In this chapter we’ll consider ways to move from knowing what users want to do, to designing devices, applications and processes that help them. Design may target a particular device such as a smartphone, but often a single application may cut across different kinds of devices and platforms from smart speakers to web apps. These choices will in turn influence the styles of interaction: in some cases the user telling the application what to do, in other cases notifications prompting users to action. We’ll see various forms of design rules and guidelines, how to decide where to focus design effort using the touchstone of ‘desire and disaster’, and the different strategies that need to be adopted when creating applications that are ‘good enough’ for everyone or best for a particular group. Central to creating and communicating design are tools and prototypes, from storyboards and pieces of paper to near-working systems.
Contents
- Who designs — involving users
- Big picture
- Who for? Niche or mean
- From functionality to experience
- Desire and disaster
- Normal errors
- In context
- Into the details
- Overall style of interaction
- UI design guidance
- Structure, information architecture and dialogue
- Layout and aesthetics
- Designing for AI
- Role of AI
- To err is AI
- Managing autonomous AI
- Sensing
- Synergy
- Grounding design
- Wireframes and storyboards
- Premature commitment and multiple designs
- Prototypes
- Chapter Keypoints
- Additional reading
Glossary items referenced in this chapter
3D printed, aesthetics, affordance, Apple's human interface guidelines, appropriate reliance, appropriation, automation bias, autonomous AI, backward error recovery, big menus, blue foam, breadcrumbs, CLI, co-creation, co-design, coherence, command line interfaces, complexity, consistency, conversational user interfaces, CSS, design principle, desire, disaster, embodiment, episodic interactions, explainable user interface, explicit intention, formal verification, functionality, ghosts in the walls, gigworker, graphical user interfaces, high-fidelity prototypes, immediate feedback, information architecture, initiative, intelligent menu, intervention, ISO standard, level of automation, low-fidelity prototype, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, mistakes, mixed initiative, notifications, over-reliance, participatory design, physical prototypes, premature commitment, rapid feedback, redundant coding, scenario, semantic feedback, Shneiderman, sketch, slips, smart speaker, software engineering, stochastic reasoning, storyboards, suggestions, support not control, synergistic, synergistic interaction, system architecture, technology probes, throwaway prototype, transparent AI, trust calibration, turn-taking interfaces, uncertain, uncertainty, undo, usability, user centred design, user experience, voice assistants, widget, wireframe, working memory