6 Design Principles
This post covers
- Affordance
- Signifiers
- Mapping
- Feedback
- Constraints
- Conceptual Model
According to the interaction design principles, users should always feel in control of their experience. They must constantly feel a sense of accomplishment through positive feedback/results or the sense that they have created something.
In my early days of learning about product design, The design of everyday things by Don Norman was one of my most influential books. Often overlooked items such as doors, stoves, thermostats, and more are illuminated in this classic book by Don Norman.
In addition to being one of the leading thinkers on human-centered design, Don Norman's principles are essential reading for every product designer.
Affordances
In a nutshell, Affordances are a high sign or cues, that indicates how users would interconnect with any physical or digital thing. For example, a door handle, itself is a cue that you will hold it to open the door. You can say, it's a relationship between a product and the user.
You can easily know about the functionality, through visual clue. For example, chair. By seeing chair you can easily find the functionality.
Affordances exists relative to the action capability of the user.The existence of the affordances is independent of the users capability to perceive it. If the needs and goals of the actor changes, but the affordance will remain the same.
By just looking at the interface, users should be able to access their desired information.
There are various types of Affordances
- Perceptible - Objects themselves have perceptual characteristics that guide our behavior.
- Hidden - Affordances that are not readily apparent.
- False - A false affordance occurs when an action is allegedly possible, but no results arise.
- Explicit - These types of affordances gives a visual cue to the user. For example, button with the text "Enter your email address" etc.
- Pattern - These affordances use some common patterns like, Navigation or Logo, so that user can find them easily.
There is a physical clue of showing a function or usage. The user understands through some audio or text. It can be in Audio Form or Textual Form. It helps the user to figure out what to do.
Signifier
If there is any drawback in Affordances, then it can be fulfilled by Signifier. It always helps us to understand the functions or the visual clue. A Signifier indicates where and how to act in order to enhance the affordances of an object. For example - A disabled button shows grey color, because it's inactive.
Mapping
Feedback
Every action has reaction. Suppose a spinning loader gives you feedback that the page will get load after few minutes. Hovering over navigation items on a desktop or laptop should cause them to change color or display a sub-menu. You get feedback when an item is clickable. Feedback mechanisms such as progress bars and animations inform users that something is being done by the system
Constraints
It prevents the user from making mistakes.We use constraints to determine a course of action by limiting the actions we can take by defining limitations or restrictions. For the user to be guided toward certain interactions, design constraints make sure only certain things are enabled, or even visible.
Conceptual Model
The purpose of conceptual models is to provide abstract, psychological representations of how tasks should be accomplished. Systematizing processes with conceptual models is something people do subconsciously and intuitively.
People carry conceptual models about how things should be done in their heads. The concept model can be developed very early on in the design cycle so that users' concepts of tasks can be used in UI design.
We build conceptual models in our mind. This is known as mental models. A diary or a calendar is probably the mental model we have when thinking about scheduling appointments - not a software package and thus while building any software or application your mental model matches with that. Conceptual model should be carried out at the very first stage
It can be understood with the below points -
- How the tasks would be carried out by users using any web app or mobile app.
- With the help of the object how the users will take the action
- Objects' relationships with one another
It is easier to make products that are intuitive and usable when you use conceptual models.
More Design Principles
Te other design principles include
- Emphasis
- Alignment
- Contrast
- Repetition
- White Space
Let's see these points in more detail
Emphasis
