Category — clickable wireframes

Digg, the social news-aggregation and recommendation site, recently re-launched as version 4.0 to a storm of controversy coming from a significant number of long-term users. Reworking and relaunching a website with a new user interface design is a delicate matter. Usually the goal behind such an overhaul of the UI design is to make it more attractive and easy to use for the website’s users. Often, changes are done iteratively to optimize the GUI. When done right consensus should be that the new interface design is a marked improvement and should lead to an uptake by new users. The fourth iteration of Digg’s user interface design takes a cue from Twitter and Facebook, something a number of social networks seem to be doing more and more of.  And with good reason too! The popularity of both websites cannot be put down to a mere fluke. These two websites are busy setting the pace as far as conventions on social networks go.

The revolt against the new interface design has already claimed casualties as Digg’s VP of engineering was fired. The biggest gripe users have with the new Digg, in terms of user interface design, is the lack of the ‘bury’ button. Now users can only ‘like’ a news story but cannot ‘bury’ it to make the news story less popular. The reasoning behind the lesion of the ‘bury’ button is that users abused the feature. Now users have the option to either report a story, should they find it offensive, or they can ‘hide’ a story. ‘Diggers’ became attached to the bury button and as such removing it was bound to backfire.

During the last year a new type of app has been popping up all over the mobile world.  These so-called “check-in” apps allow users to notify friends and colleagues about where they have been, where they are, or where they are going via their smartphone user interfaces.  App developers have also begun to use extant location-based social networks — such as Friendticker, Foursquare, MyTown, BrightLite, Gowalla and, most recently, Facebook Places — to create games, challenges, city guides and dating services all centered on user locations.
consumers.

The Samsung Galaxy tablet, set to hit the European consumer market in late autumn 2010, is the newest brave and ambitious challenger in tablet computer combat, a battlefield thus far dominated by the iPad, known for its easy-to-use user interface design and highly-praised usability.  The Galaxy is powered by Android and “consumers are able to experience PC-like web-browsing and enjoy all forms of multimedia content on the perfectly sized 7-inch display, wherever they go. Moreover, users can continuously communicate via e-mail, voice and video call, SMS/MMS or social network with the optimized user interface” (samsungmobile.com).   Since VoIP capacities are not supported by the iPad, it is clear that Samsung sees consolidating all possible features into one device as the best strategy for taking a bite out of Apple and gaining a competitive edge in the tablet computer mêlée.  In a metaphorical sense, this method of consolidation can be seen as a Chimera effect, the Chimera being a fire-breathing female monster of Greek mythology whose body was composed of parts from different animals.   The concept of amalgamating different features into one unified body creates a stronger and more fearsome monster.  The same could be true for the Galaxy as a technological competitor.  It remains to be seen how this consolidation will affect users in terms of the usability of the user interface design.

Color plays an integral role in our lives. Literally everything we see and do is painted in color.  Thus, the vitality and importance of color should not be forgotten when you are designing a user interface; in fact, the use of color can help distinguish your user interface from all the rest.  Using color in the right way can brighten up a drab interface design, increase its popularity with users and improve usability.  In order to use color, it is best to categorize how and why to use it.

Natural vs. Unnatural Colors

When thinking about your interface design’s color palette, it is a good idea to decide whether or not you want it to be inspired by natural colors or unnatural colors.  Natural colors are colors that occur in nature: browns, blues, greens etc.  Unnatural colors are colors that could appear in nature (most likely in a tropical rain forest) but are probably man-made or synthetic: fuchsia, hot purple, neon yellow, etc.  Put simply, earthen tones vs. bright, bold tones.

This is part one of a blog post analyzing the repercussions of the new iTunes’ Ping service in the music market.

