How users use the application

This article is from the Jiangnan University Design Institute in the master Tony translated from the "Tapworthy" first chapter "Touch and Go:how" We use the IPhone apps, Xiao-sheng correction

Starting in mdchina.org

Narcissistic designers have such a daydream: Fantasy Roaming in a sun-dappled place where users value and adore the apps they design. Our fingers slide, click, Twist, rotate and flick on the screen, just like the graceful ballet. With each button description and all the iphone design specifications to complete the gesture operation, users can immediately understand each icon, easily click on each interface. Users know about the app because they can study it and enjoy it like a designer.

This is nonsense!!

The grim reality is that most people don't think too much about all of the app's designs, nor should they. The best apps are almost invisible, and control commands disappear into the background and place the user's task or entertainment in the front and center. Creating this simple and effective design is much more difficult than saying, but the user actually uses the situation to make it critical. People tend to spend only a very short time on a app, click quickly on the screen, have no plans for further research, and then move on to another app. They use the iphone app on a treadmill, in a car or in a supermarket. They simply scanned the screen so they could focus on the more pressing surroundings-the road ahead, the calendars on the table and the reality TV show tonight. They don't know all the standard gestures on the touchscreen, and they don't have a particular interest in learning new. This means that your carefully crafted icons fail in front of them, and chances are, if possible, they stumble upon the fact that your app has a lot of functionality.

And don't despair, it's not that people don't care about your app, they might even be fascinated by it. In the long history of gadgets and gizmos, few devices have had such a broad impact as the iphone. With the advent of its buddy ipad, the iphone has become the most personal pc in many ways. The app we designed is a way of self-expression, and the icon on the home screen is like telling us what's in the handbag or how we dress. Users love iphones, dog and apps. If all goes well, users will love your app.

But it's because of your favorite reasons to explore the iphone. Designers should pay attention to the user's use of confusion, collect users encountered frustration points and the wrong understanding. Even if a user likes an app, people rarely pay enough attention or try to understand every nuance. As an app designer, you get caught up in this kind of abnormal romance. You have to forgive and predict the weaknesses of your users and create an experience that will entice them to explore further. In this book, you will find some strategies to achieve this.

It should be pointed out that when people are using mobile apps, they are often in a mobile state. We use apps in a variety of environments and in a series of shocking environments. Easy to use anywhere and immediately make the iphone so outstanding, which is very design challenging. Your app is actually fighting for the user's attention. You're fighting a complex world with a 3.5-inch screen, full of instant messaging in the world called Human communication. Someone puts all your attention on your app, and that's because he may be distracted at all times, like a crowded subway station, a nice restaurant or a family living room.

This means people are often looking at the screen, manipulating the app with one hand, and spending a fraction of their attention on the carefully crafted interface. The app they see is completely different from what you see as a designer.

This vague app scenario requires you to pay close attention to the layout of the information on the screen, and all the questions, big and lively, eye-catching visual goals and boring editors, will be addressed in the next chapter. But more importantly, watching how apps are used will tell you a little bit about the actual user usage.

People who use the iphone in real life can be distracted and ready to face problems, which means people will use the iphone quickly in meetings and in the gaps between other activities. When a friend suggests Saturday to play speed skating, you stop, look quickly at your calendar, and then quickly return to chatting. When you wait at the Post office, you can browse through your emails, Twitter, and favorite websites, and it's your turn to go to the counter. Go in quickly, and you can come out quickly.

The best apps should be neatly folded in a busy schedule structure. The importance of efficiency in the interface requires that I go there with just one or two clicks to complete, which also requires visual simplicity. In an environment of distraction and distraction, you can't expect people to study the information on the screen sometimes or patiently.

As with all things, there are exceptions. Some people will spend one hours of time to play a simulation game. Others spend a lot of time engrossed in reading ebook novels or writing long, thoughtful notes. But the same app--games, E-book readers, and Notepad may be used by the same person for 30 seconds before his next session. This means that even though long and deep interactions are encouraged, app designers still have to anticipate and design quick clicks.

All this quick clicks, where do your users rush to go? He usually went to another app. When you immerse yourself in your app design, it's naturally the center of your attention, and it's easy to think of it as the center of user attention. If so, then for users, they are not the iphone, but a simple device running Super Notepad. As an iphone user, you should be aware that this is not true. Each app is just one of many programs, like a character in a big comedy, except that you're not a director.

Not only will people jump to other apps, but other apps will also interrupt your app with push notifications. The phone will call in or the text will come quietly. Users also want to share your app's content with other programs, and vice versa. For programmers, this means that your app is not isolated, as part of socializing, you have to communicate with your neighbors, share space, and occasionally meet Sister Feng and Furong.

The congestion of apps on your iphone means you have to consider your app's role in this "party". The best app is a note of focus. The more precise you define your program, the more clearly your users will know when and why to use it. Imagine the iphone as a toolbox with lots of professional tools. The "right tool to do the right job" rule applies here as well. When you think people have a lot of other tools in their toolbox, that means your software doesn't need to do anything. Choose an idea, find out what it's focused on, find the smallest steps you can take to do this, and then Polish, Polish, and polish it.

When your app works with other apps, you're competing with them. The number of iphone users in the app is very clear, and users are rewarded with minimal loyalty. If your program doesn't make them interested, don't let them have no qualms about moving, which means they don't talk to their friends about your program (and Word-of-mouth). If you're not convinced by the user, this easy to get and lost mindset makes it all the more important to create a great experience that meets the needs of your users. If there is no success on the first line, most people will not turn back.

