What are Mood Boards in UX Design? — updated 2024 (2024)

To create a UX design mood board, you should include several key elements to ensure it effectively communicates the visual direction and emotional tone of the project.

1. Incorporate images that reflect the project's style, including color palettes, typography, and visual patterns. These images set the foundational visual aspects.

2. Add user interface elements such as buttons, icons and layouts that resonate with the intended user experience. These components help stakeholders visualize the potential look and feel of the final product.

3. Integrate logos and branding elements to align the mood board with the company's identity, making it crucial for maintaining brand consistency.

4. Include inspirational elements like quotes, art, and design motifs that can spark creativity and guide the project's aesthetic theme. Textures and materials, whether physical or digital, add depth to the mood board and can suggest tactile experiences relevant to the product.

5. Integrate user personas and key user journey excerpts, as they can contextualize the visual choices in terms of user needs and behaviors, making the mood board not only a design tool but also a user-centered strategy document.

Author and Human-Computer Interaction Expert, Professor Alan Dix explains personas in this video:

Yes, mood boards can significantly improve communication in UX design teams. These visual tools convey design concepts and emotions that words alone might fail to express. When designers use mood boards, they can share visual ideas in a cohesive and compelling manner. Here are some important reasons:

1. Mood boards serve as a common language for all team members, regardless of their design expertise. When designers present mood boards, they visually communicate the aesthetic and emotional direction of a project. This clarity helps team members from different backgrounds understand the design vision and contribute more effectively.

2. Mood boards facilitate feedback. Team members can easily reference specific elements within the mood board to suggest changes or enhancements. This structured approach to feedback makes the revision process quicker and more targeted.

3. Mood boards help in aligning the team’s vision. They ensure that every team member understands and agrees on the project's visual and emotional goals. This alignment reduces miscommunication and ensures consistency across different parts of the project.

UX Designer and Author of Build Better Products and UX for Lean Startups, Laura Klein explains the value of cross-functional teams and collaboration in this video:

Take our course Creativity: Methods to Design Better Products and Services.

You should update a mood board frequently throughout a UX project to ensure it remains relevant and reflective of the evolving design process. Ideally, you would adjust the mood board at several key stages:

1. Initial research phase: After you gather initial user insights and project requirements, update the mood board to align with these findings. This adaptation helps steer the project in the right direction from the start.

2. Concept development: As design concepts begin to take shape, revisit the mood board to incorporate new ideas and inspiration that may have surfaced. This ensures that the board evolves alongside the design thinking process.

3. Client or stakeholder feedback: Whenever you receive feedback from clients or stakeholders, make necessary updates to the mood board. This keeps the board in sync with any changes in project direction or user needs based on the feedback.

4. Final revisions: Before finalizing the project, update the mood board to reflect any last-minute adjustments or refinements. This final update ensures that what the team delivers aligns closely with the mood board’s guidance.

By updating the mood board at these stages, you maintain its effectiveness as a communication and inspiration tool throughout the project lifecycle.

Take our Master Class Harness Your Creativity To Design Better Products with Alan Dix, Professor, Author and Creativity Expert.

Mood boards can greatly aid in user research for UX design by visually capturing and communicating user needs and preferences. Designers can effectively use mood boards in this context, to:

1. Visualize user personas: Designers create mood boards to represent different user personas. These boards include images, colors, and items that reflect potential users' lifestyles, preferences, and environments. This visualization helps design teams empathize with and understand their target users better.

2. Explore design concepts: Mood boards allow designers to experiment with various aesthetic and functional aspects of product design. When designers assemble different visual elements, they can discover which styles resonate most with their intended audience, guiding the design direction.

3. Facilitate discussion: During user research sessions, a good technique to spark conversations is to present mood boards. Users react to visual stimuli, providing insights into their preferences and emotional responses. This feedback is crucial for refining user personas and design strategies.

4. Testing User Reactions: Designers use mood boards to test and evaluate user reactions to different design elements before finalizing the UX design. If designers observe users’ reactions to a mood board, it can reveal preferences and aversions that might not emerge through verbal feedback alone.

When designers leverage mood boards, they can gain valuable insights into user behavior and preferences, which informs a more user-centered design process.

