The wireframing process leads to the wireframing perspective

The wireframing perspective is not jargon; it simply means that your design point of view is shaped by and under the influence of the wireframing process. In order to embark on a smooth wireframing process, it is important to keep the following in mind:

• Keep it simple: Don’t get too fancy and flashy with your wireframe—keep it simple and keep it functional. Wireframes do not exist for aesthetic purposes; they exist to provide structure and organization. Don’t worry about your wireframe being visually flawless, worry about it being practical and purposeful.
• Keep the user in mind: Remember who you are creating the wireframe and resulting end product for: your users. Don’t get carried away by development penchants for personal flair that overwhelm your design and detract from its usability for your clientele. Users’ needs should always be at the forefront of your wireframing process.
• Use the right tools to wireframe: There are many different ways to utilize wireframing ranging from a simple pen and paper design to a complex, high-fidelity wireframe created using special software. Find the strategy that works best for you, but keep in mind that wireframing software can provide you with a plethora of opportunities for creativity, functionality, and efficiency in design.

The abovementioned tips can help you improve your develoment process and place you in the mindset of the wireframing perspective. When you begin to approach the creation of every new interface design from the understanding that solid and organized basic structures are crucial for website success, then you will begin to see why wireframing should be the ultimate influencing factor of your perspective on design. That is what the wireframing perspective is all about.

Common usability illnesses that weaken your user interface

There are hundreds of ailments that can attack your interface design and paralyze its usability. Below are a few common pitfalls to watch out for as you attempt to keep your user interface healthy and usable:

• Content difficulty: Websites that require users to read about products and services must have content that is not only easy to read but also easy to scan since users often scan websites for the information that they need. If your user interface has convoluted or complex information, users are likely to get frustrated and abandon it. So even if you think your user interface has a lot to say and all of it is worth reading, your users may not agree. And that is why you need to infuse your site with information that is simple, easy to scan, and to the point. If you feel like there is a breadth of information that users need to read, then provide links to detailed information—but don’t make that the focal point of your user interface design.
• Contact difficulty: A great site layout is nullified when users don’t have an easy method of engaging with it. One example of this is contact information. Maybe your users want to get in touch with you for more information about site services or they want to sign up for something you offer. Either way, if you do not make this process explicit and easy on your website, chances are that users will never reach their original goal and leave your site in desperation.
• Link difficulty: Linking is a crucial function of every website but if your links are difficult to locate or are too small (thus requiring too much effort to click on) then you need to make changes because users aren’t going to stick around if you aren’t able to take them anywhere.
• Search difficulty: Search boxes are one of the main features of a modern user interface design. Users look for them when they open a page. Searches provide users with an avenue of finding exactly what they want in the quickest possible way. Some user interfaces provide no search option or provide search options that are difficult to use or find. If you want your users to get where they need to get to sign up, make a purchase or find the information they require, then you had better focus on functioning search boxes.

If you are developing a user interface make sure you are fighting usability related illnesses with usability tests, a type of computer science medicine that allows you to eradicate usability problems and invigorate your website’s popularity and success. There is no perfect interface design all user interfaces can be continually improved and changed. If you keep fighting usability pitfalls at the forefront of your development process then you will find it easier to build a healthy site that will contribute to overall success and satisfaction.

Within the context of usability and interface design, memorability refers to the user's ability to leave a program and then remember how to use it whenever he chooses to return to it. It is very common for people to use systems once or even many times only to completely forget how to use them later, whether the time gap is days, months, or years (hint: think of your tax statement software). Thus, improving memorability of an interface design is a good way to address the problem of forgetting how to use systems and the time that is wasted re-learning them.

Why is memorability important in the context of user interface design?

Memorability is ultimately important because users tend to forget how to use applications (i.e. navigate their user interfaces) when they do not use them all the time (e.g.only once a month), even more so when they use multiple different systems. Since each user interface design takes some time to get used to and operate productively, each time a user has forgotten how to operate the user interface, time is wasted or errors occur. Worst of all, if users aren't consistently using your program and can't remember how to use it when they return, they may decide to stop using the system altogether. This is why memorability matters.

