The Importance of a well-designed user interface
A User interface is not the same as a User experience.User interface is the actual interface the consumer uses to interact with the software.User experience is all about how the user experiences the software or website. Alben said in 1996 that “All the aspects of how people use an interactive product, the way it feels in their hands, how well they understand how it works, how they feel about it while they’re using it, how well it serves their purposes and how well it fits into the entire context in which they are using it”. Microsoft states User experience as, “An activity of encounter by a computer user with the auditory and visual presentation of a collection of computer programmes. It is important to note that this includes only what the user perceives and not all that is presented”.It is vital for a company to have a well-designed User interface. This will dictate whether or not the consumer will use the software. If the software is too complicated to use, the consumer would much rather use simpler software and this would result in a loss of sales.Figure 1 resembles a bad user interface
Figure 2 resembles a good user interface
Scott Jensen wrote in his book iPhone Blueprint, “You don’t want a user to feel confused about what they should do next after opening your app.”
That is a major point in the design of a User interface. You want it to be as simple as possible yet have a professional look about it. It is important that this leads to higher levels of productivity.
In the book iPhone Blueprint, Scott Jensen touches on the major points of designing a good user interface and these are
- You need to understand the user.
- The presentation of the software needs to be professional but not too technical.
- Help screens need to be available if there is any troubleshooting.
- It needs to be easy to navigate about the interface and not be strenuous.
- The interface needs to be unique in a way too, as to give the user a unique experience.
Below is a video of where the world of User Interface may go. It is a short video just introducing what the future holds for User Interface.
– By Johannes Windell
- Erik Flowers, 15 December 2012, “UX is not UI”, http://www.helloerik.com/ux-is-not-ui [Accessed 24 April 2013]
- V. Berba Velasco Jr., Ph.D. , “On the Importance of Good User Interface Design” http://cytokines.1hwy.com/articles/good-ui-design.html [Accessed 24 April 2013]
- Mikhail Midnani, 7 September 2012, “iPhone Blueprints — A Delicious Guide for Effective UI Design”, http://beautifulpixels.com/books/iphone-blueprints-a-delicious-guide-for-effective-ui-design/ [Accessed 24 April 2013]
- Scott Jensen, 2012, “iPhone Blueprints – Fundamentals of User Interface Design”, http://iphoneblueprints.com/ [Accessed 24 April 2013]
- Virpi Roto, Ming Lee, Kari Pihkala, Brenda Castro, Arnold Vermeeren, Effie Law, Kaisa Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila, Jettie Hoonhout, Marianna Obrist, 2012, “All About UX”, http://www.allaboutux.org/ux-definitions [Accessed 19 April 2013]
- Author unavailable, 31 March 2009, “User Interface”, http://www.techterms.com/definition/user_interface [Accessed 19 April 2013]
Figure 1: http://blog.ideaday.de/max/2010/11/example-for-a-bad-user-interface/
Figure 2: http://hcik4.wordpress.com/page/2/ 01 Nov 2008
image featured on blog – . 2013. . [ONLINE] Available at: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6NzQ5CDHV5E/TWXtuN5PyyI/AAAAAAAABcc/8DbdvQCknuY/s1600/another%2Bconfused%2Bcomputer%2Buser.jpg. [Accessed 27 April 2013].