Design Principles Flashcards
4 Most important lessons on UX design
1 - By only asking people what they want, you miss golden oppotunities.
2 - you can find these opportunities by going out in the field and learning from people.
3 - You can benefit from these opportunities by bringing prototypes with you
4 - The world is full of tinkerers, never turn down anyone ideas.
The two gulfs
The gulf of execution and the Gulf of evaluation
6 Questions when creating the gulfs
How easily can someone:
- Determine the function of the device?
- Tell What actions are possible?
- Determine mapping from intention to physical movement?
- Perform the action?
- Tell what state the system is in?
- Determine mapping from system state to interpretation?
How can you reduce gulfs?
- Use visible affordances
- Make a device that provides feedback
- Stick to industry standards
- Implement Non-destructive operations (ctrl+z) to allow experimentation from the user
- Make the resources clear
- Make the system reliable. Operations should work. NO. CRASHING.
Mental Models
Mental Models are based on user past experience and familiarity with similar systems. Aways work closely with users when developing mental models - Since you have a closer view of the system, you’ll be blind to things you are used to.
What is a slip
When you do something wrong without the intention of doing it.
What is a mistake
When you do something intentinally that results in undesirable results.
How can you improve slips?
Improve design ergonomics, make the interface bigger and more spread out
How can you improve mistakes?
Improve the affordances on your design.
How are problems solved
Solving a problem simply means representing it so as to make the solution transparent.
Human working memory
Working memory very limiting, being able to keep 7 +-2 things at once going through ones head at a time, and even that is debatable. Design as to make the least ammount of things clog over a person mind.
Distributing cognition
The process of easing cognition by distributing it in several different characteristics.
What makes a good representation?
A good representation shows all the relevant information, and nothing else. It should enable compairson, Exploration, and problem solving.
Information Equivalency
Two representations are equivalent when all the information present in one medium can be represented in the other medium.
Computational equivalency
Two mediuns of communication taking the same ammount of effort to be processed by the brain.
What are the benefits of helping people distribute cognition?
- It encourages experimentation
- Scaffold learning and reduces errors
- Show only the differences that matter
- Convert Slow calculation into Fast perception
- Support chunking
- Increase efficiency
- Facilitate collaboration
Direct manipulation
Continuous feedback is provided to the user, with leverage metaphors from what we have in the physical world.
World in miniature
Make a scale representation of what the user requires.
How do you improve a text card
Add space between lines to separate topics.
Use different sizes, typographic variation, and bold letters to bring attention to specific words.
Three goals for visual design
GUIDE people into conveying structure, relative importance, and relationships between information
PACE people acquisition of information by strategic use of placement and color.
Express a MESSAGE to the viewer, through use of verbal or non-verbal information.
Three basic tools of visual design
Typography
Layout
Colors
Six main typographic Terms
Point size Leading x-height Ascender & Descenders Weight Serif
Point size
Overall font size when compared to other fonts
Leading
Space between lines. Generally 20% of the Point size
x-height
Height of the lower case letters. Typefaces with higher x height are easier to read at smaller point sizes, which makes them ideal for low resolution displays such as mobile.
Conversely, low x-height gives elegance to the letter.
Ascender
size of the things that are above the x-height.
In general a x height and ascenders are inversely proportional
Descenders
Size of the things that are below the x-height.
In general a x height and descenders are inversely proportional
Weight
light - bold.
The thickness of the letters.
Serif
The thingies at the end of letters that give them chiselled\fancy looks.
General advice for typeface selection
Use serif for body text and Sans serif for titles.
Challanges on typeface selection
Individual differences dwarf manipulation effects
Reading requires familiarity.