As part of a series of bi-weekly training on UX design and architecture, I presented a three part series on application design frameworks and best practices for interaction design patterns for desktop and mobile
2. Align layout choice(s) with user goals
1. Determine the ONE goal for each screen
2. Figure out which screen layout is needed
3. Interaction layer
(Rules from software design)
#1 Make It Direct
where there is output, there should be input – Alan Cooper
#2 Keep It Lightweight
application should stay out of the user’s way
#3 Stay In the Page
application should stay out of the user’s way
#4 Provide An Invitation
use animations and user events to invite discovery
#5 Use Transitions
help user understand beginnings, endings
#6 React Immediately
provide feedback as soon as possible (auto suggest, live search, etc.)
4. #1 Make it direct
• Whenever there is a need to edit content, make
it happen in context rather than on a separate
screen
1. editing
2. drag and drop
3. direct selection
5. Edit – Drag & Drop – Direct Selection
Object selection and collected object selection
6. #2 Keep it lightweight
Reducing the effort required to interact with a site
or application
8. #3 Stay on page
Stay on page to avoid disrupting flow
model the user’s work process by keeping all
sub-tasks in the page
Overlays
Inlays
Virtual Paging
Process Flows
10. #4 Provide an invitation
Discoverability
Invitations cue us to another level of interaction
Contextual and “just in time”
Types: static and dynamic invitations
11. Static call to action
How was that form an anti-pattern – a
bad example of a call to action?
14. #5 Use transitions
Special, cinematic effects that occur over time
Provide feedback during interaction
Transitions are a form information scent. They
tell the user she’s on the right track
Smooth the action: makes screens feel human
Help users understand what has happened and
what could happen
Movement helps capture and focus attention
Central vs peripheral vision and “refrigerator
effect”
15. #5 Use transitions (semantically)
By offloading interpretation of changes to the
perceptual system, animation allows the user to
continue thinking about the task domain, with no
need to shift contexts to the interface domain.
From the paper, Animation: From Cartoons to the User
Interface by Bay-Wei Chang (Stanford) and David Ungar
(at Sun Microsystems) 1995
17. Brighten/dim
Dim one part of screen to make another part appear
brighter
Use for subtle, secondary changes to interface
Cognitive science: change in movement captures
more attention than color change
The faster the change, the more eye catching
The sharper the contrast, the more attention
Yahoo tool icons brighten and dim
20. Self-healing fade
When deleting or moving objects, expose a “hole” where the
object was by using a ghosting or fading technique. Here,
dragging object out of an album
22. Animation
Help make application more life-like
avoid “I Dream of Jeanie” blink-for-change effect
Improve delight and enjoyment of environment
Common types:
• Zoom back/snap back: when a drag and drop fails
• drop: mimic the effect of something dropping
• snap to place: mimic effect of something snapping into
place
• genie effect: mimic effect of genie going back into the bottle
• Dog ears: the effect of continuing motion even after stopping
• Magnetism:
24. Highlighting something by enlarging it and then shrinking it
back to original state
Enlarge/shrink back
25. Wrap up
1. Hub and spoke model for app design
2. 4 basic elements of application design
3. 3 application type(s) to help us meet our
users’ goals
4. 15 basic screen layout patterns known to
help with user work flow
5. 1 goal for 1 screen
27. #5 Transitions - More transitions
Faceplate: Move between two faces of an interface by
cross-fading between the two
Flip: flipping a card over
Carousel: moving between several objects
Accordions: variation on a tabbed panel. When you open
one item in the list, the other open item closes
28. #5 Transitions - Use effectively
Use transitions to help tell a story. If there’s no story, then
transitions are baubles.
Explain what just happened
Demonstrate relationship(s) between objects
Focus user attention
Improve perceived performance by maintaining engagement
Create the illusion of virtual space
29. #5 Transitions - Best practices
The more rapid the change, the more important the
event
Rapid movement perceived as more important than
rapid color change
Movement toward the user is seen as more
important than movement away from the user
Very slow change can be processed without
disrupting the user's attention
Movement can communicate an object's new home
Transitions should be reflexive – view transition and
reverse transition
30. #5 Transitions - Dont’s
Don’t overuse
Don’t rely on transitions to communicate a story;
use multiple methods to communicate
Don’t rely on transitions to communicate a
changed interface
Don’t use transitions outside the user’s focus
area. (using it outside the focal area makes the
transition effect feel more like advertising)
Don’t use gimmicky effects
Don’t use for the cool factor
31. #6 React immediately
A way of providing feedback after an interaction
Users expect something to happen in response
to their action (perceive apps as rude at best and
broken at worst when they do not respond)
Two patterns:
− Lookup patterns
− Feedback patterns
32. Lookup patterns
Since looking up information is a large part of
what user do there are methods of providing
feedback during searches:
− Auto Complete
− Live Suggest
− Live Search
− Refining Search
34. Autocomplete – best practices
Use autocomplete for input assistance
Match on multiple fields
Show results when the user pauses
Allow selecting matched value on Tab key
35. Known as winnowing, live suggest provides real
time search term suggestions as the user is
typing
Live suggest / autosuggest (lookup
pattern)
46. Progressive disclosure
• When there is a logical series of steps, display
hints and contextual tools and menus as they are
needed to avoid cluttering the screen
49. Progress indicators
Provide immediate feedback to let users know that
the system is responding to their action
Favicon turns into progress indicator:
53. Periodic refresh
Recency trumps quality
People attracted to the newest information
Refresh pages to ensure user sees latest
information such as new notification, recently
added listings, price changes, new posts to the
blog, etc
56. 4 design layers in every app: application
structure, layouts, UI controls, interactions
3 application types: information, process,
creation
15 screen layout patterns aid user workflow
1 goal for 1 screen
Use the hub and spoke model for app design:
Single focus at center
Employ UI Controls and guidelines for using
them
6 Interaction principles to guide choices on
interaction layer
62. 6 Rules for interaction design
(Rules from software design)
#1 Make It Direct
where there is output, let there be input – Alan Cooper
#2 Keep It Lightweight
application should stay out of the user’s way
#3 Stay In the Page
application should stay out of the user’s way
#4 Provide An Invitation
use animations and user events to invite discovery
#5 Use Transitions
help user understand beginnings, endings
#6 React Immediately
provide feedback as soon as possible (auto suggest, live search, etc.)
63. For more research-based insights
about Redacted users, check out
the UX insights portal
Thoughts? Questions?