Elements of Design
Well, now i know what it means to be busy at work. It has been a tormenting two week period to say the least. And, thankfully, (touch wood!!) I have been enjoying it. It has been a period of great exposure and learning to put it in a sentence. I have been picking up on Silverlight well, so far and look to doing so in the future. But, as usual, the real challenge has not been the technology, but the ideas, the innovations and the concepts that i have had to develop. Working as a part of an Interface Design team in a software firm is challenging. While a lot of credit goes to the platform team or dev team working on the engine, I have come to realize that it is the User Interface that people get to see and use at the end of the day. It is the logical conclusion to any platform or logic engine in the world, Period!
As a part of the UI team we have to take care of a few things or aspects of design and development of a product:
- Usability
- Looks
- Speed/Performance
They are equally important and none can be ignored for another. Having said that, Usability of an interface can influence, or at least direct, its Looks and Performance. Now, I have identified two very basic parameters in evaluating Usability: Clicks and Data. Clicks basically refers to the amount of Mouse/Keyboard clicks a user has to make in order to get a task done using an interface. Data refers to the amount of content the user has access to at any given point of time. Now, it is quite evident that for great usability the Clicks and Data have to be at a minimum while representing the maximum amount of Information relevant to the user. The challenge lies in precisely this act of striking the perfect balance between the Information and the Clicks.
Keep in mind that the volume of on screen Data is never proportional to the volume of Information. It is a misconception that, a lot of data in a given space, implies supplying the user with a world of information. Noble as the thought may be, it is wrong to make such baseless assumptions. Too much data might actually hinder the user from retrieving the Information which he is looking for. There is another word: Retrieve. Why should the use have to retrieve/drive Information from the given Data. To put it simply, any UI should give the user the required Information and nothing else. No other associated data around it, thank you very much. Give the user with the basics first. Let him not have an opportunity to think. That is the final purpose of any software/machine, right?
However, this does not imply that you do not give him the rest of the Data as well. Everyone likes to validate results and why should our target users be any different? What I am getting at is, that the elements of Data being provided to the users should be prioritized. The most informative should come upfront in BIG BOLD LETTERS! The supporting/associated data should (and i stress on the word should) be presented to him via more subtle one-click approaches.
Having such priorities on data requires you to have a great understanding of the target user. A task which is no less than an ordeal. Sorting this issue alone will not only help you in better representing data on-screen but also give you a good way ahead in terms of the number of Clicks the user has to make to access the data he wants.
Think about it. If the most important, viewed and useful information is presented to him upfront, then he will never have to click at all. If he has to look at the associated data, it will be a click away. Great isn't?!? But, trust me, this is a Utopian scenario, one which is almost too difficult to get at, not impossible though.
Well, I have talked about the Usability of an interface till a substantial point, from where on you can make a judgement depending on your application and its user. Keep in mind, whatever works for you, is the best solution. There is no right answer in domain, and i guess that is what makes it so very challenging. I shall revisit this topic along with the Looks and Performance issues of a good UI in my subsequent posts. Until then, take care.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.