Characteristics of Interaction Design done right
Personal notes from reading Designing for Interaction Creating Smart Applications and Cleaver Devices by Dan Saffer
Good design addresses the following adjectives to a certain degree. In some cases certain adjectives are not as relevant as others.
Trustworthy
We tend to make judgments about how trustworthy a product of service is within seconds of being exposed to it. If we trust in something we are much more likely to engage with the product and maybe even take some risks.
Appropriate
Solutions must fit in with the culture, situation and the context for which they are meant to solve.
Products and services can be designed for different cultures by addressing the characteristics of that culture:
- Power distance - how well will members of a culture tolerate inequities in power among themselves.
- Individualism vs. collectivism - Do members of a culture tend to congregate, associate and identify themselves with groups or do they see themselves more as individuals.
- Masculinity vs. femininity - What kind of influence does gender play in that culture?
- Uncertainty avoidance - is ambiguity accepted/tolerated in the culture? A culture that places a high value on this would prefer limited choice to a product that had several different models to choose from.
To be considered appropriate for the situation the design should abide by cultural, emotional and technical constraints.
Smart
Products and services need to do things that we are not good at like:
- memorizing data
- detecting complicated patterns
- repeat functions over and over without variation or mistakes
- compute complex equations
Basically the design needs to off load the tasks that we as humans don’t like and give us more time for the things we do enjoy.
Responsive
We need feedback. We want to know that the product or service is listening to us and taking action.
Levels of responsiveness:
- Immediate - (< .01 sec) push a key - system reacts instantly.
- Stammer - (.01 - 1 sec) slight delay - if frequent could become frustrating otherwise it will most likely be overlooked.
- Interruption - (> 1 sec) attention could move from task to the product. Several interruptions could lead to a disruption.
- Disruption - (> 10 sec) could lead to the user dropping out of the process.
Cleaver
Designed to predict what it is we want to do and then execute our desires in ways that lead to delight in using the product or service.
Ludic - “playful”
Good design would set an environment that allows one to explore without fear of failure or at least knowing you could recover.
Pleasurable
aesthetics as well as functional - We tend to perceive that products that look good work better, but only if it also pleasing functionally to a certain degree.