Taiwan designers talk about the wonderful balance between information and visual design

Author Chen Weifan is the founder of Taiwan Science and technology blog desiring clicks and is also a ui/ue designer. This article is Chen Weifan to fan Love minority son to deliver the manuscript, mainly discusses the information obtains the way and the design relations. Desiring clicks focuses on technology media that introduces the user interface, user experience, visual design, and information architecture, and interested friends can focus on the author's Facebook or his site.

The so-called message is generated for communication, and the user interface is the bearer of information. User interface, and a wide range of systems for a variety of information exchange. The information may be generated by a user, such as a person who sends a message on Twitter, uploads it to the Internet system through the interface, and passes through the Internet to everyone's screen before being received by another user who reads the message.

Therefore, during the lifecycle of information, the three important stages of generation, transmission and reception are included, and each phase can cause the loss of information. And the information in the transmission can be divided into "really useful information" and "interference-causing noise." For example: A chart that discusses the number of people in each country, if used too many and fancy decorations or special effects, these decorations and special effects will become a "noise" of information.

Graph and Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)

The left and right pictures are all about the population of countries, the chart on the left-hand side we can clearly see the different populations, at one glance, the proportion of the population among different countries can be seen. And on the right-hand side of the chart because of the combination of three-dimensional effects and lines, we are not sure whether to use the upper edge of the block or the position of the numbers to compare, wood materials also affect the interpretation of the number. Therefore, although visually attractive, but also because of the addition of special effects of information added to the noise. The proper addition of decorations and special effects can attract readers ' attention, but be aware that these noises must not obscure the messages that are really to be expressed.

Interface and signal-to-noise ratio

The Metro Style UI recently unveiled by Windows almost excludes all shadows, rounded corners, using only the color block and text to express the atmosphere of the entire interface, almost can be used at the same time "enhanced information" and "Exclude noise" two methods, so that the text (information) itself as part of the interface with the user interaction. In this way, however, there is a lack of the implied meaning of the interface (a button with a shadow is always a bit more desired) and has a slight effect on the interaction.

The signal-to-noise ratio is actually very much related to the human search system. Human visual search system is actually very interesting, when a lot of information at the same time in front of us, sometimes we will find it easy to find different information, sometimes we will find it difficult, it takes some time to find different places. What is the cause of the two different differences?

Visual Search System

When an image stimulus is identified by our visual system, some of the properties of the image can easily be processed by the brain, and these basic features (fundamental Feature) are identified at the front of the visual nerve, making it easier for our brain to discern these image attributes. Therefore, if we design a lot of information, if we can make good use of these basic features, then we can improve the reader's reading efficiency!

In the experiment on visual search, subjects were asked to pick out a "o" from a number of "x" and then let them pick out a "┼" from the "┸". We call all visual elements the total amount of stimulus, and most of the elements ("x" and "┸") are called distractors, and the only different element (the "o" and "┼" in the example above) is called the target, and the objective of the experiment is to detect the increase in distractors It will take more time for the subjects to find their target.

Basic features that are easy to identify

In the results of the visual search experiment, some features were found to be easily identified by our search system, including the following four points:

• Color

• Segment Direction

• Size

• Sports

A "parallel search" with appropriate basic features would hardly cause any cognitive burden on the reader. Parallel Search.

For example, in a group of red spheres looking for a blue ball, no matter how many red balls you add, subjects can find the object at almost the same speed (blue ball). Or when everything is stationary, we can quickly find the only moving target! Surprisingly, our brains are also highly sensitive to skewed segments, and can quickly find slanted lines.

So if you're designing an interface with a lot of data, it might be a good choice to use one or two of the four elements at the same time. Do not use too much, too much effect will become a picture of the noise. Zooming in on the data and filling in different colors can help the reader make a little less mental judgment, while also strengthening the focus of the information and increasing the efficiency of the interpretation interface and the chart.

Keep the interface in perfect balance

The interface design should be kept as simple as possible to increase the transmission of messages. But the interface is not too simple (you can imagine a plain text interface, although full of information but how difficult to use, the appropriate use of decoration and hints can enhance the user's familiarity and usability, but the delicate balance between the designers are the best to play the strength of the time!