On the visual language innovation of mobile devices

When you first saw the Windows Phone 7 interface Vision, what was your first feeling? The simplicity that never made your eyes shine? Or is it just a stack of flat color blocks that you can't help but disappoint? Of course, there is praise, there must be criticism, but, these are not the focus, in the face of the Metro named the new visual language, I would like to say that the birth of this new language to bring us enlightenment.

In the WP7, we don't see the vista transparent glass texture, also did not see surface gorgeous cool, completely subversive "transparent, the texture adds the reflective" The mobile device Interface design trend, presents in front of the user, is in the past has never seen the simple, simple to tightly is several color blocks! Is this the face of the iphone and Android deliberately to unconventional, unique? Of course not, this is not to deliberately avoid the iphone's gorgeous texture, nor to advertise the opposite of innovation, because there is only one: objective needs.

First, the transfer of the core value of the experience to the content does not mean that the form becomes no longer important, but rather a new design language, a new form to adapt to the change. In the previous design of mobile device experience, the universal logic rule is to provide a portal to a function or content by a text, graphic, or icon that maps a function or content, and now the portal becomes the content itself; second, advances in technology and hardware drive the evolution of interactive experience patterns , the vector interaction pattern becomes possible, it is obvious that the original user interface Visual language system based on the bit schema is no longer adapted to this pattern; Finally, with the expansion of MS products and platform lines, there are many styles of interface language, such as early WinForm style and later Aero, obviously lacks a unified visual brand image , it is urgent to need a new visual language system to unify the visual experience, in this environment, the birth of a new interface design language--metro.

The purpose of innovation is not to be different

The difference between visual communication and artistic creation is that the former has a dominant function. The interface design of mobile devices has the same characteristics as visual communication in one aspect, and is more demanding than visual communication to function, which is what we say to solve the problem. The design that fails to solve the problem is a fragmented design with the product, and the design of the manufacturing problem is meaningless labor. As for style, whether it is gorgeous texture plus reflective or transparent gradient plus Cheguang, this is not the core of visual language, the user interface is attached to the product itself, and the existence of the visual language is and in addition to the product itself more closely related to the factors, For example, based on the need to build or unify the visual brand image, or to solve the problem of a certain aspect.

However, in the actual course of operation, many people tend to enter a misunderstanding, that is the face of a new product needs, racked their brains to pursue how to make their own design is very different, and this unique, usually simple and direct reflected in the style of visual language, blind pursuit of gorgeous effect, texture, Reflective and complex color gradients completely ignore the features of the product itself, the characteristics of the user, and the interactive scene and the platform features on which it is based. For example, many users are flocking to the iphone because of Apple's top-down pursuit of perfection, and the App Store model has decided to allow large third-party developers to develop huge applications for themselves, but this inevitably undermines the uniformity of this perfect experience, So Apple has built a visual style standard for the iphone desktop icon in the SDK to solve this problem, under which developers simply provide a picture that allows them to keep their logos and system experience perfectly consistent. However, a similar application is often found in the App Store. Maybe the developer or the designer really wants to make their apps different, but it's a very risky differentiator or maverick, because in a platform device that has reached a high level of experience quality and experience uniformity, As the application level of products, a very important principle is to be consistent with this experience, on this basis to highlight their own characteristics, and completely unprincipled outstanding features, the effect will only backfire.

The value of the user interface is dependent on the functionality of the product itself

Innovation is the life of all design, but not the whole of experience design, subject to the constraints of the principles and conditions, visual language innovation is the same.

Frankly, I really do not want to take the iphone as an example, because all people talking about mobile device experience, will not help to take her to do the case, but there is no way, I and everyone just can't help:).

Remember when the iphone was launched in January 2007? Yes, when you see the function of the screen unlocking, are you stunned? The finger lightly strokes, originally can so play? In fact, the joy is not the screen experience of novelty, but this novelty is not at the expense of excessive additional operational burden. Later, a wide variety of unlocking appeared: the unlocking of the curve, the unlocking of the smiling face, and the unlocking of a circle full of screen running. But in fact, all of the solutions are not changes in the Unlock method-that is, to complete the trajectory from a to B to trigger the unlock action, change is only the visual embodiment of the UI, the final result, is to use the visual language to complete the operational logic, the problem is, although all solutions to solve the problem of locking, But it creates problems at the same time.

Mobile devices are not equivalent to handheld entertainment devices, mobile phone is not the PSP, not the Xbox, no matter it has more entertainment function, at present, its most basic role, is the tool, or handheld mobile communication device terminal, then for the day-to-day tools, that fear of novelty experience, Will eventually return to its basic experience or basic application, if the above is not easy to understand, we can imagine: Girls supermarket out of the left hand carrying a heavy shopping bag, the right hand out of the phone ready to ask for help, but found on the screen is a running guy in the test of their eye-hand coordination Ability

The mapping relationship in visual quasi-materialization

On the mobile device platform represented by the iphone and the ipad, the concept of materialized design is becoming a trend or a trend, and for the materialized design, my personal summary is: The essence of the proposed materialization design is to find a kind of mapping in the real world of the product experience in the virtual environment. Then this mapping through the design of language induction in the experience of visual or interactive form to reflect, so that the product experience itself more realistic and emotional, and more in line with the user's cognitive psychology, so the physical and chemical design of a more important condition is the establishment of this mapping relationship, Especially for visual language and visual style, this mapping relationship will appear especially important, otherwise, just like the simple innovation for innovation, the result is the ultimate experience and can not be very good in line with the user's cognitive psychology, but will increase the user's cognitive burden, not to mention the promotion of product experience value.

Therefore, as a part of the user experience design-visual language, in addition to the visual brand image from the perspective of the need for innovation, more commitment to solve the problem and the responsibility for innovation, and innovation is based on the requirements of the functional needs of the premise of the first, 3lian. COM break through the original rules and regulations, carry out the redesign, not just to express the simple differences between each other through the expression form, only around the difference of the innovation, is a narrow innovation, but also fragmented design, is the so-called courage to mark new, never make a difference.