The interaction efficiency on mobile terminals

Interaction efficiency is an important component of product availability and a key point of usability assessment. Compared with the traditional Internet products, the current mobile products in the soft and hard interface of the synergy and network environment There are many gaps, the user's interaction efficiency at a relatively low level. Some thoughts on the interactive efficiency of mobile products make it meaningful for us to design the mobile products with higher interaction efficiency and better user experience under the limited conditions.

About interactive efficiency

ISO 9241 has this description for efficiency (efficiency):

In HCI or usability terms, efficiency are measured as the resources expended by the user in relation to the accuracy and co Mpleteness of goals achieved. High efficiency are achieved when the user reaches his/her goals while expending as few resources as possible to The mentioned ISO standard.

In short: efficiency is a measure of the relationship between the user's task correctness and the degree of completion and the amount of resources consumed. To specific mobile product interaction areas, we can understand that: high efficiency means that users through less operation, less time to complete the interactive task, to achieve the goal.

How to understand the efficiency of mobile product interaction?

We can understand the interaction efficiency from the task model. The general mobile end of the use of behavior can be simplified to the following figure: the user through the interactive operation to complete a series of tasks, consumption of time, to achieve user goals.

In general, each specific task can be split into subtasks (sub tasks), while the completion of subtasks relies on a series of specific action actions (action). What needs to be explained is that there is no absolute partitioning criterion for tasks and subtasks. (for example, a search can exist as a stand-alone, one-level task, and searching on a shopping site can also be a subtask of a shopping process.) )

Mobile products operating behavior is generally relatively simple: key mobile phone generally have clicks, long press, touch screen mobile phone generally have sliding, click, long press and so on.

In the field of human-computer interaction, Stuart card, Moran and other people put forward the GOMS model and KLM and other models can be from the user's operating level of user actions such as clicks, Mobile and other quantitative research, but because these models based on the ideal user model (users understand the task without interference) and ideal operating mode (No operational errors), their role in concrete practice is still controversial. This article does not intend to do the concrete comparison in the concrete operation level, but attempts from the task model several elements: the task, the operation behavior as well as the user's angle to do some mobile product interactive efficiency ponder.

How to improve the efficiency of interaction? 1. Reduce the number of subtasks.

A reduction in the number of subtasks reduces the total time that a user completes a task, thereby increasing user interaction efficiency.

For example:

– When users use mobile phones to search for weather or Shuangse Qiu, the user's goal is to quickly get the latest information about the weather and Shuangse Qiu, and if you show the relevant information directly on the results page, the user can achieve the goal by completing the first two tasks, thereby enhancing the efficiency of the interaction.

-Search KFC, the search results page shows the call function, the user clicks directly after the call, eliminating the recording of mobile phone number and dialing tasks.

2. Reduce the difficulty of a single operation behavior.

The goal of reducing the difficulty of operational behavior is to shorten the completion time of individual subtasks, thereby enhancing the interaction efficiency of the entire use process.

For example: The current mobile phone search relies mainly on typing the way to enter search keywords. If we provide the voice input mode, the voice input, the user will be able to talk to enter search keywords. By reducing the difficulty of the operation, the time of individual subtasks is reduced and the interaction efficiency is improved.

3. Provide the parallel completion path of the task, all roads lead to Rome.

There are some key subtasks in the interaction process, if the user encounters difficulty in this task, it will affect the next operation, which will lead to the decrease of the efficiency of the interaction and even the interruption of the interaction.

For this critical task, we can try to provide a parallel task completion path.

For example, the resources of mobile phone download site (such as games), the general need for model adaptation, so that the list of resources suitable for the current model. Usually the Web site will provide: Search models fit, according to the brand fit, according to the platform and other ways to fit. Users can quickly complete the task of setting the model according to their own situation.

4. Reduce the number of specific operational actions.

In addition to reducing the number of tasks, we can also reduce the number of specific action actions (action), these specific actions usually include clicks, long press and so on.

For example:

-Palm Baidu provides a quick turn-screen function. By clicking on the left and Right arrow keys, users can quickly turn the screen, relative to each link of successive clicks, interactive efficiency has been significantly improved.

-some sites provide a quick jump function between the inside of the page and the plate, and click to achieve a quick jump to the area. This design also reduces the number of clicks and improves efficiency.

5. Consider the situation of users and equipment.

In practice, the user's action behavior is not as ideal as the GOMS model. Increased interaction efficiency also requires consideration of user and device conditions.

1 Novice users and proficient users.

-Provide operational guidance to novice users, help beginners avoid errors, and quickly complete tasks.

-To provide quick operation for the proficient users, and improve the efficiency of the unit task interaction. such as Mercury browser to provide users with pop-up toolbox, proficient users can efficiently do some of the basic operation of the page.

– The splash screen or status bar provides quick action prompts that enable users to transition from novice to proficient. such as QQ login page and status bar will occasionally show the user quick action tips.

2) Cognitive time.

– Focus information and user-action information prominently, or at the top of the page, reducing user awareness and time to explore.

-Popular, concise, accurate page information, user-friendly quick understanding.

3 user's network and equipment performance difference.

-Mobile devices often need to upload or download data; high-speed network environment can significantly reduce the user's waiting time and enhance the interactive efficiency.

– The performance differences of the devices are also factors to be considered for efficiency research; better processors in the same environment, larger memory, and more sensitive screens can often help users improve operational efficiency and reduce latency.

What is the value of understanding the efficiency of mobile product interaction?

1. Understand the common factors that affect the efficiency of mobile product interaction and give special attention to design.

2. Provide parallel completion path to key tasks, avoid the design process of the log bridge.

3. Usability assessment can be targeted to do a number of checks.

Summarize:

There are many factors involved in the interactive efficiency of mobile products, this paper tries to do some simple thinking from the angle of task, operation Behavior and user, in which some characteristics of the user (such as cognitive style, pleasure degree) are still to be further studied. Welcome everyone to discuss ~