Users are hungry, averaging 10 apps a month, but they rarely use them often or for long periods of time. Research has shown that average users do not use the app more than 10 times before abandoning an app. Less than 15% of the apps in the download will be browsed in a week, and less than One-third of the programs purchased can be used for the next two months. Among the basic users, like some popular and rely on simple means (fart sound, funny smart test, ringtone) program, users will be in a very short period of time to no longer use.

If your goal is to create a one-time and more novel app, the above is not a problem for you. In this case, you even just expect someone to start a few times on your program. A smiling delivery program, the task is done.

If you want to keep your program continuous, that's not good news. According to a survey, nearly half of the programs downloaded by users are based on a friend's advice. Loyal users continue to spread this advice, but few programs ever organize and create a big fan base.

If you're a scholar who explores every particular feature of the iphone, here's a better title for you: Most people don't like you. Spend a little time with the iphone users in your daily life, and you'll find how small your discussion is. They have explored the standard specifications used in the iphone, especially touch-screen gestures, clicks, input and scrolling, and so on.

After the advent of the iphone, people's interest in learning gestures increased. The iphone is not just a device innovation, but a device that is so easy to learn about the iphone. And to be sure, even the first iphone user will immediately get the iphone's operational metaphor: scrolling the screen, clicking on the button, entering numbers and dragging the map, all right. You can rely on these interactions because they are like the objects you manipulate in reality. Rely on drag to move it, click to Slide.

Even for iphone newcomers, familiar physical metaphors can be a good indication of touch-screen gestures. User testing shows that the first person to use the iphone will instinctively scroll the rotating turntable (left) in a menu selection bar. In the Air Hockey app (right), beginners will immediately understand that they can use their fingers to nudge the ball.

When you use a slight fancy dance instead of clicking and scrolling, your users start to lose. Even the standard gestures of some built-in programs are not necessarily known and used by most people, especially in programs that require multi-touch of multiple fingers. In the process of testing, many iphone users believe that multi-touch is difficult, even if some of the gestures are enlarged or reduced. If possible, most gestures will return to the single finger selection, double click map, such as zooming in on the command, which is to remind you to design the app for "one-handed use" to create the best way to operate.

Of course, it is difficult to convey gestures to the user because they are not part of the interface tag, and they are not easy to find. For example, in a built-in map app, even people who call themselves experts are often unfamiliar with just two fingers to narrow the map. In other cases, certain scenarios are impossible to see, for example, users will never advise on stock software that always deals with graphs. You can't assume that people will find the app's gestures, no matter how simple, standard, or consistent gestures. We can use gestures as a shortcut to action, or we can do it in another way (albeit often slowly), so we always have a backup plan.

We should be considerate that users cannot immediately understand the meaning of gestures, after all, it cannot be visualized. Even labeled icons and buttons may be difficult for beginners to recognize and obscure to their meaning. We're not just talking about individual icons. Even when the built-in app icons are consistent, there are still problems, for example, extracting the meaning of each icon represents a very slow process.

Even the built-in app's standard icons can create confusion for beginners. After several weeks of use, many users still do not realize that the X icon in Safari's address bar can be used to clear the web address. At the same time, in user testing, the first users often think that the + icon is used to collect pages, in fact, expand the Web page display information.

The finger is a dazzling engineering invention, it is omnipotent: a finger can test the wind direction, insert a hole in the dike, test the temperature, and even drop the elevator directly onto a specific floor. But the fingers are behaving poorly in the precise interaction of the touchscreen. Touch-screen stylus or mouse pointer can easily be clicked within one or two pixel targets. By contrast, the fingers look clumsy. This is a blunt tool, and when you wave this clumsy "pointer" you can't even see what you're pointing at. The finger obscures a lot of information on the screen, which makes it worse.

In addition to the user's hasty operation and absent-minded state, everything becomes chaotic. Users may forget to click the button, or the wrong target, or they can click a chart at the bottom to refresh when they want to scroll the screen. If you put a lot of items that need to be clicked on the iphone screen, it's sooner or later that users are wrong. Touch screen design requires meticulous work and attention to ergonomics, which for many software designers is still unfamiliar things.

Users appear to be impatient, distracted, clumsy, fickle, indifferent, or lack of education. This is not an exact description of an ideal dinner guest. But iphone users aren't stupid, and so are you. This may be the case when you click on your favorite device and you will find yourself conforming to these descriptions. Each of us has better things to do than watch the iphone screen.

Our habit of focusing on the iphone naturally comes from the concept of mobile apps--done in the move. These actions are only reinforced by a device. The device is so simple and easy to use that we can acquiesce to our carelessness.

So, why? If most people never pay attention to your design, if they don't pay attention to it and don't think about it, does this design matter? Why does the effort to make every detail available to users often "trip"? If the user (like you and me) is so careless, then the solution must be a concise interface, right?

There is such an inequality: do not care about ≠ silence.

People don't want to be silent in your app: they need simplicity and convenience. We all just want to use our iphone to work, play, learn and communicate. The best app disappears automatically after helping us finish a task. Good software doesn't make us think-at least in its interface. They are responsible for the complex tasks, and let us no longer be responsible for the impact of things, so that we easily move forward, and ultimately achieve the goal. Click the button, the plane takes off, and the landing button hits the plane back to the ground.

Simplicity is really difficult, the user's easy to need us a lot of work and effort. However, these adjectives are characteristic of excellent design. But users rarely marvel at the simplicity of your app, and unfortunately they will always complain about its complexity. If they feel hindered during use, the small screen will only magnify the error of the interface. So yes, you really need to work on every detail. Your task in designing the user experience is to ensure that each image and every action brings joy, efficiency, and results to the user. Make every element in your app worth clicking on.

Source: http://daichuanqing.com/index.php/archives/2088