Basics of Interaction Design and StrategySchool of Visual Arts | July 11, 2015 Robert Stribley

Today’s presentation will be available on SlideShare following the workshop:

www.slideshare.net/stribs

Robert Stribley@stribs

Introduction

My clients have included:• Bank of America, PNC, Wachovia• Citibank, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Oppenheimer

Funds, Prudential, Smith Barney, T. Rowe Price • Boston Scientific, Nasonex• Choice Hotels, RCI, Sotheby’s International Realty• Computer Associates, EMC• Ford, Lincoln, Mercedes, Smart• FreshDirect• AT&T, Nextel• Day One, Red Cross, Smithsonian National Air &

Space Museum• Pearson, Travel Channel, Women’s Wear Daily

About You

• What’s your name?• What do you do for work?• What do you do for fun?• If you could see one museum exhibit, what

would it be?

Introduction

Goals of this workshop• Learn about particular user experience principles in detail

• Learn about principles for responsive design in detail

• Learn about the value of creating user journeys and create a detailed user journey as a team

• Brainstorm and design a responsive home page as a team

• Brainstorm and design a mobile app experience as a team

Introduction

Agenda

Morning• UX Principles• Grids• Project• User Journeys • Lunch

Agenda

Afternoon• Site Map• Responsive Design• Team Exercise: Responsive Home

Page• Team Exercise: Mobile App• Review & Feedback• Good Design• Q&A

Agenda

UX Principles

Scent of informationProgressive disclosureInformation clustering &

hierarchyRemove paths not takenTyranny of consistencyThere is no foldDeath of the homepageKnow your audience

UX Principles

Everything Is Important

NOT

Scent of Information

1

3 Clicks? A myth

Designing for scent is more successful than designing for navigation. – Jared Spool, UIE

If there is a scientific basis to the Three-Click Rule, we couldn't find it in our data.- User Interface Engineering, April 2003

3 Clicks? A myth

Self Study“Designing for the scent of information” - Jared M. Spool, Christine Perfetti & David Brittan, User Interface Engineering

Progressive Disclosure

2

Tease users.Then draw them to the

details.

“Progressive disclosure defers advanced or

rarely used features to a secondary screen, making applications

easier to learn and less error-prone.”

-Jakob NielsenSelf Study“Progressive Disclosure” - Jakob Nielsen, December 4, 2006

Self Study“Progressive Disclosure” – Jennifer Tildwell

Progressive disclosure with menus and form design

Information Clustering & Hierarchy

Lustmord Table by Jenny Holzer, 1994

3

“Designers can create normalcy out of chaos; they can clearly communicate ideas through the organizing and manipulating of words and pictures.”—Jeffery Veen, The Art and Science of Web Design

When information is clustered appropriately on a screen, users can scan and quickly come to terms with the intent of the content.

1. Group features and content by type

1. Group features and content by type

2. Position them according to an intuitive hierarchy

1. Group features and content by type

2. Position them according to an intuitive hierarchy

3. Drop or demote the less important content

ExampleScreenshot

Remove Paths Not Taken

4

Reduce the field of view

Once users commit to a path, remove irrelevant navigation

ExampleScreenshot

The Tyranny of Consistency

5

Consistency is an important but sometimes over-rated tool

It’s key in maintaining a coherent experience

But develop an eye to know when to break from it

Design pages so they're scalable

Suppress modules or sections of the page until they're needed

Don’t labor to create content just to ensure every page is "consistently" populated

Death of the Home Page

6

People may come to your homepageBut more and more likely notThey’re more likely coming from Google or social media

Many sites report only 20% of visitors landing on their homepagesSome as few as 10 or 5%

• 88% of traffic coming to The Atlantic not hitting home page

• More than 50% of visitors to the NYT not arriving at the home page

Have you ever bought a book on Amazon.com because you saw it on the homepage?

More Important?

• SEO*• Taxonomy• Meta data• Tagging

*search engine optimization

ExampleScreenshot

There is no fold

7

iamthefold.com

“Web users spend 80% of their time looking at information above the page fold. Although users do scroll, they allocate only 20% of their attention below the fold.”- Jakob Nielsen, “Scrolling and Attention,” March 22, 2010

“People will look very far down a page if (a) the layout encourages scanning, and (b) the initially viewable information makes them believe that it will be worth their time to scroll.

Finally, while placing the most important stuff on top, don't forget to put a nice morsel at the very bottom.”

- Jakob Nielsen, “Scrolling and Attention,” March 22, 2010

Know Your Audience

8

Consider the amount of attention an audience needs on a particular screen*

*It may be zero

Recapping:

•Scent of Information•Progressive Disclosure• Information Clustering & Hierarchy•Remove Paths Not Taken•The Tyranny of Consistency•Death of the Home Page•There Is No Fold•Know Your Audience

Grids

“To me, using grids is very much like alphabetizing things… sooner or later, you realize that the alphabet is an incredibly useful organizing principle.”– Khoi Vinh, former design Director,

NYTimes.com

Grids

“The true benefit of using a grid is that as you learn how to use a grid, you start to think systemically about the solutions you design. You start to try and see how various details can echo one another, how different regions of the canvas can be reused or used for similar things, how like elements can be grouped together.”– Khoi Vinh

Grids

More about designing with grids:

960 Grid System960.gs

Design by Grid www.designbygrid.com

Hashgridwww.hashgrid.com

Grids

Our Project

Develop a museum experience for MOMA which utilizes both a responsive desktop design and a mobile app experience, so users can engage with it both at home on their desktop computer in preparation for their trip and during their visit via mobile app.