There are many reasons why users use software inconsistently, but the point is you want the system you create to be easy to learn and remember. Thus, memorability is also tied closely to the concept of learnability, and what we know from both of these concepts is that learning and memory function best when the basics of the system are intuitive. This means that users learn and remember an interface design based on gut reactions of how to use the tools given to them. Intuitive systems can be difficult to create because all users perform tasks on interface designs with different levels of experience and understanding. Thus, what is intuitive for a tech geek is not usually intuitive for a beginner. Systems need to be designed to keep the basics intuitive with room for more complex operations to be performed as users become more experienced.

What factors make an interface design more memorable?

According to TNL.net, the things that make a user user interface design intuitive and memorable for users are usually due to two factors:

1. System feedback: When a user performs an action on a user interface he often receives a reaction that he did not expect. If the reaction elicited a positive emotional response then the user will remember how it was performed and what result occurred. Conversely, an action that elicits a negative emotional response will also allow the user to remember how the action was performed and what occurred. The point is, both reactions make the feature more memorable because we tend to remember our emotional response to unexpected reactions. Of course, you might try to ensure that there will be a positive emotional response.
2. Visual Cues: Icons, symbols and other visual cues allow the user to make related associations with the task at hand. For example, when a user sees the „Home“ icon that looks like a small house users are able to make the association, intuitively, that this icon will take them to the homepage. Visual cues that are logical and familiar to users allow them to make logical and familiar associations that make the user interface more memorable.

Testing user interface designs for memorability

User input is needed in order to assess whether or not an interface design is memorable. An effective way to obtain user input on the memorability is to usability test your interface design. A good method for testing memorability is to assess how users use and remember your interface design by sitting them down in front of it and having them run through it. You should do this in several sessions. It is important that you use more than one user, as all users do not remember system tasks in the same way. You should do several rounds of testing, spacing the “run-throughs” by minutes, hours, and maybe even a few days. Make sure you pay attention to your users’ unexpected reactions as well as their intuitive reactions to the visual cues. Interview and record your users’ feedback about the memorability of the interface design or have them fill out a survey—it is up to you how you concretely collect the data. After you have obtained your initial results, you can make the initial necessary changes to your system’s coding (or even better a wireframe prototype) and then repeat the aforementioned process by conducting several more sessions so that you can garner enough information to evolve a system characterized by optimal memorability.

— Reverse–Engineering Desire By Jeffrey F. Rayport

What is desirability and what does it mean for interface design?

Evaluating the desirability of a user interface design is a beneficial way of complementing usability testing. After determining that a user interface design is usable, an interface designer might want to know more about what users perceive in terms of intangible variables, such as “joy” and “fun” when using an application. A good way of finding this out is through desirability testing. Desirability testing is intended to assess target users' emotional response to a design or stimulus. In effect, desirability testing is much about visual design, while usability testing strives to assess underlying behavioral patterns. Bluntly speaking, in usability testing the emotional response is inconsequential and in desirability testing usability is inconsequential. When an interface design scores highly on usability and desirability it stands a better chance of pleasing clients and being a success.

How to measure desirability of an interface design through questionnaires

There are a number of ways of conducting the desirability testing of interface designs. One of the ways is through broad and experience-based subjective satisfaction questionnaires. The questions often ask users to rate some part of the interface design on a Likert scale to measure subjective satisfaction. The Questionnaire for User Interaction Satisfaction (QUIS) tool is an example of a standardized one. One of the things to watch out with questionnaires is the "acquiescence bias" (not to mention that set questions could be out of context), which is the fact that people are more likely to agree with a statement than disagree with it. This can, however, be rectified by finding a balance between positively-phrased statements such as "I found this interface design easy to use" with negative ones such as "I found this interface difficult to navigate".

How to measure desirability of an interface design through body language

The observation of a user's body language such as smiles, frowns, exclamations and other physiological, and even neurological, indicators is another method of conducting desirability testing. This is accomplished in a number of ways, an example of which is PrEmo, the Product Emotion Measurement tool that uses short animations with sound to accurately depict emotional dimensions. Other measurement methods include Electroencephalography (which measures activity in the different parts of the brain), Blood Volume Pressure, Electromyography (measures muscle activity for excitement levels), Electrodermal Activity (measures sweat gland activity), pupil dilation, and respiration. The results of these measurements are often collated and paired with responses from questionnaires. The downside is that thorough physiological and neurological measurement is relatively expensive to conduct.

