Interaction Design (IxD)
Interaction design has its origins in web and graphic design but has grown into a realm of its own. It is a process in which designers focus on creating engaging web interfaces with logical and thought out behaviors and actions. Its is the responsibility of an interaction designer to create the desired user experience using principles of good communication (swipe, click, tap, type, pinch etc.)
What is Micro-Interaction?
Micro-interactions are one of the best techniques for giving delightful feedback and they actually hold the entire experience together. These simple interactions and effects are primarily designed to create an interesting and hopefully unique experience for the user to flow through your design.
What is a Gesture?
Gestures are the new clicks. Gestures enable speed in user activity and are a comfortable way for users to interact with devices of varying shapes and sizes. Every app, game or tool you open on your phone must include these basic gestures. These gestures are the secrets behind making great mobile apps. With these gestures, one has to consider the type of physical activity, its location on the screen, and whether users can intuitively find and touch it.
Hygiene of an Interaction Design
- Communicate what is happening and why it's happening in a tool/application to the user.
- Ensure that the user is well aware of the workflow, how to use it and what happens next.
- Unfolding of micro-interactions to solve additional actions.
- Using states to ensures that users know what is happening and why?
- Keep the user informed about errors that are bound to happen and feedback on actions they performed.
Role of an Interaction Designer
- What can a user do with their mouse, finger or stylus to directly interact with the interface?
- What commands can a user give to interact with the interface?
- What about the appearance gives the user a clue about how it functions?
- What information do you provide to let a user know what will happen before they perform an action?
- Are there constraints to help prevent errors?
- Do error messages provide a way for the user to correct the problem?
- What feedback does a user get when an action is performed?
- What is the response time between an action and a response?
- Are the interface elements a reasonable size to interact with?
- Are edges and corners strategically being used to locate interactive elements?
- Are you following standards?
- Is information chunked into a few items at a time?
- Is the user end as simple as possible?
- Are familiar formats used?
