Efficient UI Deisgn

with Markus Egger

Importance

·iPhone is almost useless as a business product, but has an amazing UI that is carrying the product

·The UI is what people see, it's what they can touch

·The only way the user can access our kick ass features

·This is the first impression of your application

Design consideration

·Familiarity

·Easy and intuitive

·Productive

• For beginner and advanced users

·Have to help

Rules

·Know your users

• We, as developers, tend to look at things differently than other users
• User Types
• Apologists versus Survivors

·User's Goals

• User's have tasks and goals they want to achieve

·Skill Level

• People don't stay beginners on a system for long
• Average users aren’t targeted enough
• Skill level is a bell curve

·Mental Model

• People approach your application with previous knowledge about the application domain

Cognitive Friction

·It's tough to deal with things that change over time

·The result

• Uses will sue the smallest set of features that they can get away with
• We need to make features more discoverable
• Users feel stupid
• Higher maintenance and support costs
• Makes people hate us

Learnability

·How easy is it to discover and then use features

• You can time this

Usability

·How productive and intuitive is the UI for the average user

·Often confused with Learnability

·Usability tests tend to be large scale and over a long time

Clarity

·Don't overwhelm

Choices

·How many choices to provide

·What can / should we assume up front

·Remember the user’s answers

Metaphors

·Applying real world things to computers

·Be cautious of broken metaphors

Notes

·Don't make users look bad

·Make sure you Let users do something they couldn't do without a compute

·People don't read

Books

The Inmates are running the asylum