If Facebook’s phenomenal success can be seen as a nail in MySpace’s under-construction coffin, Apple may have just hammered yet another one in. Despite being eclipsed in numbers by the former, MySpace continues to be doing well as far as the cocktail of music leveraging social networks is concerned. The newly released iTunes 10 has decided to leverage the number of Store accounts to muscle in this already crowded territory. This “social music discovery” network, called Ping, is arguably iTunes 10’s Unique Selling Point and is integrated right into iTunes’ user interface design. The feature allows anyone with an iTunes account to “follow” bands, friends and share suggestions

Ping has been described by Steve Jobs as “Facebook and Twitter meets iTunes.” Well not quite Mr. Jobs. At the moment Ping requires the latest version of iTunes, and an account, to run. Apple could have easily used Facebook and Twitter APIs into Ping’s interface design but clearly they prefer to be dictating terms and operating within walled gardens. A feature that Ping users will no doubt be clamoring for is a web-app version of the service. After all, what happens when wishing to access Ping from a computer, or mobile device, without the latest version of iTunes or none at all? Users would be faced with the seemingly arduous task of downloading, setting up and signing in. Way too much of a process for web surfers! In such a case services like Last.fm come up trumps allowing users to access the network through a number of platforms and interface designs. These range from web browsers, to mobile devices as well as stand-alone applications for Windows, Mac and Linux.

This is the continuation of my blog post on the interface design of social networks. In this part I shall focus on layout and navigation.

The layout of the User Interface Design

A successful user Interface design should be as clean and contain as little “noise” as possible. This is not to say that an interface design of a social network should be featureless but it should be in a layout that doesn’t overwhelm users, in turn making them go elsewhere. Out of the social networks I decided to look at I found MySpace to have the noisiest interface design once logged in. The colors used (bright pink and baby blue flourishes) and the flashing colorful adverts were not just a slight distraction from my purposes compared to, say, Facebook’s more discreet advertisement offerings that fit and blend with the site’s interface design. I found the consistent color scheme of meinVZ’s interface design to be refreshing with the orange color being used in the design elements of the interface design as well as in the color of the fonts. I found Twitter’s interface design to be the most compact but that is understandable considering that, out of all the networks I am looking at, it has fewer features (i.e. pictures, videos etc.) to incorporate into it. Following interface design conventions allows a website to tap into “familiarity” benefits. This is why meinVZ modeled itself after Facebook and it shows how crucial interface design is in gaining and retaining customers.

Navigation of the User Interface design

Navigation is another crucial aspect of an interface design. Many social networks encourage people to upload and share a lot of information as well as use various apps. This naturally increases the complexity of a network, requiring interface designers to work even harder to ensure it is easy for users to navigate the matrix structure of social networks. The search bar is a crucial part of a social network. Users must be able to search and find their friends easily. The most common interface design convention is to have it right at the very top, usually in the middle or the right. meinVZ had it on the left below the logo but this is in keeping with their navigation which can all be found on the left of the page.  I was surprised that the Twitter search bar is not at the very top of the interface design as there is lots of space in between the logo on the left and the utilities on the right. As it is the search bar is on the right and further down but considering that users almost inevitably have to scroll down this might not be such a bad thing. As far as the layout of the interface design goes it is worth noting that users of MySpace can and nearly always change the default interface design which can make navigation problematic for some users. Of all the social networks I looked at, with the exception of meinVZ, the navigation took place at the very top along with utilities which are found at the very right. Facebook proved to be the most sparse with MySpace being the most busy. MySpace’s layout was also the most confusing without clear demarcations of the homepage. Everything was one giant hodgepodge unlike meinVZ which had thin but clear lines to keep sections separate. Another seeming interface design convention in social networks is the use of the left side of the layout for the navigation and other important links, the middle for activity streams and notification etc., and the right for less important notifications and adverts.

User Interface Design is crucial to get right in order for a website to succeed. The best way to ensure you get it right is to conduct usability testing to ensure the practicality, familiarity and ease of use before adding cosmetic flourishes. I speculate all the aforementioned social networks made use of wireframing tools, to create prototypes that were tested on average users to determine what works. Interestingly, they must have arrived at very different conclusions, since the interface designs of these social networks do differ quite a bit.

This is part one of a post on the interface designs of social networks. In part one of this blog post I shall look at why user interface design matters before looking closer at the registration processes and privacy concerns from the perspective of interface design.

Why does interface design matter?

Social networks have grown to become one of the internet’s key interfaces, attracting hundreds of millions of users. The popularity of various social networks has ebbed and flowed over time but with one look at the interface design of very popular social networks we can see the sound usability principles that have played a large part in their success. As interface design seems to account for a lot of the success, for this article I have decided to look at three of the most celebrated social networks, namely Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. In addition to this I shall also look at two other social networks with a particular localized strength. Friendster is particularly popular in Southeast Asia and meinVZ (along with studiVZ and schülerVZ) is particularly popular in the German-speaking countries. Together these networks have a combined total of 720,000,000 users!