How to measure desirability of an interface design through Triading

Triading is a method of testing the desirability whereby user interface designers present three interface designs to test participants in order to elicit attributes and adjectives in a way that is not biased by the researcher, such as with questionnaires. Test participants could be asked to identify two that are different from a third and why. This method helps interface designers to understand what is important to target users. What it is not, is a vote of which of the three is the one interface design that should be used in the final version, but it is used to then make a better user interface design.

How to measure desirability of an interface design through cards

Production Reaction cards, based on Microsoft's Desirability Toolkit, are another method of measuring desirability. This is done through the cards that contain 118 positive and negative adjectives. Users are then asked to pick which five cards best describe their reactions to a user interface design. These five cards would then become the basis for an interview where the researcher would ask to expand on their choices. After gathering adjectives from a number of test users a simple way of analyzing the data is through a word cloud. Words that were chosen more will appear with a larger font. The interview can be analyzed by dividing a piece of paper in two columns representing positive and negative. Each positive comment gets a tick in the positive column whereas negative ones result in a tick on the negative column. At the end you can compute the percentage of positive comments to get an indicator of how your interface design is perceived by users.

Human-Computer Interaction (often abbreviated as HCI) is an interdisciplinary area of study largely concerned with the intersection where people come into contact with computers, namely user interface designs. As a discipline it encompasses computer science, behavioral sciences, interface design, interaction design, usability engineering and other fields of study. While technological innovation at the hardware level seems to get all the headlines, it is great user interface design that makes them successful. A good historical example of this is with the ascent of Microsoft and how this correlated with the rise in personal computing. Windows made the computer hardware and software accessible and easy to use – through a novel type of interface design. Although Human-Computer Interaction also refers to many products with traditional electronic displays and/or physical controls such as microwave ovens or aircraft (here, often the term Human Machine Interaction or HMI is also used), I shall mainly look at it from the point of view of computers, software and their user interfaces.

Human-Computer Interaction, Interface Design and Usability

Two of the goals of Human-Computer Interaction and interface design are to maximize usability and user satisfaction. A poor human-machine interface design, such as using non-standard interface design layout can lead to a number of unexpected problems that could be catastrophic at worst. Improving the interactions between users and computers and meeting the user’s needs regarding the interface design are key when creating successful systems. The design activities relating to Human-Computer Interaction significantly determine how successful systems are in terms of user acceptance, in terms of how productively the system can be used to accomplish critical tasks, and to how popular systems are with users and what market penetration they can reach. Often, the aspects relating to efficiency of use are summarized as usability.

Human Computer Interaction and Usability Testing

The examples above illustrate why HCI is such an important aspect when designing systems. That’s why designing human computer interaction should be done hand in hand with usability testing as early in the interface design process as possible in order to keep the costs of fixing usability problems down (before code has already been written). The key is to apply a User-Centered Design approach when designing user interfaces by focusing on users and the tasks they would need to accomplish through the interface design. This involves concentrating on issues like these: Who will be interacting with the computer or who will be using the interface I am designing? What demographic am I targeting with my computer software application or website? What tasks would they need to accomplish using my product? An iterative design process is key here as the first concept for an interface design is rarely perfect. This is done in four steps: design the user interface, test the user interface for empirical quantitative data, analyze the data, and repeat from the beginning using the new insights. This process is to be repeated until a user interface design that is user-friendly and scoring high on usability is created.