Our Project

Guidelines• Since the the responsive website will

display on a mobile phone, the app must not simply repeat the website content

• Thought should be given specifically to how the app can help visitors during their onsite visit, but provide some value to users before and after their trip, too

• Visitors will have comprehensive access to Wi-Fi throughout the entire museum space

Our Project

Personas

Our Project

Competitive Review

Key Findings• Ability to highlight multiple exhibits• Access to collections• Display of upcoming events• Focus on membership• Visitor information• Learning and education information • Ability to view different locations

• Anything else?• Any key differentiators?

Competitive Review

User Journeys

User Journeys

“Design is all about entrances and exits.”

- Rem Koolhaas

User Journeys

Definition:“A user journey, or journey map, visualizes a path or flow through a Web site, application, or service experience—from a starting point to an end objective—based on the user’s motivations and experiences. Journey mapping helps us to create a mental model of an experience that the user goes through to achieve a goal. This valuable information lets us document and visualize existing paths that the user takes and, in turn, analyze and improve upon them.”- Shean Malik, Mapping User Journeys Using Visual Languages

User Journeys

Methodology:• Keep developed personas in mind• Determine users’ primary needs• Consider their pain points as well• Brainstorm different ways to help their needs and

address their pain points• Develop a journey according to a time-based

progression • Consider how various moments in their journey can

be handled digitally• Create relevant hooks and calls to action (CTAs)• Strike a balance between freedom of movement

and an ideal pathSelf Study“An introduction to user journeys” - Jason Hobbs, September 6, 2005, Boxes & Arrows

User Journeys

User Journeys

Class Exercise:Develop a user journey.

• Divide into teams• Discuss what you expect a

typical user to do – At home– At the museum– With a specific exhibit– Back home

• Develop a high-level diagram, which depicts a single journey

• Incorporate features applicable to Andy’s persona

User Journeys 20m

ins

Features Identified

Let’s review your user journeys and discuss some of the features your team identified.

User Journeys

Lunch Break

Afternoon• Site Map• Responsive Design• Team Exercise: Responsive Home Page • Team Exercise: MoMA app Design• Team Presentations• Good Design• Q&A

Agenda

Create a Site Map

Simple site map illustration

Site Map

Class Exercise:Develop 2 high-level site maps based on features you discovered in your user journey, plus any additional content needed to flesh out the experience.

• One for the MoMA web site• One for the MoMA mobile app

Site Map 20m

ins

Review Site MapsLet’s review your site maps

Site Map

Responsive Design

Responsive Web Design

“Rather than tailoring disconnected designs to each of an ever-increasing number of web devices, we can treat them as facets of the same experience. We can design for an optimal viewing experience, but embed standards-based technologies into our designs to make them not only more flexible, but more adaptive to the media that renders them. In short, we need to practice responsive web design.” – Ethan Marcotte, Responsive Web Design, A List Apart

Self Study

Ethan Marcotte: Responsive Web Design

Responsive Design

Responsive Design Characteristics

• Mobile first• Break points• Grids• Handling navigation• Handling tables• Maintain content and features • Maintain hierarchies• Images • Text • Dropping content or features

Responsive Design

Mobile First

• Design for “mobile first” – the smallest device first, then work up from there

• Smallest device may no longer be a mobile phone • Mobile first may encourage simple design, but it need

not be simplistic

Responsive Design

Break Points

• Responsive designs adjust at different “break points” corresponding to the dimensions of various devices, typically desktop, tablet and mobile

• However, they’re intended to be content, not device-specific

• Typically at least two: – e.g. 320px for mobile, 768px for tablet (portrait), desktop– e.g. 320px for mobile, 768px for tablet (portrait), 1280px for

desktop

• May also add “minor breakpoints” to address specific issues at various dimensions

Responsive Design

Responsive Design

Grids

• Grids are fluid within a responsive design – they change according to screen dimensions

• For example, a desktop design might utilize a 12-column grid, tablet a 9-column grid, and mobile a 4-column grid

• Depending on the screen, modules may shift both in size and in placement

Responsive Design

Responsive Design

Responsive Design

Responsive Design

Handling Navigation

• Navigation may be repositioned• Often at tablet, especially mobile• In desktop, elements of the navigation can be

activated via hover instead of click, since users are utilizing a cursor; whereas in tablet and mobile, these main nav elements must be activated via touch

• Design navigation to be touch friendly – e.g. large, tactile targets

• Beware of the “hamburger menu”

Responsive Design

Responsive Design

Responsive Design

Responsive Design

Heavy mobile direction

Handling Navigation – Tabs

• Tabs may just reduced in size• They can also be replaced with

– Accordions– Dropdowns– Carousel slides

• Consider the content to determine, which of these solutions works best

Responsive Design

Responsive Design

Handling Tables

• Simplest solution for handling tables with multiples columns is to reduce the number of columns (to one if necessary) and stack them in mobile.