Registration

The success of social networks is often measured in the number of members. Hence, having a smooth and expedient registration process is key for any social network. So, this is not just a usability or interface design issue. The number of steps required to register should be kept to as few steps as possible. This requires making the best use of the interface design to achieve these goals. The best example out of the social networks I chose to look at was Facebook. Registration occurred in one step with the sign up incorporated into the interface design of the homepage. All the other social networks I looked at linked the user to, at least, another page from where they could fill in their registration details.

Privacy

Privacy is the single biggest concern regarding social networks. I found meinVZ to have the best privacy policy – certified in line with Germany’s strict data protection laws – making users feel more comfortable in the knowledge that they are in control of their data. New users are automatically “invisible” and this is communicated to users on the homepage. It is up to users to then make their data available. MeinVZ was also the only one to have a direct link to privacy settings from the main site scoring high in findability. Twitter by its open and minimalist nature does not have many privacy settings unlike other networks that have a whole section devoted to privacy. Facebook has long been a target of criticism for its ever shifting goal posts regarding privacy. Furthermore its privacy settings were very complex and divided into many sections. This prompted a rethink resulting in more streamlined and easier to grasp privacy settings a while ago. From a strictly interface design perspective I find Facebook’s current settings to be the easiest to set, once you have found them that is! To start with, while they may not have their own dedicated button, privacy settings are accessible via a drop down menu, whereas on MySpace and Friendster it takes 2 steps. Users have to first click on settings and then on privacy settings. They did a very good job of simplifying it to not overwhelm the interface design meaning users do not have to scroll down and be confronted with a lot of text (which users have to do on meinVZ). However changing privacy settings is easier on meinVZ which offers users basic settings but allows users to immediately fine tune their settings unlike Facebook’s that would require a 2nd step to start customizing.

There is a plethora of information available to web designers about how to create interface designs that are characterized by optimal usability.  Yet web designers continue to make the same usability mistakes time and again when developing their user interfaces.  It is not as though web designers aren’t aware of common usability pitfalls—they usually consider them during the creative process and many are well-versed in usability red flags.  Yet this does not always ensure that designers will end up with a user-friendly interface design.   That is why it is important to beat the concept of usability pitfalls to death—if every website floating around in the world wide web was perfect then we wouldn’t need to do it.  But that isn’t the case so it is good to remind ourselves of the illnesses that can attack website usability in order to find ways to keep user interfaces healthy and strong.

Among the new announcements at the recently concluded Google’s I/O Developers conference was the next iteration of the Android OS, namely 2.2 (codenamed Froyo). Android has grown in leaps and bounds since its inception with a new market survey showing Android powered phones overtaking Apple in the US, the world’s biggest smartphone market. According to Google, the latest version of Android will be up to five times faster at running apps and three times faster at browsing due to the use of just-in-time Java compilers and the same V8 JavaScript engine as Chrome.

Froyo’s browser includes more HTML5 features, such as allowing the browser to access hardware features such as the accelerometer (to rotate the screen automatically), the microphone and the camera which can all now be accessed by web apps. What this means for interface design, interaction design and web development is that voice recognition comes to the fore as an extra input and control device. Google’s voice recognition and translation services are examples of how users may potentially use their voice to perform web searches, control their android phones or even change the channel on the, also newly announced, Google TV.

Integrative interface designs: Apple’s iPad model

Apple recently introduced its new iPad and proved that they understand how important integration is to simplicity and usability. The iPad functions like a combination of the OS system and the iPod. Apple was smart in realizing that two of its more popular programs could be a force to be reckoned with if they were combined. Combining the features of the iPod and OS operating system’s interface designs increases simplicity because the user is able to consolidate all his „Apple needs“ into one place. Apple’s new iPad shows that integrating extant interface designs not only vamps up usability through simplicity, but it also a produces a lucrative marketing strategy to promote a profitable product.

Simplicity works

Successful interface design relies on usability, and usability often relies on simplicity. If you want to create the most usable and therefore profitable interface design possible, keep in mind that simplicity often works. Gooogle and Apple understand that, and look where it has gotten them.