Principles Of User Interface Design Research Paper

Introduction

User interface design is the design of user interfaces (UI) for machines and software, used on computers, smartphones, and any other electronic device. The goal of a user interface is to maximize a user’s ability to access all necessary components of the intended application or website with less effort exerted by the user. Using an interface should be an enjoyable experience, the user shouldn’t be stressed out or annoyed by UI, and its inability to present the necessary information in an aesthetically pleasing and efficient manner. User Interface (UI) Design focuses on anticipating what users might need to do and ensuring that the interface has elements that are easy to access, understand, and use to facilitate those actions.

The Elements of Good User Interface Design

A good User Interface Design presents a seamless blend of visual design, interaction design, and information architecture:

1. Visual Design

Visual design improves a site’s ornamental value by strategically implementing elements such as fonts, colors, and images among other things. When professionally done, visual design makes a page elegant without compromising on its function or content.

2. Interactive design

The interactive design looks at how users interact with technology. It then uses the understanding of such interactions to create an interface with behaviors that are well- thought-out. Excellent interactive design not only anticipates how a person interacts with a system but also antedates and fixes problems in good time. It may also invent new ways through which a system interacts and responds to users.

3. Information Architecture

Information architecture is designed to help users find the info they need to complete various tasks. It, therefore, involves labeling, structuring, and organizing the web content in a manner that makes it easily accessible and sustainable.

The Goals of User Interface Design

The principles of user interface design are intended to improve the quality of user interface design. The design goals in creating a user interface are described below. They are fundamental to the design and implementation of all effective interfaces, including GUI and Web ones. These principles are general characteristics of the interface, and they apply to all aspects.

1. Clarity

The interface must be clear in visual appearance, concept, and wording. Visual elements should be understandable, relating to the user’s real-world concepts and functions. Interface words and text should be simple, unambiguous, and free of computer jargon. The purpose of the user interface is to allow the user to interact with the website or application (or, more generally in broader design, any product). Avoid anything that confuses people or doesn’t help them interact. 

2. Minimize Actions and Steps Per Screen

Streamline tasks and actions so they can be done in as few steps as possible. Each screen should have one primary focus.Keep the primary action front and center and move secondary actions to deeper on a page or give them lighter visual weight. 

3. Comprehensibility

A system should be understandable, flowing in a comprehensible and meaningful order. Strong clues to the operation of objects on the screen should be presented. The steps to complete a task should be obvious. Reading and digesting long explanations should never be necessary.

4. Make the UI design invisible

Don’t draw attention to the user interface. A great UI allows people to use the product without friction, not spend time figuring out how to interact with the product.

5. Consistency

A system should look, act, and operate the same throughout. The same action should always yield the same result, the function elements should not change, and the positions of standard elements should not change. Consistency is important because it can reduce requirements for human learning by allowing skills learned in one situation to be transferred to another like it.

6. Control

Humans are most comfortable when they feel in control of themselves and their environment. Thoughtless software takes away that comfort by forcing people into unplanned interactions, confusing pathways, and surprising outcomes. Control is achieved when a person, working at his or her own pace, can determine what to do, how to do it, and then is easily able to get it done.

7. Flexibility

Flexibility is the system’s ability to respond to individual differences in people. Permit people to choose the method of interaction that is most appropriate to their situation. It is also accomplished through permitting system customization. Create a UI that will work and look great across multiple platforms. Of course, it may have to be tweaked depending on the form factor of a device and its operating system (Android and iOS, for example), but it should be flexible enough to work on anything. 

8. Forgiveness

People will make mistakes; a system should tolerate those that are common and unavoidable. A forgiving system keeps people out of trouble. People like to explore and learn by trial and error. A system oversensitive to erroneous inputs will discourage users from exploring and trying new things. Prevent errors from occurring by anticipating where mistakes may occur and designing to prevent them. Permit people to review, change, and undo actions whenever necessary. Make it very difficult to perform actions that can have tragic results.

9. Predictability

Anticipation, or predictability, reduces mistakes and enables tasks to be completed more quickly. All expectations possessed by the user should be fulfilled uniformly and completely.Include a clear next step a user can take after an interaction.

10. Responsiveness

A user request must be responded to quickly. Feedback may be visual, the change in the shape of the mouse pointer, or textual, taking the form of a message. It may also be auditory, consisting of a unique sound or tone.

The Principles of User Interface Design

According to Constantine and Lockwood's approach of usage-centered design, these principles are:

1. The structure principle

Design should organize the user interface purposefully, in meaningful and useful ways based on clear, consistent models that are apparent and recognizable to users, putting related things together and separating unrelated things, differentiating dissimilar things and making similar things resemble one another. 

2. The simplicity principle

The design should make simple, common tasks simple to do, communicating clearly and simply in the user's language, and providing good shortcuts that are meaningfully related to longer procedures.

3. The visibility principle

The design should keep all needed options and materials for a given task visible without distracting the user with extraneous or redundant information. Good designs don't overwhelm users with alternatives or confuse them with unneeded information.

4. The feedback principle

The design should keep users informed of actions or interpretations, changes of state or condition, and errors or exceptions that are relevant and of interest to the user through clear, concise, and unambiguous language familiar to users.

5. The tolerance principle

The design should be flexible and tolerant, reducing the cost of mistakes and misuse by allowing undoing and redoing, while also preventing errors wherever possible by tolerating varied inputs and sequences and by interpreting all reasonable actions reasonably.

6. The reuse principle

The design should reuse internal and external components and behaviors, maintaining consistency with purpose rather than merely arbitrary consistency, thus reducing the need for users to rethink and remember.