Tag Archive for 'UI'

网络产品设计的误区

突然发现,做网络产品设计成了一个比较时髦并且赚钱的工作。

因为很多人天天上网,网站不久这样嘛,页面设计和程序开发是后面的事情,设计个网站好像很简单。

真的那么简单吗?

其实,也天天用windows,用office,没有几个人觉得设计windows是个很简单的事情吧,说实话,能把写字板完整实现的大学毕业生估计不到10%。我想,大概软件设计还是一门传统意义上比较高深的事情,最容易的vb,学学变量设计,形参实参还比较闹心。网页不同了,dreamweaver拿来就能用,几个页面就出来了。不过如此。

真的不过如此吗?

内行的人知道当然不是,设计网站产品和设计一个传统意义上的软件一样,需要很多知识,在写创意纪主题的时候还提到了很多心理学知识,网页设计师能设计到什么程度,程序开发能开发什么功能,效率和稳定性如何,基础的服务器架构知识,项目管理,测试技巧,等等,也是一大堆。

不怪个人,怪互联网发展太快,还不是一门成熟的产业,于是大家可以热闹一下。浪淘尽,千古英雄人物。

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简单就是美

从dos年代的简单(不得不简单)到windows下的花哨,又到浏览器中呈现内容的简单,然后又是浏览器中内容的繁复,现在又是google为代表的简洁,甚至包括容器-浏览器(chrome)的简洁。

我以为,界面的易用性和简介并不矛盾,有的界面我们还是需要复杂一些,漂亮一些,而有的则应该简单一些,清晰明了一些。个人从追求形式到追求用户体验走了很多弯路,还好,至少至少什么是不太对的。mind3项目实践中,也有这方面的探索。内容总是至上的。用户的行为流畅度和记忆则是其次。

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或许也是SEO-互联网信息呈现的简单想法

从汶川地震到奥运,公司的网站都做了相关的专题,相比较,汶川地震时候专题流量更加高一些,几乎没有什么原创内容的专题一天可以有10w左右的pv,在分析流量的时候,发现一个很奇怪的现象,一些比较热门和还算热门的关键字从google和baidu过来很多,不少关键字排在前三,有一些可以到第一,比门户高和比转载出处高的现象经常发生。所以seo真的是一件很有趣的事情。

鉴于这些关键字中还是有一些比较敏感的,我刚才发现有一个关键字组合我做到google第三的,已经因为政策原因被屏蔽了。我小结一下自己的心得,并不是只针对seo,更多的是针对用户阅读,我相信google和baidu是能够聪明的明白用户需要什么内容的。

1 pagerank。pr值很重要,我们的两个专题分别在两个pr值不同的域名之下,不计算其他因素,流量相差好几倍。google几乎没有公开过什么其他指标,所以pr高很定是有用的。
2 页面简洁。不要有太多东西,虽然我们有时候没有办法,必须放一堆导航栏之类的,能够简化就简化,少放就少放,平衡的标准我觉得是从页面top开始最好第3行出现文章的标题,实在不行,不要超过第5行。
3 标题中关键字前置。张三在吃饭比吃饭中的张三要好。
4 内容中的第一段很重要。第一段不要超过100字,将主要内容说清楚。
5 关键字数量。一篇文章不要奢求针对很多关键字,一般1-2个为宜,最多3个,结合上面的原则,在第一段尽可能的反复出现。
6 转载注明出处。网站的网品很重要。
7 可能的话,改写一下转载的文章。这个涉及到版权问题,不多说了。
8 页面长度。以标准的1024-768分辨率来说,不超过3屏。你愿意看很长的文章吗,我不太愿意。
9 左边优先。很多地方介绍过,左边的内容重要一些,符合一般阅读者的浏览习惯。
10 标题优化,meta优化。别忘了就行,我发现页面title肯定对于seo结果有影响,并且不低。

暂时这些,大家参考,对于高手来说很浅显,不要见笑。最近在设计公司一个频道的重构,个人非常推崇简洁的页面设计和基于互联网的内容整合,如何整合内容到mind3中再谈了。

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The lost art of user experience

看到这篇文章不错,暂时没有精力翻译成中文,大家凑合着读吧:

User interface design is my favorite part of the development process. The problems it poses are the most interesting, and thinking up solutions is a form of creative expression. Users consume our applications through the interface - one chance to either deliver a satisfying experience or fail miserably.

It is a topic I have very strong and passionate opinions of, and motivated by this beautiful prose by Jono over at Not the User’s Fault, these are my guidelines for user interaction design:

Know your users

The first step in interaction design is to know who it will be interacting with. Users can be profiled on many criteria, such as age, technical orientation, vocation, cultural background and more. The user profiles created from segmentation of those criteria are called Personas.

While defining Personas is a common practice for designing user interactions, it might not be possible to engage in all the steps required to fully understand the needs and tendencies of the users they represent - such as interviews, surveys, focus groups etc.

