Tips and Techniques

Three Keys to Good User Interface (UI) Design

Three of the most common characteristics that differentiate successful user interface (UI) design (including web design) from poor design are proper consideration of:

Trade-Offs

A common error for inexperienced designers is to fail to see a design decision as a potential trade-off against another aspect of a design.

A typical example is when a great deal of functionality and/or information flow is packed into a single page or window. While the design provides content and functionality "at the user's fingertips", it is usually at the expense of simplicity and clarity. The key to a successful user interface (in this area) is balancing the tradeoff between giving the user access to all the information and, at the same time, not overwhelming them with this information. In this particular example, for some reason, designs tend to err on the side of too much information at the expense of clarity and simplicity.

Interactions

A design interaction occurs when a design decision in one aspect of the user interface ends up effecting a user's interpretation or experience with another aspect of the user interface. These are particularly important to keep in mind when changing or evolving a design based on user feedback.

An example of a potential interaction can be found in Microsoft Outlook. When viewing the Inbox a user can select a "Find All" under the Action Menu or a "Find" under the Tools menu. There are some obvious potential disadvantageous interactions between using and re-using these different functions and having them with similar names but in different places. For instance a user may go back to the Action menu when looking for the "Find" associated with the Tools menu. However, before being critical of this, it is important to keep in mind the first point above - that of tradeoffs.

It may be that, after assessing potential different names and locations and menu titles and so on, the decision to place these items where they were and name them as they did represented the better design decision amongst a number of potentially less-attractive alternatives.

Perhaps the designers traded off the potential for confusion in retrieving the functionality against a much stronger tendency for the user to recognize where to look for it in the first place.

Assumptions

It's inevitable that some user interface design is based on assumptions rather than the ideal situation of basing them on real data. Of course, the more a design is based on data, the better.

Many of the design assumptions involve users; what they think is important, how they'll react, who they are, and so on. This is why techniques such as developing personas or performing user interviews and other forms of user interaction research are so important in replacing assumptions with concrete findings and real information.

There are also sometimes subtle assumptions present in making design choices. One area where there are often a number of unconsidered assumptions is when a design approach that is effective in one situation is transferred to a slightly different context of use. Often the hidden assumptions that made it work in one situation will no longer apply; and the design may not transfer effectively. A timely example is just trying to map a Windows application "verbatim" into a web application. Web applications have different fundamental design constraints that aren't present in a Windows application and therefore some aspects of an application will not transfer in a usable fashion.

It takes years of experience to properly understand and utilize knowledge in these areas in order to create great designs. However, even just the awareness of these design considerations can often improve a design. It's worth taking the time to consider tradeoffs, interactions and assumptions when creating or changing user interface design. The time and effort is well worth the result!

Macadamian Usability is a specialist consulting company that works jointly with organizations to deliver effective technology solutions through human technology interaction engineering. Macadamian Usability people are human factors engineers, human interaction scientists and interaction designers that specialize in user interaction and in capturing and harnessing the user experience for both technology product companies and Government.