UX Strategist and Consultant, William Hudson explains the importance of user research:

Read our piece Personas for Mobile UX Design for helpful insights into user personas.

When designers create UX mood boards, they often make several common mistakes that can affect the effectiveness of their projects; they might:

1. Overload it with information: Designers sometimes fill mood boards with too many images, textures and colors. This clutter can confuse rather than clarify the design vision. It's crucial to select elements that truly represent the user experience and stick to them.

2. Make the board lack focus: Some mood boards lack a clear focus or theme, which makes it hard for others to understand the intended message. Designers should ensure that every item on the mood board contributes to a cohesive narrative about the user experience.

3. Ignore the target audience: It’s a mistake to create a mood board based solely on personal preference or trendiness without considering the target audience. The board should reflect the tastes, needs, and expectations of the actual users, not just the designer’s style.

4. Make it inconsistent with project goals: Sometimes, mood boards do not align with the project’s objectives or the brand’s identity. This misalignment can lead to designs that feel disconnected from the project’s core mission. Designers must ensure that the mood board supports and enhances the project goals.

To avoid these mistakes will lead to more effective and impactful mood boards that truly aid the UX design process.

Understand why user research to know your target audience and more is such a vital part of design:

UX Strategist and Consultant, William Hudson explains the importance of user research:

When you present a mood board to stakeholders in UX projects, it's important to do so clearly and effectively to ensure they understand and appreciate the design vision. Here are steps to guide you through this process:

1. Prepare your presentation: Start by organizing your mood board visually and thematically. Ensure it's not just attractive but also logically arranged to guide stakeholders through your design concepts.

2. Explain the purpose: Begin your presentation by explaining the purpose of the mood board. Tell stakeholders what it represents and how it relates to the project goals. This sets the context for what they are about to see.

3. Highlight key elements: Walk through the mood board by pointing out key elements. Explain why you chose specific colors, textures and images, and how these relate to the project’s user personas and objectives.

4. Link to user needs: Make clear connections between the mood board and the user research. Explain how the elements you’ve chosen align with what you know about the target users.

5. Invite feedback: Encourage stakeholders to give feedback. Ask specific questions about elements of the mood board to gauge their reactions and gather useful insights.

6. Discuss next steps: Conclude by discussing how the mood board will influence further design decisions and what the next steps in the project will be.

If you follow these steps, you can help ensure that your mood board presentation is engaging and serves as a productive tool in advancing your UX project with stakeholders.

Watch this video, where Design Director at Societe Generale, Morgane Peng explains important points about feedback.

Take our course Creativity: Methods to Design Better Products and Services.

It’s crucial to choose the right images for a UX design mood board to effectively convey your design vision. Here are some steps to guide you in selecting the most appropriate images:

1. Understand the project goals: First, clarify the goals of your project. When you understand what you need to achieve, it helps you determine the mood, style and elements that your images should communicate.

2. Define your user persona: Consider who your users are. Select images that resonate with the demographics, preferences and lifestyles of your target audience. This alignment ensures your mood board speaks directly to those who will interact with the final product.

3. Gather inspiration: Collect a wide range of images that inspire you and are relevant to your project. Look for images in design magazines, online platforms or your own photo collections that match the project's tone and style.

4. Select cohesive elements: Choose images that work well together. They should have a consistent color scheme, style and mood. This cohesion will help your mood board communicate a clear and unified message.

5. Refine your choices: Narrow down your selections by removing any images that do not directly support your design objectives or that clutter the visual space. Aim for a balance of inspiring yet concise visual information.

If you follow these steps, you can ensure that the images on your mood board effectively contribute to the UX design process, which helps you communicate your vision clearly and persuasively.

Professor Alan Dix explains user personas in this video:

Take our course Creativity: Methods to Design Better Products and Services.

For UX design, you should make a mood board detailed enough to convey the visual and emotional tone of the project but not so cluttered that it loses clarity. The level of detail in a mood board will influence how well it communicates your design intentions to both the design team and stakeholders. Here’s how to find the right balance:

1. Focus on key elements: Include critical elements such as color palettes, typography, imagery and textures. These should directly relate to the project’s theme and user experience goals.

2. Convey the atmosphere: Use images and materials that evoke the desired emotional response. This helps stakeholders and team members feel the user experience rather than just see it.