This is especially true on the web, where projects have limited funds and are very quick from inception to implementation. In this case, experience and common sense rule the day - but it is still important to define the base Personas for which the interaction under design applies. Going through the process brings out some considerations that can influence design decisions.

Watching actual users go through an interaction is very important to learn about its effectiveness. Watching live users in action is the best learning experience in interaction design.

Know yourself

Knowing your users is the most basic step to interaction design. Yet, for each user type and interaction requirements there are as many possible implementations as there are interaction designers. At this point the interaction designer has to make choices for his users based on his experience, attitude and style.

It is sometimes hard to avoid designing an interaction for yourself rather than for your users. It is a natural tendency to try to solve interaction problems in a way that seems most natural to you, however that might not always be in the user’s best interest. Ideally, the interaction designer is a part of the target audience. When that is not the case, observing prospective users is very important to understanding their needs and deciding on the approach to solve their problems.

I believe that good UI design is more intuitive than science, and in that respect it is not so different from graphical design. However the two should never be confused - as I’ve argued in my post on common misconceptions in web development.

Keep it as simple as possible

This old mantra is very much an integral part of a successful user interface. By keeping interactions as simple as possible you will:

  • Have less opportunities to fail your users
  • Give your users less to think about, allowing them to make easier decisions
  • Reward your users quicker (at the completion of the interaction)
  • Increase the chance that the interaction will get completed at all

A large part of the success of web-based services can be attributed to the simpler interfaces they provide compared to desktop solutions. Some of this is a result of technological limitations on the delivery software (ie, web browsers), but it’s hard to argue with the results.

There are several common ways to simplify interactions:

  • Use intelligent defaults
  • Hide optional paths (or form fields) by default (progressive disclosure)
  • Remove unnecessary steps from the interaction (and do so aggressively)
  • Reduce mouse clicks. Make each click do more

This is obviously a very partial list, but it’s a good start.

For me as a developer, the KISS principle is deeply ingrained in my thought process. Translating it into user interface design took some getting used to, but once it happened it became second nature.

In fact, many parallels can be drawn between UI design and software architecture design almost to the point you wonder why most developers aren’t interested in designing interactions (actually I know why - most developers resent users for constantly breaking their code. I know this since a couple years back I had the same mindset).

Don’t break conventions - And if you do, make it obvious

The tools available to us developers have evolved much in recent years, allowing us to create richer interfaces and interactions. With power comes responsibility - we need to apply discretion when using advanced techniques and tools, as to not confuse users. Breaking interface conventions by using new technologies where they are not needed is a mistake.

Conventions should only be broken when they result in a bad user experience or when the alternative is significantly better. The latter is very uncommon when the former does not apply, so be advised.

If you do design a unique interaction (or at least, one that isn’t in common use) - make it as obvious as possible for the user. A user can only begin to understand your new interaction when he realizes that something is different. Disguising buttons as links, hiding drop down menus in small target zones, making background changes to the document without notifying the user - all result in user confusion and a bad user experience.

The more you need to educate the user on how to complete an interaction - the less likely he will bother to. Good interactions are self explanatory.

Interactions should be fun

Users interact with your application since they want to achieve a goal. That goal might be to complete an item purchase, to indulge a curiosity, to gather information and many others. There are several factors that affect the user’s motivation to complete an interaction:

  • How important is the interaction to achieving the user’s goal
  • How unique is your application (ie, how easy would it be for the user to find a better place to achieve his goal)
  • How hard it is for the user to complete the interaction

Negative factors can be offset by a fourth one:

  • How fun is it to progress through the interaction

The fun factor in interactions is often ignored as they are considered strictly functional. It’s no coincidence the word functional begins with fun :) . The fun factor of an interaction increases motivation for completing it - it makes your application more unique and it increases the user’s tolerance for the interaction.

There are several ways to increase the fun factor of an interaction:

Increasing aesthetics

Making your interface prettier will have a positive effect on your users’ perception of it. It’s no secret that most of the illusion of Apple’s superior OS interface is made on the grounds of aesthetics.

Make it gamely

Computer games have some of the best interfaces of any computer software, and it’s no coincidence. You can make your interactions more gamely by adding feedback, reward the user for completing steps and transmit the feeling that the interaction is a part of the user’s journey towards his goal, rather than a functional requirement that he must take care of.

Make the interaction do more with less

The user’s time and patience are limited. Advance the interaction as much as you can with each user input. Make the user feel the interaction is smart and that it is working with him towards completion.

Learn from others

Those are my thoughts on user interaction design, born out of my experience in web development and of my introspection as a long-time user. If you are interested in user interface design, the GNOME Human Interface guidelines are as good as reference as you will find. My favorite web authors on the subject include Jono at Not the User’s Fault, Bill Scott at Looks Good Works Well and Aza at Aza’s Thoughts.

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