UI/UX Articles And Interesting Tidbits Of The Week
January//17//2020
Here are some interesting finds on UI/UX of the week!
1.
Chatbot Use Cases. From Icons8 and the Interaction Design Foundation, comes an interesting article on the topic of Chatbots. These automated devices have become a staple for a lot of product experiences, and this article sheds light on its applicability and most common scenarios. They include scheduling appointments, placing orders, money transfers, news, among others. It’s a device/solution that has become a potential integration for providing users with additional help when going through potential friction experiences in products. Its applicability is getting wider and more pertinent. Highlight of the article includes:
“Chatbot services are increasingly used for scheduling appointments for personal services. People can book appointments with doctors, fitness instructors, beauticians, legal consultants and other service providers using virtual assistants. Traditionally, these tasks were carried out by human assistants. While appointment scheduling isn’t a complex task, still there’s room for human error. AI chatbots can be embedded with scheduling capabilities to make the process faster and minimize the room for error. These chatbots also collect the requisite contact information from the user and pass it on to the correct person. All this shortens the lead generation cycle considerably.”
2.
The Role of Animations and Motion in Product Design. A relevant article from the always present Nielsen Norman Group, detailing the importance of animations and motion in the overall product experience. There have been articles on the impact produced by micro-animations for instance, but this article dives deeper into the educational power underlying animations, as they potentiate uncovering interactions, information, that a product contains. The article also sheds light on the darker side of animations, as potential attention deficit creators, but it’s an article that details the power that comes with animations/motion in feedback instances, state changes, among others. Highlight of the article includes:
“When animation is used in a subtle way, it can help users build mental models about how the system works and how they can interact with it. Animations are less critical for user experience when they are simply time-filling visual stimulations during moments of transition (in fact, it’s these down-time animations that often frustrate participants in usability testing). Instead of using animations to provide surface-level delight (that quickly sours), animations can be leveraged for usability: as clues about what is currently happening with the system, as signifiers for how UI elements will behave, and as easily understandable spatial metaphors for the user’s location in the information space.”
3.
Guide for Landing Pages. Hailing from Campaign Monitor, this article provides great content on the topic of Landing Pages. It provides detailed information on categories of Landing Pages, including Lead Capture, Sales, Click-Through, Splash, Squeeze, while also providing recommendations on the process of building them, testing them, and how to deploy them with the combination of effective email strategies. Well worth a read. Highlight of the article includes:
“A lead capture page is a landing page designed to encourage website viewers to leave their personal information in exchange for a good or service. Typically, marketers begin by sending an email to new subscribers that outlines various perks of their subscription. From there, users are encouraged to click on a CTA that brings them to a landing page where they’ll fill out a form to gain access to something.”
