Nine key interface features of community media and Web sites

The system model is close to the user's mental model and is the main function of the excellent interface. In general, usability measures how easy it is to interact with Web sites, and it is also an important measure of web design. This paper summarizes the key features of community media and websites, and discusses the importance of these design features, technologies and concepts and their causes. These usability is simple and practical and can be applied in almost all interface design.

1. Concise

The color and graphics of community media sites are fairly straightforward. Using uniform slightly varying colors, the background is usually white, with a light-colored highlight supplementary information (green or yellow, red bottom used to indicate alert information). The most important reason why graphics are so simple and even conservative is that vivid visual design does not apply. The community application embodies the sharing atmosphere, the content is constantly updated, the strong visual design is easy to distract the user's attention. For example, the Twitter interface places text input boxes in a prominent position so that users can send short messages. When the flow of information is quite large, the simpler the interface the better. If there are too many graphics, it's harder for users to focus on a task or area. The simplicity of the interface does not mean a simple visual design, but an intuitive form of presentation. Users often ignore the color of cold colors, rather than using bright colors to distract users from their data and site functions.

2. Search function

Because of the large amount of information, community media must have search function. The search here has multiple features: In addition to the traditional content search, Community Media search also provides related search, such as groups, associations or interests. Search features are often located in the upper-right corner of the site, including an input box and a search button. Community applications typically use real-time results searching and filtering. When you enter characters in the search box, the Drop-down box filters the relevant content to help users quickly find what they want. Search results are more important for friendly interfaces, such as Digg can arrange search results in a variety of ways, and the search box is always at the top so that users are ready to use it.

3. The button that attracts the user to click

Buttons and links are the indispensable controls in a Web page, in contrast, the links appear passive and passive, the larger buttons appear more vivid, and the buttons and other elements of the interface are more conspicuous. Just like in real life. These buttons have a stereo effect, increase the size of the button and a certain contrast with the background. When the mouse is placed on the button, there is a hover effect, let the user know that the button is clickable. When the button is clicked, there is also a embossing effect.

4. Element distinction

The management and presentation of various information blocks is one of the design problems that the Community user interface needs to deal with. Content tofu block for visual differentiation can increase the readability of the content, element distinction is the simplest way to enhance the clarity of the interface. However, when the element vision is too much divided, the information block on the interface increases, and the interface becomes complex. Therefore, the visual distinction is more subtle, such as the use of color-free or cold color lines, to ensure that users do not distract attention.

5. Text interface

When content appears in a large number of blocks of text, it is necessary to fuse different text colors, backgrounds, fonts, and links to ensure the readability of the interface. The different sizes and colors of the elements make the interface visually clear and layered, besides enhancing usability, it can also emphasize the importance of content and improve the readability of the interface. For example, the Digg interface, the text color is different, but it looks very consistent, there are blue title links, gray "more" links and so on 7 different design elements.

6. Simple and practical form

Web Forms may be the most important design element for community media and websites, and tables and input boxes are used for registering landing pages, replying to adding content. An effective registration page can increase user viscosity and ensure the survival of Community media. The first step is to ensure that the form is short, many community media registers as long as the username and password, and other information to be completed after the user created the account.

7. Instant Update

One of the reasons for Weibo's popularity last year was "immediacy", which, unlike messages exchanged by two people, has made it possible for people to communicate online in real time. Fashionable users need to get the latest news of events, users also want the software to upgrade immediately, automatically detect whether there are updated files.

8. Word-of-mouth Marketing and Personalization

The ultimate goal of effective Word-of-mouth marketing is likely to be to provide quality service and a good user experience. The more satisfied users are with a community web site, the more they are willing to raise social capital and expand their social circle. In order to achieve this goal, whether online or offline, community sites must be attractive enough. This is also easy to understand, why the community site to provide a more flexible and more appropriate interface to meet the personalized needs of users. At the same time, community sites take a long time to study user behavior and search records, and to understand users ' interests and expectations.

The community web site not only helps users find friends they already know, but also digs up like-minded people. Personalized recommendation system can enhance the user's sense of social existence, and help users to establish a new relationship. In addition, it is easy for users to invite friends to freely disseminate information (such as sharing information) in the circle of relationships. The reason for this network effect is that the value of the service can be passed between users, the more people use it, the greater the value of the community website for the individual.

9. User-centric

Although the community web site is socialized, it is concerned with the individual interests of the user. Twitter, Facebook, and other community sites focus on the details of the user's profile, recommending new friends, interests, events, and groups to broaden the user's relationship and deepen the user's involvement. Facebook's homepage is an extremely personalized interface that includes user profiles, updates or hides shortcuts to friends ' latest developments, and friends, groups, or conversations that users may be interested in. The community website provides not only a function, but also establishes the correlation with the user, the user viscosity increases as well.

Via http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/06/03/9-crucial-ui-features-of-social-media-and-networking-sites/

Article source: Xiao Sheng Quotations Please indicate the source link.