Mood Boards in UX: All You Need to Know About


By :- Jamie Scott

Mood boards in UX

Mood boards are an important resource for UX designs that keeps the style and aesthetics consistent of a website. These are ideal for establishing the complete look and feel of the web design by maintaining a balance of colors, fonts, photos, and graphics. Mood boards are popularly used in branding, fashion, graphics, and even in the entertainment world.

Mood boards in UX

They are ideal for refining project style and ensuring the best ultimate outcomes. Here's everything you need to know about mood boards and their significance in UX design:

What is a Mood Board?

A mood board is a digital collage of like-minded design elements like images, text, materials, typography, icons, etc., for creating a brand design. It's ideal for communicating the style, voice, and direction of a particular design in a seamless manner. 

A mood board in UX should be created to meet customer needs and problem-solving. As they are best for showing the feelings or values of a product, they can do wonders for your business. 

Why Should You Use a Mood Board in UX? (With Example)

Mood Board in UX makes things more understandable and approachable for your user. It gives a stronger message than the textual content, which may boost the tone of write-ups but not the visuals in a UX design. 

Let's understand with an example. Suppose you are designing an application for the medical world. The context of the app design is diagnostic, empathic, and informative. Now, of course, you can use texts to describe these emotions, but for visuals, you will need something more than that, like a mood board. 

A mood board with images of nurses and doctors and a color contrast of blue and white would make a perfect combination for a medical application. Your users will instantly be able to sense what they can expect from the application. Put simply, moon boards are the best ways to infuse brand personality into your website/application.  

How to Make a Mood Board?

Mood boards in UX

To create a mood board, you must start with brainstorming. Get a thorough idea about the product/app/website (for which you are creating the mood board), including its objectives and goals, with your team. Once everything is on track, follow the below steps:

  • Do your research and check some unique references as per the design trends. Try to be diverse with your elements and add in GIFs, videos, textures, sound effects, and more.

  • Pick up a mood board format or a template. If you are an expert UX designer, you can go freehand for your mood board design.

  • Arrange key references on the board for a seamless mood board design. Come up with unique angles and think out of the box. 

  • Ask the higher authorities or your team to review your plan. Also, get it reviewed by your peers/team once it's done. 

Key Components of a Mood Board

You must include five key components of the mood board in your design presentation:

  • Ensure a creative concept that's not just limited to aesthetics alone. 

  • Choose the perfect color palette.

  • Select an appropriate typography series for textual content.

  • Add textures and print as per color contrast.

  • Tell a narrative story with the visuals.

That's all. To sum up, these were some of the must-knows about mood boards in UX design.

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