User interface design

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User interface design or user interface engineering is the design of computers, appliances, machines, mobile communication devices, software applications, and websites with the focus on the user's experience and interaction. The goal of user interface design is to make the user's interaction as simple and efficient as possible, in terms of accomplishing user goals—what is often called user-centered design. Good user interface design facilitates finishing the task at hand without drawing unnecessary attention to itself. Graphic design may be utilized to support its usability. The design process must balance technical functionality and visual elements (e.g., mental model) to create a system that is not only operational but also usable and adaptable to changing user needs.

Interface design is involved in a wide range of projects from computer systems, to cars, to commercial planes; all of these projects involve much of the same basic human interactions yet also require some unique skills and knowledge. As a result, designers tend to specialize in certain types of projects and have skills centered around their expertise, whether that be software design, user research, web design, or industrial design.

Contents 1 Processes 2 Research--Past and Ongoing 3 See also 4 References

[edit] Processes

There are several phases and processes in the user interface design, some of which are more demanded upon than others, depending on the project. (Note: for the remainder of this section, the word system is used to denote any project whether it is a web site, application, or device.)

• Functionality requirements gathering – assembling a list of the functionality required by the system to accomplish the goals of the project and the potential needs of the users.
• User analysis – analysis of the potential users of the system either through discussion with people who work with the users and/or the potential users themselves. Typical questions involve:
  • What would the user want the system to do?
  • How would the system fit in with the user's normal workflow or daily activities?
  • How technically savvy is the user and what similar systems does the user already use?
  • What interface look & feel styles appeal to the user?
• Information architecture – development of the process and/or information flow of the system (i.e. for phone tree systems, this would be an option tree flowchart and for web sites this would be a site flow that shows the hierarchy of the pages).
• Prototyping – development of wireframes, either in the form of paper prototypes or simple interactive screens. These prototypes are stripped of all look & feel elements and most content in order to concentrate on the interface.
• Usability testing – testing of the prototypes on an actual user—often using a technique called think aloud protocol where you ask the user to talk about their thoughts during the experience.
• Graphic Interface design – actual look & feel design of the final graphical user interface (GUI). It may be based on the findings developed during the usability testing if usability is unpredictable, or based on communication objectives and styles that would appeal to the user. In rare cases, the graphics may drive the prototyping, depending on the importance of visual form versus function. If the interface requires multiple skins, there may be multiple interface designs for one control panel, functional feature or widget. This phase is often a collaborative effort between a graphic designer and a user interface designer, or handled by one who is proficient in both disciplines.

User interface design requires a good understanding of user needs.

[edit] Research--Past and Ongoing

User interface design has been a topic of considerable research, including on its aesthetics.^[1]

The desire to understand application-specific UI issues early in software development, even as an application was being developed, led to research on GUI rapid prototyping tools that might offer convincing simulations of how an actual application might behave in production use.^[2] Some of this research has shown that a wide variety of programming tasks for GUI-based software can, in fact, be specified through means other than writing program code.^[3]

Research in recent years is strongly motivated by the increasing variety of devices that can, by virtue of Moore's Law, host very complex interfaces.^[4]

There is also research on generating user interfaces automatically, to match a user's level of ability for different kinds of interaction.^[5]

[edit] See also

• Cognitive dimensions
• Elements of graphical user interfaces
• Experience design
• User experience design
• Gameplay
• Gender HCI
• Graphical user interface
• Human-computer interaction
• Human geography
• Human interface guidelines
• Information architecture
• Interaction design
• Interaction design pattern
• Interactivity
• Knowledge visualization
• Natural mapping
• New interfaces for musical expression
• Participatory design
• Principles of User Interface Design
• Progressive disclosure
• Usability
• User-centered design
• User interface
• Web design
• Computer icon
• Icon design

[edit] References