Constituent Parts of User Experience Design
User experience design encompasses traditional human-computer interaction (HCI) design, interaction design, information architecture, user research, and other disciplines. It is concerned with all facets of the overall experience delivered to users. Following is a short analysis of its constituent parts.
Human-computer Interaction
Human-computer interaction is concerned with the design, evaluation and implementation of interactive computing systems for human use and with the study of significant phenomena surrounding them.
HCI is the main contributor to user experience design because of its emphasis on human performance rather than mere usability. It provides fundamental research findings which inform the improvement of systems for the people. HCI extends its study towards more integrated interactions, such as tangible interactions. User experience cannot be manufactured or designed; it has to be incorporated into the design. Understanding the user’s emotional quotient plays a vital role while designing a user experience. The first step while designing the user experience is determining the reason a visitor will be visiting the website or use the application in question. Then the user experience can be designed accordingly. HCI is now treated as a subset of Interaction Design.
Interaction Design
There are many critical factors to understanding interaction design and how it can enable a pleasurable end-user experience. It is well recognised that building great user experience requires interaction design to play a pivotal role in helping define what works best for the users. High demand for
improved user experiences and a strong focus on the end-users have made interaction designers critical in conceptualising a design that matches user expectations and standards of the latest UI patterns and components.
Few things to consider:
✿ Defining interaction patterns best suited in the context
✿ Incorporating user needs collected during user research into the designs
✿ Features and information that are important to the user
✿ Interface behaviours like drag-drop, selections, and mouseover actions
✿ Effectively communicate the strengths of the system
✿ Making the interface intuitive by building affordances
✿ Maintaining consistency throughout the system.
Design contextual interfaces which are based on helping meet the user needs. Therefore, User Experience Design evolved into a multidisciplinary design branch that involves multiple technical aspects from motion graphics design and animation to programming.
Visual Design
Visual design and visual communication represent the aesthetics or look-and-feel of the front end of any user interface. Graphic treatment of interface elements is often perceived as visual design. The purpose of visual design is to use visual elements like colours, images, and symbols to convey a message to its audience. Fundamentals of Gestalt psychology and visual perception give a cognitive perspective on how to create effective visual communication.
Accessibility
Accessibility of a system describes its ease of reach, use and understanding. In terms of user experience design, it can also be related to the overall comprehensibility of the information and features. It contributes to shortening the learning curve attached to the system. Accessibility in many contexts can be associated with the ease of use for people with disabilities and comes under usability.
Usability
Usability is the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve defined goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use.
Usability is attached to all tools used by humans and is extended to both digital and non-digital devices. Thus it is a subset of user experience but not wholly contained. The section of usability that intersects with user experience design is related to humans’ ability to use a system or application. Good usability is essential to positive user experience but does not alone guarantee it.
Information Architecture
Information architecture is the art and science of structuring and organising the information in products and services, supporting usability and findability.
In the context of information architecture, information is separate from both knowledge and data and lies nebulously between them. It is information about objects. The objects can range from websites to software applications, to images etc. It is also concerned with metadata.
Finding and Managing
Findability is the most critical success factor for information architecture. If users are not able to find required information without browsing, searching or asking, then the findability of the information architecture fails. Navigation needs to be clearly conveyed to ease the finding of the contents.
Structuring, organisation, and labelling
Structuring is reducing information to its basic building units and then relating them to each other. Organisation involves grouping these units in a distinctive and meaningful manner. Labelling means using appropriate wording to support easy navigation and findability.
