User requirements in efficient interactive design

The author of the article @ the "goal-oriented design (Goal directed)", "The father of Visual Basic, the father of interactive design," in the writer's opinion: Product design is designed to help users achieve their goals, in the process of implementation, Have to have users to complete a series of tasks.

Just like the user's goal is to return home, he can take the cart cart to change the bus and train ... Finally sloshing home. Can also play a fly, the wind generally go home to eat hot rice tea. Although the goals are the same, the tasks performed are not the same.

All along, I firmly believe that interactive design better help users achieve the goal is to: recognize the goal, the task is simpler and quicker the better. Then the primary criteria for evaluating interactive design should be high efficiency.

Until one day I heard an interesting story shared by a senior interactive design expert at Cooper design company Kim:

When they design a library to illustrate the interactive interface, the first interactive design is very neat and efficient, but the feedback is: Yes, very good, but a little boring. After that, introduced some inefficient things, just to be more interesting. But this change makes people more willing to use it.

So, she says, efficiency is not the only criterion.

This becomes interesting, so what is the primary criterion for judging interaction? It seems that the problem should be specifically analyzed. Different types of products, information architecture needs to consider the characteristics of the product.

For example, the structure of some games, is often the main line, feeder 1, feeder 2 ... Just like life is not all walking straight, as the legend of a brain residue in the selection of the plot, there will be different results, which instead increased the fun of the game, exploratory.

Information architecture for some games

Then look at the community-type SNS information architecture features, first lead Tony to tell a small story:

"Community A is an underground car park, many owners stop to take the elevator directly back to their house."

Community B is the ground car park, the owner must go through the community garden, walk 500 meters to flat.

The result is that Community B has a relatively intimate neighborhood. ”

In the Internet access to information in the field, we all think, how can be "efficient and convenient", but sometimes, seemingly disorderly inefficiency, it is likely to let users "encounter", "encounter" to the surprise.

Let's look at the architecture comparison between Facebook and Qzone:

For an application, take the log as an example: the Facebook log page shows all the Buddy log dynamics.

and Qzone's log page shows only my log list. The specific page shows the following:

After, in order to easily see friends of the latest log dynamic, Qzone revision in the level two menu added "Buddy log", relatively difficult to find and users need to click again.

The difference between Facebook and Qzone can be seen that the Qzone advantage is that the architecture makes it easy for users to understand, point log is to enter the "my Log"; Facebook emphasizes interaction between friends: the log defaults to the home page, and entry to "My Log" requires a second click. If from the nature of SNS, than to quickly find their own log list of efficiency, will undoubtedly miss a lot of interesting scenery.

First do not judge how the watercress revision, the Community home page from the neighboring broadcast dynamic development to now push a variety of content, you can guess is to expand through the content of interest to promote strangers friends.

This seems to be the more immersive product architecture needs to consider some more important factors, such as: social, interactive, and other information display.

Detailed to the page, users face different page requirements are also different.

Three types of pages on the Web:

(1) Navigation page

Help users determine where to find what they want, and provide access to the path;

Google's search results page and Flickr album pages belong to the navigation page

The navigation page exists just to take you to another place. So when designing a navigation page, make sure the user is easy to leave.

(2) Consumption page

Allow users to consume content;

News, blogs, videos, notes, etc. are all things people find: they can read articles, watch videos, and view photos. The design of the consumer page is to immerse the user as much as possible.

(3) Interactive page

Allows users to enter and manage data.

Interactive pages refer to where people edit, delete, type, drag, and insert information. Sometimes very simple, such as Baidu Google home only one input box, something very complicated, such as Google Calendar or doc, it emphasizes that the page is easy to use.

For consumer pages, a more immersive atmosphere and more content choices are more attractive to users than efficient. The navigation page captures information quickly, and it's more critical to efficiently find what you want. Interactive pages need to be as efficient as possible for every step of the way, even if sometimes immersive, depending on complexity.

"Interactive design is a technology that makes products easy to use and that can effectively make people happier with their products." Sometimes it's fun to be productive, sometimes it's a pleasure to get more information, and sometimes it's all about the nature of the product and the page, and more importantly what the user has to do, if not what else to choose from.

Efficiency is definitely one of the important criteria for interactive design considerations. Therefore, my blog (consumer page), boring and can not let you read on the toilet, is still my fault:

(Warlial for Lei Feng Network, reproduced please indicate from the Lei Feng Network and author)