There are so many moving parts involved when you are in the process of evaluating a website or product. On a daily basis, I work with interfaces means how people are interacting with their devices, not just websites. The field of interaction design is very large and complex, and many things I could be talking about but today I’m focusing on few user interaction key principles.

Just a while ago I was in a process of usability evaluation for this website’s interaction design. What became visible by looking at the interfaces that it failed in all essential principles of User interaction design. I am not talking about the behavior of the interface, today I am talking about behavior of people.

• Consistency
• visibility
• feedback

People are very sensitive to change. Changes in behavior and appearance draws negative attention. That what exactly was happening in here. The elements on the page was literally dancing from one spot to another. When I quickly click through these pages, one thing became prominent that my eyes were not drawn to content, but instead was drawn to the objects that are moving around. This inconsistency was attracting attention, in a negative way. Obliviously, this is not an efficient user experience. There are many additional aspects of inconsistencies that can draw negative attention. The list can go on and on such as colors, layout, shapes, typography, alignment, etc. we need to be very careful in those details to achieve harmony. It is very important that we define styles and patterns and we stick to them.

When we want users to be efficient and task focused, then it’s very important to have visibility. To engage users with design, you need to make sure that all interaction or choices they have given are not hidden. Few things were happening in this case. On one page, there were two images. but, one of them was actually a video. There was no visual clue was given such could be an ‘arrow’ so that users can understand the difference between image and video. When I mouse over it, all video controls appeared. It’s vital to remember that we’re designing experience, not scavenger hunt. If they are not aware there are interactivity exists, then they will not find what they are looking for or unable to complete their tasks. Another factor was affecting visibility was that content on few pages was underneath the two-fold area or sometimes it calls ‘falls bottom’. There were three important modules was hidden in the bottom of the page. Not all users scrolls down the entire page, the result you might miss the opportunity to fully engage them and able to finish their task. There are many ways you can restructure the content so that all modules appears above the fold.

Feedback is essential. Users should be aware where they are in the process, what’s happening, what might happen in future, or whether or not something has finished. In current interfaces, there was absolutely no indication was provided throughout the site. not when you are in process of becoming member of that particular site or not while downloading a file from the site. as a user, I would like to see what I am downloading, how far I am in the process, how many minutes or file size are remaining, link or option to cancel if I may wish to cancel during I’m downloading, as well as when I finished downloading. Never fail to acknowledge whatever actions users might have performed, otherwise this might lead to unnecessary repetition of action users just performed. Without doubt this not a good user experience.

Well, there are more additional principles I can briefly talk about. May be some other time? 🙂