Research : Interaction Design Foundation

Why would someone bring a useless product to the market?

Usefulness is in the eyes of the buyer however, and so can not always be summed up by one person in particular, or a group, and especially not the designer. Being impractical doesn’t mean being useless.

Whilst this doesn’t always apply to a digital product, it could refer to a range of things within it. The product must be visible on a home page, or the text needs good find-ability. Time is therefore vital to us as human beings.

Usability is concerned with enabling users to achieve their objective with a height of efficiency. Poor usability is often associated with he first generation of an item, which is why we prototype and redesign, and constantly develop.

In todays times, this is of great importance to a user. This refers to how the user sees the product. If it is not credible, the user will not see need to have it.

To do this the webpage must have accurate information and to have it for a strong amount of time.

This is portrayed via the branding, imagery, identity, aesthetics, and emotional designs of a product. This could create what is known as ‘brag,’ which Is what any good designer wants for their product.

Accessibility is the need for users to be able to navigate the design system. It is needed for a positive experience.

Disability makes up nearly 20% of the population, which means that it has to be accounted for. It also gives the design a more thought out and positive approach.

The product must create desire for the user. Without value, the products initial success could corrode.

Effectiveness is about whether users can complete their goals with a high degree of accuracy. Much of the effectiveness of a product comes from the support provided to users when they work with the product; for example, fixing a credit card field so that it only accepts a valid credit card number entry can reduce data entry errors and help users perform their task correctly. There are many different ways to provide support—the key is to be as informative as possible in a meaningfulway to the user.

Effectiveness and efficiency have come to be blurred in the mind. They are, however, quite different from a usability perspective. Efficiency is all about speed. How fast can the user get the job done?

You’ll want to examine the number of steps (or indeed clicks/keystrokes) needed to achieve the objective; can they be reduced? This will help develop efficient processes. Clearly labeled navigation buttons with obvious uses will also help, as will the development of meaningful shortcuts (for instance, think about the number of hours you’ve saved using Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V to copy and paste text).

Engagement is a bit of a buzzword, but if you cut through the fluff, you’ll find that engagement occurs when the user finds the product pleasant and gratifying to use. Aesthetics matter here, and it’s why many companies invest a small fortune in graphic design elements—but they’re not the only factors in engagement.

Engagement is not only about looking nice but also about looking right. Proper layouts, readable typography and ease of navigation all come together to deliver the right interaction for the user and make it engaging. Looking nice isn’t everything, as Wikipedia (famous for its ultra-basic design) proves.

It seems unlikely that, given the need to gain any degree of sophistication or complexity, you can completely eliminate errors in products; in particular, digital products may be error prone because of the ecosystem in which they dwell—an ecosystem which is beyond the designer’s control.

However, the next best thing is to minimize errors from occurring and to ensure that your users can easily recover from an error and get back to what they are doing. This is what we call ‘error tolerance’.

• Restricting opportunities to do the wrong thing. Make links/buttons clear and distinct; keeplanguage clear and simple; don’t use jargon unless absolutely necessary, and keep dependencies in forms or actions together. Also, limit options to correct choices if you can, and give examples and support when asking people to provide data.
• Offering the opportunity to ‘redo’. Give users a way to reset what they’ve just done and go back and start again. Similarly, provide a clearly visible ‘undo’ function. Consider the amount of data a user stands to lose by inadvertently deleting items. That ‘railing’ or ‘safety ledge’ will keep users from panicking.
• Assuming everyone is going to do things you don’t expect them to do. Then, either facilitate that or offer advice/support to get back on the right path. This sort of recovery measure also makes your site appear more human and trustworthy in that it shows you appreciate the human tendency to make mistakes and empathize with your users.

If you want a product to be used regularly, then you want users to be able to learn their way around that product easily—to the extent that it comes as second nature when they use it again.

You also need to accommodate ease of learning when releasing new functionality and features; otherwise, a familiar and happy user may quickly become frustrated with your latest release. This is something that tends to happen a lot on social networks; whenever a new set of features is released, they tend to be greeted with howls of outrage from comfortable users. And this is true even when the new features are easy to learn. A classic case occurred in early 2012, when Facebook’s Timeline format became the new standard for user profiles. Although hordes of users bemoaned the change—which to many of them seemed needless—Facebook wisely phased in the introduction so that users had plenty of time to switch over.