1. The structure principle – This is concerned with the overall user interface architecture and layout. An interface design should be organized in a way that is clear, apparent and intuitive to users. This should be based on a consistent model that structurally puts related things together and separates unrelated things. In other words similar things should somewhat resemble each other. For example, toolbar buttons should all look like toolbar buttons.
2. The simplicity principle – The interface design should make simple, common tasks easy, communicating clearly and simply in the user's own language, and providing good shortcuts that are meaningfully related to longer procedures. In this vein a search bar with the word ‘Search’ is usually better than a convoluted ‘Quick Keyword Search’.
3. The visibility principle – All the options and tools needed to accomplish given tasks should be visible and easily accessible on the interface design without distracting the user with redundant information.
4. The feedback principle – A good interface design, like a good doctor, should keep users informed of actions or interpretations, changes of condition or errors that are relevant through clear and concise language. This helps users feel in control of the process by being aware of their actions.
5. The tolerance principle – The interface design or rather the system behind it should be able to accommodate a certain amount of failure from users (users, just like interface designers, are not infallible). A wrong click or some such other should be rectifiable. A good example of this are undo and redo features that allow users to effectively time-travel through their steps. This reduces the costs of mistakes and the accompanying stress and frustration that come with it.
6. The reuse principle – Your interface design should reuse internal and external components and behaviors, maintaining consistency with purpose rather than merely arbitrary consistency, thus reducing the need for users to rethink and remember. This is also referred to as the memorability of an interface design.

How to ensure that User Interface Design principles guide the interface design process

To ensure that these principles guide the interface design process and lead to optimal results, the use of wireframing tools can be indispensable when it comes to the iterative process of creating successful interface designs. Often, the large number of stakeholders with various levels of technical expertise in the design process requires the use of such tools for visualizing requirements and concepts. Tools suitable for wireframing, such as Pidoco, a cloud-based wireframe tool that works through a browser, allow interface designers to create wireframe prototypes of graphical user interfaces with drag and drop simplicity without the need to know any programming. Interface designers can then collaborate within a team through the cloud and get feedback from sharing prototypes, even going as far as conducting remote usability testing. Using such an approach, optimizing human computer interaction becomes a much easier, safer and more efficient process with reliable results.

What is findability?

The concept of findability is universal; at its most fundamental level the findability refers to someone or something actively locating another someone or something. It’s a simple notion (almost a platitude) and at the core of our experience as humans on the planet, whether we are locating food, shelter, books, airline tickets, etc. Findability can also be used as a more concrete term for a specific phenomenon in computer science. In computer science, findability (a term widely credited as being coined by Peter Morville) refers to a user’s ability to identify and navigate websites and to find and retrieve information and sources relevant to his needs.

Issues affecting findability

Although the concept of findability is relatively straightforward, it is also deceivingly simple. In computer science, findability is a complex and multi-faceted term that encompasses the practices of design, engineering, and marketing relative to interface design. Findability concerns itself with the following issues in an effort to make the interface design easily navigable or usable and the interface design process fully integrated and effective:

• Organization of the interface design
• Representation of the interface design
• Web standards
• Search engine optimization
• User interaction and user interaction design

These are just a few of the critical issues that contribute to findability within the web design arena. Generally, you can optimize two aspects of findability: How well your website can be found on the internet, and how well information can be found on your website. The first is mainly determined by the qualities of your web-site’s content and search engine optimization. The latter is mainly determined by the organization and structure of your interface design and the user interaction design. If you are developing a website with a new user interface and are interested in optimizing your website’s ability to be located by prospective users on the internet, then it is important to infuse your design process with adequate research about the above mentioned topics.

Search Engine Optimization can help improve the findability of your website online

How you organize the structure of your website’s content as well as how you implement web standards and conventions is important for search engine optimization (SEO) because search engines can only react to standard representations. In addition, the organization of your interface design affects its SEO ranking. Why is an SEO ranking important? Because many users will use search engines to find your site. So the issues that affect findability are important to understand. They are all interconnected, which is why findability is so complex. For example, how you organize your interface design is not only crucial for your search engine ranking but also because organization directly affects how users find information on your website.

Usability tests can help determine the findability of your site content

The best way to determine the findability of your interface design’s content is to conduct a usability test. Or several iterative usability tests for that matter. There are many different usability methods you could employ, but one that is worth mentioning is tree testing. Tree testing is a usability method that evaluates the findability of topics on a website. It is sometimes referred to as reverse card sorting. Since most interface designs are organized in information hierarchies (“trees”), tree testing’s main goal is to see how well users are able to find information within website hierarchies. Tree testing is a relatively simple method that produces valuable user experience information. A typical tree test is organized in the following way (using either software or index cards):

1. Users are given a “find it” task (e.g. look for the breakfast menu).
2. Users are then shown a list of the top topics on the website (as they might appear in the main navigation)
3. They choose one and then are shown a list of subtopics (such as in a sub-menu of a navigation)
4. They continue choosing, backtracking if necessary, until they have found a topic that completes their task.
5. The test conductor has the user repeat this process several times with several different tasks
6. After several users have completed the tree test, the results are analyzed by the design and development team.