• You can also allow horizontal scrolling• Or turn columns into individual slides users can swipe

through

Responsive Design

Responsive Design

Responsive Design

Desktop

Mobile - Scrolling

Mobile - Stacked

Responsive Design

Not ideal for mobile

Maintain Content & Features

• The goal: Wherever possible, maintain content and features across devices

• Must have a strong rationale for dropping any content or features at the mobile level

Responsive Design

Responsive Design

Maintain Hierarchies

• Modules may be repositioned but hierarchies are maintained

Responsive Design

Responsive Design

Responsive Design

Images

• Generally, images should be “fluid”• They will scale down in size as the screen

resolution changes• Additionally, they may maintain their size, but be

cropped if they’re primarily decorative• In this case, images must be selected carefully so

that important elements of them aren’t automatically cropped out

• In some cases, if the image isn’t needed, it may be dropped entirely for mobile devices

Responsive Design

Responsive Design

Responsive Design

Text

• Text size is maintained where possible, though headings and headlines may be reduced in size

• Text blocks will change in width from desktop to mobile

• However, keep lines of text to a maximum of 70 or 80 characters

• Do not automatically hyphenate text

Responsive Design

Responsive Design

Dropping Content or Features

• Whenever possible, avoid dropping content or features

• Occasionally, content or features can be dropped to save screen real estate or if they’re not device appropriate

• Establish a clear rationale and principles for making such changes

Responsive Design

Responsive Design

Avoid just shrinking content

Responsive Design

Responsive Web Design

by Ethan Marcotte

Team Exercise:

Design a Responsive Home Page

Design a Responsive Home PageIn your teams, design a responsive home page for MoMA’s web site

1) Discuss features needed for a homepage2) Sketch your ideas for a homepage

individually3) Share your sketches with your team mates4) Collaborate on a single home page

wireframe – for both mobile and desktop

Team Exercise

1) Discuss features needed for a homepage

Team Exercise 20m

ins

2) Sketch your ideas for a homepage individually

Remember: Sketch a desktop version and a mobile version

Team Exercise 10m

ins

3) Share your sketches with your team mates

Team Exercise 10m

ins

4) Collaborate on a single home page wireframe – for both mobile and desktop

Team Exercise 20m

ins

Team Exercise:

Design a Mobile App

Design a Mobile AppIn your teams, design a mobile app for MoMA

1) Discuss features needed for the app and determine the 3 key screens you want to develop

2) Collaborate to design 3 keys screens3) Review your work as a team to determine

what changes should be made4) Make any necessary revisions

Team Exercise

1) Discuss features needed for the app and determine the 3 key screens you want to develop

No sketching yet!

Team Exercise 20m

ins

2) Collaborate to design 3 key screens

Team Exercise 20m

ins

3) Review your work as a team to determine what changes should be made

4) Make any necessary revisions

Team Exercise 20m

ins

Gather Your MaterialsIf you’re finished, start collecting your app and responsive homepage wires so you can present them to the class as a team

Team Exercise

Team Exercise:

Review & Feedback

Good Design

Good design is…Good design is innovative.Good design makes a product useful.Good design is aesthetic.Good design makes a product understandable.Good design is unobtrusive.Good design is honest.Good design is long-lasting.Good design is thorough down to the last detail.Good design is environmentally friendly.Good design is as little design as possible.

Dieter Rams: 10 Principles of Good Design

© Dieter Rams, amended March 2003 and October 2009

Good Design

Q&A

Additional ResourcesAdditional Resources

Books:• Information Architecture for the World Wide

Web – Louis Rosenfeld, Peter Morville

• Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web – Christina Wodtke, Austin Govella

• The Elements of User Experience – Jesse James Garrett

• Designing Web Navigation: Optimizing the User Experience – James Kalbach, Aaron Gustafson

• Design of Everyday Things – Donald Norman

• Responsive Web Design – Ethan Marcotte

Local Events:• IA Meetup

• Brooklyn UX

• Content Strategy Meetup

Web Sites:

• Alertbox

• A List Apart

• Boxes & Arrows

• wireframes.tumblr.com

Organizations:• Human Computer Interactions (HCI)

• Interaction Designers Association (IxDA)

• Usability Professionals Association (UPA)

Further Studies:• School of Visual Arts

• Continuing Ed classes

• MFA in Interaction Design

• Pratt – Course in Information Design

• Rosenfeld Media

• General Assembly

• Skillshare

• Adaptive Path

• The Information Architecture Institute

• The IA Summit

• Nielsen Norman Group

• User Interface Engineering

Video:

The Right Way to Wireframe by Russ Unger (YouTube)

Slideshare address:http://www.slideshare.net/stribs

My article on how to find an IA job:http://blog.onwardsearch.com/2012/08/information-architecture-a-guerilla-guide-to-breaking-in/

@stribs