Interaction Design Principles

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1. IxD Principles

a. Design Values:

Ethical: It does no harm, and hopefully improves situations
Purposeful: It helps people accomplish goals. It is appropriate o
the user’s context
Pragmatic: it achieves business goals and fits within constraints
Elegant: It provides the simplest complete solution
It engages the emotions appropriately

b. Conceptual Principles:

How do we address the needs of both beginning users and expert users with a single, coherent interface?

Optimize for intermediates
Encourage users to skip beginner phase

c. Behavioural Principles:

Optimize the experience by clarifying information and minimizing work in the following areas:

• Cognitive Work
• Memory Work
• Visual Work
• Physical Work

d. Interface-level Principles:

• Don’t think of your product as a computer
• Integrate your hardware and software design
• Let context drive the design
• Use modes judiciously, if at all
• Limit the scope
• Balance navigation with display density
• Customize for your platform

2. GUI metaphors

3. Design Patterns

4. Best Practices

• Design based on user scenarios
• Interfaces should anticipate user behaviour
• Guide but do not dictate user experience
• Navigation should indicate where the user is
• Progress from simple to complex (Undesired complexity confuses user)
• Prevent users from making errors (ex. electrical sockets)
• Provide affordances for interactive elements
  (Elements should look like what they are)
• Focus should be on content, not format or navigation
• Don’t make users wait, wondering
• Give the user control over the pace of the interaction
• Let the user decide their needs, accommodate the user