#Notes #Designing Interfaces
Recognizable type or style of interfaces, each with its own vocabulary of objects, actions, and visuals.
Several of these idioms mixed up in one interface. The freeform-ness is allowed as long as users can figure out what you’re doing. And that’s the hard part.
The applications that are easy to use are designed to be familiar.
When the parts are recognizable enough and the relationships among the parts are clear, then people can apply their previous knowledge to a novel interface and figure it out.
That’s where patterns come in.
Patterns capture a common structure — often a very local one such as a list layout, without too concrete on the details, which gives you the flexibility to be creative.
User can “Feels familiar” if you choose carefully from your toolbox of idioms and frameworks(large-scale), individual elements(small scale), and pattern(covering the range).
Patterns are:
Concrete, not genral
Patterns are concrete enough to help fill the space between high-level principles and the low-level “grammar” of user interface design(widget, text, graphic elements and so on)
Valid across different platforms and systems
The best pattern can be used in different platform or idiom. Pattern captures some minor truth about how people work best with a created artifact, and it remain true even the technology change.
Products, not processes
Heuristics are about how to find a solution. Patterns are solution.
Suggestions, not requirements
You should follow good design principles and organizations need designers to follow style guides so that their products stay self-consistent.
Relationships among elements, not single elements
Customized to each design context
A pattern language resembles visual languages in that the entire vocabulary of element used in a design (though pattern languages are more abstract and behavioral, visual language talks about shapes, icons, colors, fonts, etc.)
A sound process a designer should have:
1.Field research, to find out what the intended user are like and what they already do.
2.Gold and task analysis, to describe and clarify what users will do with what you’re building.
3.Design models, such as personas(model of users), scenarios(models of common tasks and situations), and prototypes(models of the interface itself)
4.Empirical testing of the design at various points during development, like usability testing and in situ observations of the design used by real users.
5.Enough time to iterate over several versions of the design, because you won’t get it right the first time.
What can you do if you’re a primary designer:
Learning
A set of patterns can serve as a learning tool. Expending your interface design “vocabulary” helps you create more expressive designs.
Examples
It’s helpful to see the examples above the patterns.
Terminology
Using terminology to communicate with team members.
Comparison of design alternatives
Presenting alternative designs to team members or clients frequently leads to a better choice in the end.
