UX mistake. Designers, founders, and product managers unconsciously project their own preferences, technical literacy, and mental models onto users who think and behave differently.
A technically skilled founder might design a settings screen with nested menus and advanced configuration options because that is how they personally prefer to interact with software. Their target user, a busy small business owner with limited technical experience, needs three simple toggles and a save button.
The fix is structural, not motivational. Build user research into your process so that design decisions are informed by evidence rather than intuition. Even lightweight methods like five-minute user interviews, card sorting exercises, or first-click tests provide enough signal to override personal bias.
Inconsistent Components Across Screens
This happens when teams design screens in isolation without a shared component library. The home screen uses one button style. The profile screen uses another. The checkout screen introduces a third. Each screen might look fine individually, but the app as a whole feels fragmented.
Inconsistency often creeps in when multiple designers work on the same project without a published Figma library, or when designers detach components to make quick modifications instead of creating proper variants.
The fix is disciplined use of a design system. Establish the rule that no screen ships with detached or one-off components. If a new pattern is needed, it gets added to the library as a proper component with defined variants, not improvised on a single screen.
Skipping Usability Testing Before Development
Many teams treat usability testing as a luxury they will add "later" or "when we have budget." Later never comes. The app launches with friction that could have been caught in a two-hour testing session with a Figma prototype.
The cost of fixing a usability issue in design is measured in hours. The cost of fixing it after development is measured in sprints. The cost of not fixing it at all is measured in lost users.
You do not need a research lab. You do not need a dedicated researcher. You need a Figma prototype, a screen-sharing tool, five people who match your target audience, and a simple task script. Record the sessions. Watch where people struggle. Fix those things. This single practice, done consistently, separates good products from mediocre ones.
How UX Principles Improve Design-to-Development Handoff
Why Developers Need Principle-Driven Design Files
Developers do not just need pixel specifications. They need to understand the intent behind design decisions. When a design file is built on clear UX principles, developers can make informed micro-decisions during implementation without requiring a designer to approve every detail.
If a developer understands that the design system prioritizes consistency, they know to reuse existing components rather than creating custom elements. If they understand the hierarchy principle, they know which elements should receive visual emphasis when adapting layouts for different screen sizes. If they understand accessibility requirements, they implement proper contrast ratios, touch targets, and screen reader labels without being told.
Principle-driven design files reduce back-and-forth between design and development. They reduce the number of "is this right?" questions. They produce more accurate implementations on the first pass.
Structuring Figma Files for Scalable Handoff
A well-structured Figma file communicates UX principles through its organization. Use these practices:
Page structure. Organize your Figma file with clear pages: Cover (project overview and links), Research (personas, flows, competitive analysis), Design System (components, styles, tokens), Screens (organized by feature or flow), Prototypes (linked interactive flows), and Handoff Notes (annotations, specifications, edge cases).
Component documentation. For each component in your design system, include a documentation frame that shows all variants, states, spacing specifications, and usage guidelines. Developers should be able to understand a component's behavior without asking the designer.
Annotation layers. Add a dedicated annotation layer to each screen that specifies interaction behaviors, animation details, error states, empty states, loading states, and accessibility requirements. Use a consistent annotation style so developers know where to look.
Naming conventions. Name your frames, layers, and components with developer-friendly conventions. Use names that map to code: header/nav-bar, card/restaurant-item, button/primary-large. Avoid generic names like "Frame 47" or "Group 12."
Dev mode. Figma's Dev Mode provides developers with CSS, iOS, and Android code snippets, spacing measurements, and asset export options. Ensure your designs are clean and properly structured before enabling Dev Mode access. Messy layer structures produce messy code references.
When your Figma files reflect the five UX principles in their structure, naming, and documentation, handoff stops being a bottleneck and becomes a smooth transition from design intent to production code.
Conclusion
The five principles of UX, user-centricity, consistency, hierarchy, accessibility, and usability, are not abstract concepts reserved for textbooks. They are practical tools that shape every screen, interaction, and decision in your mobile app design process. Applying them inside Figma through design systems, prototyping, and structured handoff turns good intentions into measurable product quality.
These principles work together as a system. User research informs hierarchy. Consistency enables accessibility. Usability testing validates all of them. When your team internalizes these principles, design reviews become faster, developer handoff becomes cleaner, and the apps you ship earn user trust from the first interaction.
We at Orbix Studio help startups and product teams build mobile apps grounded in these principles, from brand identity and UX strategy through Figma design and development handoff. If you are ready to turn your app idea into a polished, user-centered product, reach out to our team and let's build something users love.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the 5 principles of UX design?
The five principles of UX design are user-centricity, consistency, hierarchy, accessibility, and usability. These principles guide designers in creating digital products that are intuitive, inclusive, and effective. They apply to every stage of the design process, from research through prototyping and handoff.
How do UX principles apply to mobile app design specifically?
Mobile apps have smaller screens, touch-based input, and shorter user attention spans. UX principles help designers prioritize content through hierarchy, ensure tap targets meet accessibility standards, maintain consistency across compact navigation patterns, and validate usability through prototype testing before development begins.
Can I apply UX principles directly in Figma?
Yes. Figma supports every UX principle through its feature set. You can build design systems with components and variants for consistency, use auto layout for hierarchy and spacing, install accessibility plugins like Stark for contrast checking, and create interactive prototypes for usability testing.
What is the difference between UX and UI design?
UX design focuses on the overall experience, how a product works, how users navigate it, and whether they can accomplish their goals. UI design focuses on the visual layer, colors, typography, icons, and layout. UX determines what a screen should do. UI determines how it should look. Both are essential and deeply connected.
Why is consistency considered a core UX principle?
Consistency reduces cognitive load. When interface elements look and behave the same way throughout an app, users learn patterns once and apply them everywhere. Inconsistency forces users to relearn interactions on every screen, which creates confusion, hesitation, and ultimately abandonment.
How do I test usability without a large budget?
You need a Figma prototype, five participants who match your target audience, and a screen-sharing tool. Give each participant a specific task to complete. Observe where they struggle, hesitate, or make errors. Five users will reveal the majority of critical usability issues. This process takes a few hours and costs little to nothing.
How do UX principles affect design-to-development handoff?
When designs are built on clear UX principles and organized in structured Figma files with documented components, consistent naming, and annotated specifications, developers can implement screens accurately with fewer questions. Principle-driven files reduce revision cycles, prevent inconsistencies in code, and produce higher-quality builds on the first pass.
