Source : http://www.sylvantech.com/~talin/projects/ui_design.html
This was a really big reading I have had there. Tons of principles with explanations and so on. I will write here the summary of all. There are 14 principles the writer mentions about :
1) The principle of user profiling - know who your user is
2) The principle of metaphor - Borrow behaviours from systems familiar to your users
3) The principle of feature exposure - Let the user see clearly what functions are available
4) The principle of coherence - The behaviour of the program should be internally and externally consistent
5) The principle of state visualization - Changes in behaviour should be reflected in the appearance of the program
6) The principle of shortcuts - Provide both concrete and abstract ways of getting a task done
7) The principle of focus - Some aspects of the UI attract attention more than others do
8) The principle of grammar - A user interface is a kind of language - know what the rules are
9) The principle of help - Understand the different kinds of help a users needs
1. Goal-oriented: "What kinds of things can I do with this program?"
2. Descriptive: "What is this? What does this do?"
3. Procedural: "How do I do this?"
4. Interpretive: "Why did this happen?"
5. Navigational: "Where am I?"
10) The principle of safety - Let the user develop confidence by providing a safety net
11) The principle of context - Limit user activity to one well-defined context unless there's a good reason not to
12) The principle of aesthetics - Create a program of beauty
13) The principle of user testing - Recruit help in spotting the inevitable defects in your design
14) The principle of humiility - Listen to what ordinary people have to say
