How to discover the blind area of thinking in interactive design?

As an interactive designer, I found myself in the practice of interactive design can not take into account all aspects, there is a blind area of thinking. There is a lack of experience, but also the problem of their own knowledge limitations. After entering the development phase, each need to modify the interaction, the heart will be a little ashamed, feel for the small partners brought unnecessary workload.

In reality, however, changes in the interaction design are unavoidable (so that a general project will continue to iterate over the interactive document), especially if the schedule is JINCU and the product requirements are not clear. How to think as thoroughly as possible during the interactive design phase and reduce the rework of visual design and development? With the attitude of promoting oneself and saving a partner, I have summed up my experience in the mobile End app project. This does not cover all aspects of interactive design, focusing mainly on places where individuals find it easy to make omissions when designing.

Interactive design In my opinion, the structure level and detail level, both in the discovery of the blind area of thinking, to troubleshoot the interaction design problems in different angles.

　　Structural level

The interaction design of the structure level means to analyze the product requirement and the core goal, to comb the interaction logic, to design the use process, the frame structure and the basic function. The purpose is to ensure the availability of the product. It can be imagined that the cost is greater if the interaction between the structural layers is changed during the development process.

Some of the immature structural aspects of the interaction design, I think the main problem is:

　　1. Do not have a good grasp of platform characteristics.

The Android platform, in particular, is more complex than iOS. For example, because Android phones are more demanding on app performance, the design should be as selective as possible with a less-expensive frame structure, and as most Android phones have virtual buttons on their screens, consider how the virtual button representing "return" will jump to the page when the interface is finished. Whether the use of the will bring confusion. In the early stages of designing a software structure, you need to communicate design drafts with your developers to identify problems early.

　　2. The page structure is complex.

Mobile phone screen can be said to be an inch of gold, a reasonable deletion of an element, to the user to reduce the burden of thinking or confused points. Even if the solution looks OK, you need to keep asking yourself: Is this feature layout the simplest? What is the main operation of the page, is it obvious? are other features or portals necessary? is the organization of the page clear and regular?...... However, it should be noted that a reasonable simplification of the structure in advance, is a good understanding of user scenarios.

　　3. The difference between designers and user experience.

Designers are very knowledgeable about the products they design, so it's easy to feel that everything is taken for granted, or that someone will know what's going on if they try it a little bit. But in fact, many people are not so "smart". This needs to invite the product and project unfamiliar "small white" to play interactive demo, see if TA can easily know what your product is to do, complete the core function is smooth, where will encounter stumbling.

　　Detail level

The design of the detail level is subordinate to the function point (such as the arrangement of the specific information, the processing of the abnormal state, etc.), which can be optimized independently without affecting the whole structure and help the user to achieve the goal better. The details of the things to consider a lot of miscellaneous, design is often not difficult, difficult is to think of the whole. Therefore, it is necessary to have a systematic thinking framework to help us to find gaps, rather than thinking about what is.

　　1. From the "I" (the user itself) and "others" (other users) angle, check whether the functional point is complete.

I: There are differences between users, some factors will affect the user's needs and use of the scene, such as whether it is the first time to use the app, whether it is a member. From the perspective of different users, what do you want to do on this page? Do one thing in the front, middle and back stage, in the design of whether there is embodiment? Can I cancel, undo, or exit a step? What if the halfway thing fails?

Someone else: "Someone else" means someone else who is directly related to the product you are using. What other people have done to me, do I need to know? How does that affect me? Take a chestnut, in a "classroom" function of the page, I can with other students to listen to the teacher to live lessons. Here, the teacher has some authority on me: forbid/Allow me to type chat, let me speak/down Mike, kick Me Out of the classroom, and send me a private chat. When the teacher does these things to me, can I understand what's going on? Do I know what I'm supposed to do? Did I get the hint clear enough?

　　2. Check special cases.

On the one hand, consider what the user's main scenario is when using the product, and what the impact factors are. Common influencing factors are:

Network environment: There is no network, network condition is bad, suddenly break the network, whether for WiFi environment, WiFi environment and non-WiFi environment between the conversion. Clear how the changes in the network affect the user, whether the user needs to make a new operational choice, whether the need for a clear hint.

