Three quick tips for designing microinteractions
I was reading up on my weekly dose of UX articles and blogs, and I discovered the design of microinteractions. I’m not going into what microinteractions are, there are many articles and blogs that go into detail. (You can check one out here)
[microinteractions] are single moments of communication that help users flow through your design. — UXPin
An important thing when designing microinteractions is giving the right feedback to users, and here are some quick tips that could be useful.
Feedback to users’ actions should indicate three things.
1. What might happen:
Indicate with UI cues, with text on what might happen when a user takes an action. Check out how Dropbox does this.
In the Album view in Dropbox, the user can see a timeline. Scrolling over it, a date is shown. This clearly indicates that photos from that date would show on the left.
When the user creates a new folder, the interfaces shows what this might look like before the change is finalized.
2. What is happening
The design should clearly indicate an ongoing task to the user to avoid confusions. Remember is the old days when we wouldn’t know if a webpage is still loading or the internet is down? We don’t want that.
3. What happened
The UI should show through motion or text what just happened. When the result of a user’s action is available, show it so the change is obvious. If it is clear and obvious, the user won’t be left guessing if the task is done.
Perfecting these things should lead to a better overall experience and less guesswork.
