Interface Design - Essay Example

?Interface Design: Practical interface tasks and short supporting report Dusan Pancik 24/06 Contents Interface Design 3 Requirement Analysis of Potential Audience 3 Navigational Scheme 10 Consistency 13 Flow 14 Navigational Guidelines 15 References 16 Interface Design The interface design is a mixture of graphic and editorial organizational cues and is vital in a product success. Interface should represent the product or promoted service in an attractive way for a potential customer audience. Interface design is a creative and imaginative work because it demands a foresight into the target groups’ needs and tendencies. The psychological model of the intended user group is required to be incorporated into the design for sustained satisfaction and a pleasurable experience of the product. Moreover, the intellectual level of target group should be a guiding principle for the interface design document. The user should feel relaxed and comfortable while using the interface and it must be a pleasurable experience. “Each moment has the potential to increase user’s confidence or destroy his trust in a product or company, and each one is an important piece of the whole experience” (Hoekman 2008). Requirement Analysis of Potential Audience This requires narrowing down what type of information, features and products your targeted audience would be looking for. The basic theme of interface is designed keeping in mind the research conducted in Assignment # 1, which underlines the identification of the user group before starting the development of the product. In our case the site offers massaging services and allied facilities to its customers. The identified customer group is mainly comprised of the middle-aged women of the upper middle class and the elite class of the society. However, there are other groups of customer which are attracted by the product and they include more or less every age group bearing children. The site should also support the customer class where a massage therapy is advised by the doctors. The identified user group is supposed to be well-off and educated. More often than not this group will use the services for stress management and in some cases for medical reasons. The basic theme of the interface is required to be light and refreshing. A shade of light green is used as the theme color of the site. This gives a soothing and refreshing effect to the site. The interface is designed to impart a comforting and gentle effect at first sight to address the issue of the major group of customers while incorporating the needs of the rest of the identified groups. Special care is taken in use of images at the site and especially at the home page of the site to further support and endorse the theme of the site. This is shown below in figures 1 and 2. [Figure 1: The home page for zypresse.com] [Figure 2: The about us section for zypresse.com] Numbers of interviews were conducted for inclusion of user opinions in the development of the interface. During this process some of the expected clients of the massage services insisted on the availability of video clips of various massaging techniques at the web interface. Feedback of the clients was also integrated in the shape of the price list for various services offered by the massage center. Moreover the names, specialties, and experience of various therapists have also been provided on the basis of requirement analysis. This is shown below in figures 3 and 4. [Figure 3: The video support section for zypresse.com] [Figure 4: The price list section for zypresse.com] A number of doctors, surgeon and physician are consulted to bridge the gap between the customer needs and the product design. This process helped a lot in rationalization and understanding of the customer’s requirement. The user group of massage services is particularly comprised of middle-aged ladies, however adult men and elderly people may also form a part of this user group. Therefore the interface design especially caters for the requirements of this user group. The theme, despite being quite light and refreshing, is designed on a sound professional basis. Image selection is also based on the user group requirement, needs, and trends. The massage center site is designed to support maximum usability and accessibility to its users. Users can find the information and features they require easily and there is a better error control for user mistakes. The interface guides and navigates effectively and efficiently to the services required by the users. The user is not required to login prior to making an appointment at the massage center and no registration is required to access the video links or other resources available at the site. This is shown in figure 5. [Figure 5: The appointments section for zypresse.com] Navigational Scheme After the design was done, which was critical for the acceptance and utility of the internet, and after making an inspiring first impression on the front end, the second most important thing was to identify evident pathways to information through a strong, coherent, and explicit navigational scheme. Navigation is the most important aspect of the interface design and is directly related to the user experience on the site. The divisions of the site produce a modern sense of balance and complement each other. This is shown in figure 6. [Figure 6: The navigation scheme for zypresse.com] The basic aim of the navigational scheme is to facilitate the identified user group, keeping in mind the specific needs and requirements. The Massage Center site design provides answers to all possible questions that may arise in the minds of the target audience while using the interface. All intended information is either available instantly or some guidance is available for the user to navigate to his desired information. Moreover, the overall tone of the interface supports the main theme and the purpose of the product. Every effort is carried out to ensure a joyful and beneficial user experience. This is shown in figure 7. [Figure 7: Massage Services for zypresse.com] Consistency Consistency is our main goal; it is defined in the layout of the web page and to ensure a delightful user experience at the website. Every effort is made to keep the theme, buttons, placement of objects, images and other navigations to the standards most commonly used on the World Wide Web. Conscious efforts have been made to follow a mental model which is commensurate with user requirements; this model is kept constant on every page of the website. Placement of the same buttons is kept constant; for easy navigation the user can move directly to the home page from any page of the website, inline text links are also provided to various pages of interest. Home links are placed carefully at the top of the site so the navigation remains visible even if the visitors or customers reduce the size of the browser over our content. This can be shown below in figure 8. [Figure 8: The creation of navigation scheme for zypresse.com using Adobe Dreamweaver] Flow Simplicity is the key to any website. Customers who are interested and engaged while browsing our site will learn faster and show an improved attitude and behavior toward our site. The flow between various pages of the website is designed to match the user requirements for the completion of a specific task. If a client wishes to make an appointment with a particular therapist on the page where various specialists are listed, he can directly navigate to the page of making an appointment. Navigational Guidelines Messaging and user prompts follow a specific modal and are kept consistent throughout the website. They are also used to provide navigational information and guidelines to the user. Text directions and page flows are kept left to right and top to bottom to ensure easy and user compatible reading and navigation standards. Navigation to required information through scrolling is avoided, instead in line text links are provided to move to the required information. User navigational mistakes are catered by availability of next and previous buttons or home and logo keys at every page of the website. “Successful designers of interactive systems know that they can and must go beyond intuitive judgments made hastily when a design problem emerges” (Shneiderman 2005). Awareness of client’s mental model is applied to follow the intuitional approach, thereby caring for possible navigational requirements at every page of the website. References Hoekman, Robert Jr. 2008, Designing the Moments: Web Interface Design Concepts in Action, New Riders, Berkeley. Shneiderman, Ben Catherine Plaisant, Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction, New Delhi, India Read More

 

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