User Research & Strategy
What is Interaction Design?
Interaction Design is extremely important because it’s that thing that gives importance to the design.
It impresses people, and it also brings in important decisions into the mix. What Interaction Design does is it allows you to apply the UX principles as well as user research in order to complete the goals with great results. It’s extremely important to use and adapt this wisely and at the highest possible level. On top of that, the design needs to offer value to the user and for the company itself.
How to make it stand out?
A pivotal role in Interaction Design is taken by human connection. Little things like the layout, colors, timing, copy, visuals, animations and many others will affect how people feel. Your design is driven by goals, but at the same time you also want to understand what users need and what preferences they have. It’s important to have customer journey maps and scenarios or user personas to better understand everything.
Goal-driven Design
The main focus with this type of design is to offer users what they want. That means you need to understand them at the deepest level. Usually you can’t do this unless you focus on data generating research through the personas and customer journey maps listed above. Once you know that, you can establish goals to better help your customers at the highest level.
Usability
It’s crucial for the Interaction Design to focus on usability. Every interface should be very easy to use in order to work properly and stand out. If you have a low degree of friction, then the interface is very usable.
Sketching
For some clients, sketching is a better design option when compared to wireframes. I consider sketching to be a good approach and I prefer it many times, no matter what deliverable is requested.
Wireframing
Extensive wireframing experience with large and small projects under my belt. My wireframing deliverables are always annotated, writing to the audience that will receive them. the wireframes are conceptual and the annotations describe the approach, giving justification on why that approach solves the problems the design is supposed to address. the wireframes and the annotations are detailed, giving important details on website state, transitions, and behaviour.
Prototyping
Prototyping tools are very handy, and I also code my own prototype in case the project doesn’t allow me to do that properly. Prototypes are great because they help validate the design and you get to see what users would experience. It helps a lot because you can identify problems and then adjust them on the spot for the best possible experience and value.
Affordances and Signifiers
Affordances related to the evident functions of a feature. Signifiers on the other hand can be seen as cues. They suggest the affordance of a feature.
Learnability
As the name suggests, this is about the amount of time that it takes a user to understand the interface and use it in a proper manner. It’s very important because it shows how easy it is for people to understand that product. If it’s hard to do, then they might ditch it and go with something else. So yes, it’s incredibly important to think about this.
Feedback
Feedback matters in the world of interaction design. Without it, you won’t have interaction. You want to acquire feedback and improve in order to boost the UX and the results themselves. Simple microinteractions like animations or sound effects can make a huge difference, and the results themselves will shine because of that.
The interaction design plays a huge role in the experience and it can bring in some creative ideas. It’s not always going to be easy to implement interaction design, but it’s extremely important and it can make a huge difference with every project.