3. Maintain clarity: While it’s important to be comprehensive, avoid overcrowding your mood board. Each element should serve a purpose. To overload the mood board can dilute the main message and confuse the viewer.

4. Include inspirational components: Add elements that inspire creativity and innovation without straying from the project’s core objectives. This might include conceptual sketches or abstract images that capture the project's essence.

If you balance these aspects, your mood board should effectively guide the UX design process, and help ensure that every participant understands and aligns with the intended design direction.

Professor Alan Dix talks about the right environments that are conducive to creativity in this video:

Take our course Creativity: Methods to Design Better Products and Services.

Yes, you can effectively use mood boards in agile UX design processes. Mood boards fit well within the iterative and flexible nature of agile methodologies. Here’s how designers integrate mood boards into agile UX processes:

1. Start early: Designers create mood boards in the initial stages of the project to set the visual tone and direction. This early integration helps guide sprints by providing a clear aesthetic reference.

2. Update regularly: As the project evolves through various sprints, designers update the mood boards to reflect changes, new insights and feedback from stakeholders. This ongoing adjustment keeps the mood board relevant and aligned with the project's progress.

3. Facilitate quick feedback: Mood boards enable quick visual communication, which is essential in agile environments where decisions need to be made rapidly. They help stakeholders and team members provide prompt and clear feedback during sprint reviews.

4. Enhance collaboration: Mood boards serve as a central visual tool that all team members can refer to. This enhances understanding and collaboration across different disciplines involved in the project. To use mood boards in agile UX design not only helps maintain a consistent visual direction but also supports the dynamic and collaborative nature of agile development.

Take our Master Class Design For Agile: Common Mistakes And How To Avoid Them with Laura Klein, Principal – Users Know and Senior Design Educator – IxDF.

Laura Klein explains the value of cross-functional teams and collaboration in this video:

While mood boards are valuable tools in UX design, they come with certain limitations that designers need to consider:

1. Subjectivity: Mood boards can be highly subjective. Different viewers might interpret the visual elements in varied ways. These can lead to misunderstandings about the design direction. This subjectivity can make it challenging to ensure that everyone has a unified understanding of the project goals.

2. Lack of functionality insight: Mood boards focus primarily on visual and emotional aspects of design, which means they do not provide much insight into the functionality or usability of a product. This can lead to an overemphasis on aesthetics at the expense of practical user experience considerations.

3. Time-consuming: To create and update mood boards can be time-consuming. In fast-paced projects or those with tight deadlines, it might not be feasible to spend significant time on mood boards.

4. Static nature: Mood boards are typically static and might not adapt well to the evolving nature of a project once the design process moves forward. They may not effectively capture changes or developments that occur as the project progresses.

Designers must weigh these limitations against the benefits of mood boards and consider whether they are the right tool for each specific project and stage of the design process.

Take our course Creativity: Methods to Design Better Products and Services.

1. Chang, H. M., Díaz, M., Català, A., Chen, W., & Rauterberg, M. (2014). Mood Boards as a Universal Tool for Investigating Emotional Experience. In Design, User Experience, and Usability. User Experience Design Practice (pp. 220-231). Springer, Cham.

This publication examines the use of mood boards as a tool for evaluating emotional experiences in design. The authors found that mood boards have high inter-rater reliability, suggesting they can be used as a universal evaluation tool for research on emotion. The paper demonstrates how mood boards can provide insights into the emotional aspects of user experience, which is crucial for effective UX design. The study involved both design students and non-design students, and showed that mood boards can be interpreted similarly across different groups, making them a versatile tool for investigating emotional responses to design.

2. Warbung, T., Soedarso, N., Carina, R., Zahra, A., Wibowo, A., & Wibowo, A. (2021). Persona in a form of mood boards as a part of the design process. IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, 729(1), 012024.

This publication explores the use of persona-based mood boards as a tool in the design process. The authors present a case study of a garment company in Indonesia that used persona-based mood boards to develop a visual identity. The paper demonstrates how persona can help designers better understand target consumers and their needs, which is then translated into a mood board to communicate the design concept. The study highlights the value of mood boards in aligning clients and designers, minimizing guesswork and facilitating the ideation process. As such, this publication provides insights into the role of mood boards as a boundary object that bridges the gap between user understanding and design execution.