Tree tests are only one of many methods for testing findability. While tree tests are not particularly useful for checking an interface design’s search engine performance, they do help you to guarantee that your interface design is well organized, and well organized websites tend to be easy not only to use but also for search engines to index and hence for internet users to find.

Recap: Why is findability so important for website and interface designers?

Findability is ultimately important because, as Peter Morville says, “You can’t use what you can’t find.” Web designers are perceived to deliver better products when they can ensure that the websites they create can be easily found by users via search engines. And if you are an interface designer you know how important it is for users to have easy access to the contents of a successful website. Findability may seem like just another of those “-ibilities” like usability, accessibility, or desirability. But its impact will easily convince you and your audience otherwise.

In general terms, accessibility describes the degree to which a product, device, service, or environment is easy and straightforward to use by as many people as possible. In addition, accessibility concerns itself with the benefits of the entity being accessed: How does easy use of a product benefits the user and the creator.

Accessibility is achieved through adequate design of products or services. A good example of accessibility design is public transportation. Public transportation is designed to optimize the routes which users (by bus, tram, or train etc.) must take to get to their given destinations. Public transportation provides users with maps, internet sites that help them plan their routes, elevators and wheel chair lifts for the disabled, and many other features that make it easy and beneficial for people to use. When public transportation is easily accessible, the benefit is that the users have efficient, cost-effective means of travelling and the creators are able to earn money and sustain the transport system.

Computer science, accessibility design and user interface design

In computer science, accessibility design refers to the method of creating websites that are easily usable and available by people of all abilities. This means in particular, that the interface design should grant users equal access to the functionality of and the information contained within the site. When you hear the term accessibility, you probably think its means ensuring that websites are available to users with various speeds of internet connection. But that is not the central issues at hand in accessibility design. At its crux is the construction of interface designs that are accessible to the disabled. For example, how can a designer code the HTML to provide or enable text-to-speech software for the deaf or text-to-Braille hardware for the blind? The concept behind accessibility design is clear: Disabilities should not hinder users from accessing and using a given interface design.

Across the globe there are initiatives aimed at giving web designers the tools they need to understand and thus support the needs of the disabled user. Organizations such as the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) and the World Wide Web Consortium issue guidelines and information that help designers make their sites as reachable as possible for those with disabilities.

The aims of accessibility design

The overall goal of accessibility design is to make an interface design available to every possible user, but accessibility design is specifically targeted at assisting people with various disabilities. The needs relative to disabilities that accessibility design specifically addresses include:

• Auditory: How to create interface designs that are user friendly for those who have hearing impairments. Example: providing site users with an auditory option that allows them to hear the site content and control the volume based on their level of hearing impairment.
• Cognitive/Intellectual: How to create interface designs that are user friendly for those with developmental disabilities such as dyslexia or cognitive disabilities that affect memory, attention, developmental maturity, logic and problem solving skills etc. Example: websites designed with content diagrams helps those with dyslexia or other cognitive disabilities decipher the site without having to do too much reading.
• Motor/Mobility: How to create interface designs that are user friendly for those with difficulty or inability to use their hands (people with Parkinson’s disease etc.) Example: creating clickable areas that are large enough for a user with unstable hands to click on.
• Visual: How to create interface designs for people with various visual impairments. Links that are underlined ensures that color blind users will be able to identify them.

Why is accessibility design an important usability method?

Aside from the egalitarian implications, accessibility design is crucial to usability because it creates an interface design that can attract an even wider range of users and thus ensure more success for the website. There are many users who are disabled and if a website is not designed with them in mind, they will not be able to use it. In the context of e-government this is especially important. Integrating accessibility design into the web development process has other benefits as well because in addition to diversifying the number of users, it also makes for a development process that is suffuse with simplicity, as designers must find way to create a site that is simple enough for users of all abilities, thus diminishing the likelihood of interface designs that are too convoluted or contrived.