UI/UX Articles and Interesting Tidbits of the Week
January//5//2018
Here are some interesting finds on UI/UX of the week!
1.http://justuxdesign.com/blog/the-paradox-of-choice-more-isn-t-always-better?ref=webdesignernews.com
The Paradox of Choice. Interesting article focused specifically on the paradigms of choice. Much like the Gestalt principle of similarity and what it evidences, the article points out that having a multitude of links and clickable items, isn’t necessarily the best approach to product design (the users can either find it hard to differentiate, or become overwhelmed). Highlight of the article includes:
“When people are too overloaded with information, they can’t process it effectively. Deciding becomes a chore, so they choose not to decide. For designers, this kind of behavior isn’t good at all. For our products to be usable, decision making needs to be frictionless. Many teams still hold an idea that ‘the more, the better’ when it comes to navigation, features and content.”
2.https://blog.proto.io/top-10-mobile-app-ui-december-2017/
Showcasing the Best Mobile App UI from December of 2017. Interesting article that lists a remarkable set of apps that were released during 2017, and are well worth investigating for their sheer Product Design expertise.
3.https://blog.wikimedia.org/2018/01/04/designing-for-offline-on-android/
Designing for Offline Experiences. Interesting case study from Wikipedia, as how their team tackled designing offline experiences for their Android application. Highlight:
“Related to giving clear indication of the connection status to users, we are also providing more contextually relevant actions that appear when the app is offline. An example of this is when a user taps on a link whilst reading an article. When that user is online, a preview of the linked article is displayed, but when they are offline, rather than showing a ‘no connection’ message, they are provided with the option to save the article for reading later once their connection is restored.”
4.https://blog.marvelapp.com/designing-human-memory/
Designing for Human Memory. Another interesting article that suggests that designers should really focus on designing experiences that are centered around Short-Term Memory type of actions. The article builds bridges with Miller’s Law (the 7 tasks), and goes at great lengths to provide examples of how designers should conceive flows and tasks for users when outlining a product experience. Highlight:
“Don’t present users with many elements in one interface. It is not necessary to restrain oneself to 7 elements as Miller’s Law would suggest, but the elements need to be distinguished enough — perhaps by using visual hierarchy. Otherwise the interface will be a burden to the user’s STM. Choosing the correct way to continue in the flow will become more time-consuming. If you need to use a lot of information, divide the journey into more steps.”