Time factor: The time limit of the operation, the timing of some functions is opened. You need to consider how the product function will differ over time, and whether the user can foresee such a difference. If the payment function on the product is limited in time, the order will be canceled automatically after a certain period of time. So is the design clearly telling the user this? What happens after the countdown to the order page payment is over?

Quantity limitation: When a function is limited in number, the timing of the operation becomes very important. The application in the App class (Figure 1) For example, assuming that the class capacity of 20 people, confirm the registration order temporarily deducted a quota of inventory, when the completion of payment completely deducted this quota. If when you enroll in the class, the quota is full, but there are no payment, then the system should have any hint? This and the enrolment class, the class absolute full (the quota is filled, and all people completed payment) The situation is handled differently. Another situation is that when you enter the confirmation order page, the quota is not full, but when you press the "confirmation" order, the quota is already full, should also have corresponding prompts. Like this kind of quantity-sensitive function, you should tell the user as clearly as possible what the current state of the situation is (not full, temporarily full, or filled?) to prevent users from doing unnecessary operations. Users who do not understand the first time may need to be further friendly to prompt.

Figure 1. Class Registration Key page

On the other hand, think about what kinds of states a single page element will have. Common state classifications are:

Intermediate state: In the download, upload, import and other operations, the user will have the process of waiting. What is the state of the interface in this process? How to make the wait less painful? Is it permissible to cancel halfway?

Control state: What is the status of the control activated, inactive, in use? Are there some restrictions? What happens when state transitions occur? Do other changes have an effect on the state of the control? Take the text entry box for a classroom page (Figure 2) For example, in the input box

When entering text, we will limit the display of the interface: the input box displays up to 4 lines of text, and the keyboard retains the status of the input box when it is closed. Furthermore If students are not disciplined during the course of the class, they will be banned. What is the state of the input box when the word is forbidden? Is it completely unavailable, or can you edit the text but not send it? After careful thinking and development of communication, I gave the program is: when banned, users can still enter text, but can not send. If you are in the text input process (keyboard expansion) is also prohibited, at this time can still edit text, just can't send.

Loading status: How will the interface elements change when loading data (text, pictures, audio, video, packets, etc.)?

Refresh Status: Is the Refresh data automatic or manual? Which colors of the interface will change when the refresh operation is performed? Refresh failed?

Figure 2. Text input box for classroom page

The above methods may help us to remove some of the vulnerabilities in the design of the interaction. But there's a part of the loophole that might come from our own

　　Psychological Blind Spot

　　1. Confrontation.

When you hear a different opinion from your own thoughts, the instinctive response is to find a reason to refute it. When discussing the design with the product manager and others, we also ask that we often encounter situations where other people disagree with us. At this time, first of all to believe that the other side is not a person, and then calm down to think about the other side said whether there is a reason, their previous ideas whether there is a problem, or have the both worlds of the plan.

　　2. Herd.

People tend to adopt the majority choice, follow the action of the majority, this will feel more secure, evenly divided pressure, avoid conflict. People are thinking inert, the herd can be thinking, decision-making responsibility silently handed over to others. When you audit an interactive scenario, when most people like a certain set of scenarios, we may choose this option. But it needs to be clear that once the problem is found, the need to be responsible for the revision of the program or the designers themselves, the professional is still questioned only designers. Therefore, other people's suggestions can only be used as a reference, they think clearly is the king.

　　3. Authority influence.

Similar to the herd mentality, the authority influence is also a kind of tendency mentality, its function is sometimes even greater than the herd mentality. There may be a few people in your team who you particularly appreciate, and their opinions will be highly valued. You will feel more secure and seem to be the best solution to the conclusions you have discussed with these people. The more you have to give yourself alarm, the initiative to solve the current solution.

　　4. Close.

When you think a solution is settled and everyone feels OK and everything looks so perfect, we tend to close the task in the brain and stop thinking about it. In particular, when you disclose this package, you are announcing to someone, "that's it!" You will also defend your decision in particular. Although we may have used a variety of methods to ensure the integrity of the program, but nobody is perfect, you never know when you will find new problems. What we can do is to try to avoid the big problems and minimize the remaining problems. Therefore, never put a stop to your own thinking, as long as the project has not yet closed, you should constantly review their existing design.

Figure 3. Discovering the blind area of thinking in interactive design

The

is summed up in this picture above. Finally want to say that this is a never "closed" topic, I hope you can continue to supplement, learn from each other.