Designing Smart and Clever Applications

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Dan Saffer Kicker Studio Designing Smart and Clever Applications

Smart (adj.): 1. Prevent users from making mistakes. 2. Prevent users from working harder than they need to. 3. Do things that are easy for computers but hard for humans.

1. Prevent mistakes

Poka-Yoke Ensure that proper conditions exist before a process begins, preventing problems before they happen.

Error messages The system should never present an error message to a user unless the user has done everything right but the system itself cannot respond correctly.

Give users info or tools to fix problems

2. Prevent users from working harder than they need to Take over some (if not all) of the complexity of the task.

Tesler’s Law of the Conservation of Complexity 1. In every process, there is some inherent complexity. 2. There is a point beyond which you cannot simplify a process any further. 3. At that point, you can only move the complexity from place to place.

Find the complexity the system should handle 1. Figure out what the core complexity is. 2. Figure out what parts of that complexity users might want control over, and when. 3. Put in those controls (out of the way if possible).

3. Do what humans have trouble doing but computers can do easily: 1. Rapidly performing computation. 2. Doing several tasks simultaneously. 3. Infallibly remembering things. 4. Detecting complicated patterns.

Several tasks simultaneously

Clever (adj.): 1. Predict the needs of users and then fulfill those needs in unexpected, but pleasant ways. 2. Create the “Long Wow.” 3. Release delight via adaptation.

1. Predicting and fulfilling needs 1. User research 2. Product testing 3. Data 4. Be a really good designer (heuristic evaluation)

User research

Product/prototype testing

Fixing pain points 1. Too many clicks/actions/steps. 2. Huh? Why am I doing this? 3. What just happened? 4. Did anything just happen? 5. I can’t find what I’m looking for. 6. I don’t know where I am. 7. You just did what to my data? 8. If I click this, what happens? 9. I didn’t see that button. 10. What do I do now?

2. The Long Wow A means to achieving long-term customer loyalty through systematically impressing your customers again and again. Brandon Schauer

3. Release delight via adaptation

The Glass Wall (BBC)

The rules of adaptation 1. Appropriate for context. 2. Nothing dumb (meaning un-Smart). 3. Value subtlety. 4. Evolve over long periods of time. 5. Use what the user is already doing. 6. Use what the userS are already doing. 7. Look for places to use system memory. 8. Do more than is required.

What changes? XML, Copy, Graphics RSS, SOAP CSS, AJAX, Controls APIs, Functionality, Middleware Servers, Databases

Use existing user behavior Settings suck. Forms suck. Beware The Last Mile of Data!

Smart (adj.): 1. Prevent users from making mistakes. 2. Prevent users from working harder than they need to. 3. Do things that are easy for computers but hard for humans.

Clever (adj.): 1. Predict the needs of users and then fulfill those needs in unexpected, but pleasant ways. 2. Create the “Long Wow.” 3. Release delight via adaptation.

Thanks. dan@kickerstudio.com @odannyboy

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Designing Smart and Clever Applications

by Dan Saffer on Apr 30, 2009

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Designing Smart and Clever Applications — Presentation Transcript