Category — Wireframing Tools

Both ways of user interface customization can be successful, but if you are thinking about implementing modification options, the personalization method is the lowest risk tactic in terms of complexity.  This approach does not require users to perform the customization act itself. That means that the site is easier to use because users have less to think about.  The less users have to think and the easier the site is to use, the more successful it will tend to be.  Although the personalization strategy provides lower risk in terms of ease of use, it does not mean the actual interface design will be easier to construct. It just means that it will require less effort on the part of the user.

Conversely, the customization method requires more effort on the part of the user.  This can be advantageous if enough users find this a beneficial feature and change their use or buying decisions based on it. Yet, if that is not the case, your effort will have been wasted, and, what is worse, the additional complexity may have adverse effects on user adoption, which is why this is a higher risk strategy.

Ultimately it is up to you whether or not you want to incorporate customization setting into your interface design.  Factors that need to be considered is the projected rate of use (the value you create) and the impact on usability of the user interface design through additional customization options (the usability barriers you may create) when deciding whether or how much effort you can risk to invest in customization. If you think the personal settings you have created will be popular and usable then take the risk of giving the user full autonomy to customize the interface design.  Otherwise, play it safe and let your system be in control.

Since interface designers are usually creating websites or applications with the end users in mind, it is only natural for designers to want to offer users the opportunity to customize.  In theory, it should make interface designs more attractive to users if they can infuse them with their own flair, a bit of their personality.  Google offers users the ability to customize their homepage, and many other websites (Yahoo, Pageflakes) offer customization options, too.  But is this really good for usability? The answer is a definite “maybe”. It really depends on the circumstances.  User interface customization can benefit both businesses and users if it is feasible and implemented properly.  But user interface customization can also be disastrous if a lot of time, money, and resources are invested on it only to find that users are rarely, if ever, using it.  Disastrous is not meant to imply that users will abandon the web site altogether —the disaster is the amount of time and resources wasted in creating and implementing something that is not used.

Customization versus Personalization: High risk and low risk

If you plan to use user interface customization there are two main ways of doing so:

•    Customization: Customization means the user actively tells the computer what features it wants to customize.  The user chooses the settings. An example of this is when a user chooses to have the weather of their hometown displayed on a new website each time they visit that site. Or setting a persona on the user’s browser window.

•    Personalization: Personalization means that the computer customizes the interface design based on its predictions about the current user’s interests and behaviors.  An example of this is when an eCommerce site suggests products a user might be interested in based on the user’s previous purchases or adjusts certain contents within the interface design based on the user’s profile or actions.

Froyo also boasts Flash 10.1 support and a revamped Android Marketplace that will allow users to send apps to a phone directly over the air. In addition, Froyo has a new wizard that helps you refine your interface design in terms of home screens, widgets and shortcuts. The latest iteration also allows you to tether your phone, effectively turning into a modem for your other computers.  All these new features and more open new avenues for interface designers and developers to make more innovative and user friendly tools and solutions for mobile devices. And considering the fact that Android is making its way on to tablets, ginormous HD TVs, automobile dashboards, microwaves and more, the future does look bright for the OS.

In order to successfully market a product it must be usable, and to be usable it must be easy to understand. In a nutshell, this platitude is why usability and simplicity are often synonymous in the world of interface design. Usability is the driving force behind any really successful interface design. So how can you integrate usability and simplicity into your interface design? Let’s take a look at the strategies Google and Apple use to optimize their interface designs.

The facade of simplicity: Interface design as key to Google’s popularity
If only interface design were a simple task. It is not. You as a designer must employ great skill and imagination to create the illusion of simplicity for your users, no matter how complicated the technology or semantics behind the application may be. For example, the Google search engine is efficient and very user-friendly. Simply type in a word or phrase and Google takes you to all of the relevant links and categories you need to obtain the information you seek. Not only is Google easy to use, it is also easy to view. Take a look at the start page interface design. There is nothing more simple than the Google graphic hovering over the search engine field. One text input field, one button – there can hardly be any misunderstanding about how to use this application. Google masterfully presents a facade of simplicity for its users. Behind the scenes, things are quite different. The Google search engine must within a fraction of a second solve a million variable equation to rank 8 billion web pages by importance to suit your search needs. This means that Google is in truth quite complex at the technical level, but at the user interface level it is effortlessly accessible. So this suggests that simplicity in relation to interface design does not necessarily apply to its creation (although you can make your design process easier by prototyping, for example if you use wireframing software). Simplicity and usability are important for users, and the better the illusion of simplicity, the more successful the product can be.

The new Hotmail also integrates MS’s new Office Web Apps allowing you to view and edit Word, or PowerPoint or other files within Hotmail’s new interface design. Documents retain their formatting and are updated on SkyDrive. These documents can be accessed through any web browser and users can easily invite others to collaborate on them. YouTube videos and the like sent to you via email can also be viewed within Hotmail as can Flickr photo albums. And users can even manage social network invitations. Emails can also be arranged by threaded conversations. In addition to enterprise class SmartScan spam filtering, the new interface design update and increased functionality has made Hotmail a truly attractive proposition for today’s emailers, me included.

Office 2010 on the other hand is to 2007 what Windows 7 is to Vista, more evolution than revolution but executed better. 2010 offers a refinement of Office’s graphical user interface design in a number of ways. For starters the Ribbon is now present across the entire Office suite and it, along with the inner content of its tabs, can be customized with the trusty right-click to the point where users can even add custom tabs tailored to suit their needs. The Office button (big and round on the top left of the user interface design) now has been given new options and extended to OneNote and Outlook. PowerPoint, Word and Excel now have added picture-editing effects and formatting à la Photoshop. One of the cool new features of Excel is Sparklines, which allows you to created data charts within a single cell. Emails in Outlook can now be viewed as threaded conversations and if it ever were to get too long it can be compressed. It is also now easier to organize, categorize, and clean up mails with a few clicks. Outlook can also now customize tasks into single-click commands.

Documents created on the desktop version can now work in tandem with smartphones and web browsers via MS Office Web Apps allowing you to have easy access to your work and to invite others to collaborate and work on them from all corners of the globe no matter what the screen. Two people can now work simultaneously on a document with their changes visible like in Google Wave (provided you’re both online). All these features, interface design tweaks and more work to make Office 2010 a compelling new product that looks like maintaining Microsoft’s dominance of the office productivity market.

Interestingly enough, Zuckerberg’s statements retain the much abhorred ambiguity that started his troubles in the first place.  Zuckerberg has only confirmed that Facebook will address the interface design issues in the coming week, but he did not specify how.  As users trust in Facebook continues to erode, it is paramount that Zuckerberg and his organization find a way to redeem themselves by enacting quick and clear measures that will simplify the user experience of the privacy options including changes to the interface design. If they are unable to do so in a timely manner, the future of the social networking giant may hang in the balance.

Facebook and its dreaded partner sites

Facebook’s partner sites Yelp, Pandora, and Microsoft Docs all have access to your personal information unless you visit each site individually and opt out of information sharing. You can also by proxy share your friends’ information if they have not opted out on these websites.  So how do you opt out?  Well, Facebook makes that process very difficult according to the EFF.  The directions that Facebook provides users on its site about how to opt out of “intrawebsite” information sharing are vague and difficult to understand.  Facebook’s interface design is breaking one of the most important website usability rules: make everything easy and clear to your users!

The implication of Facebook’s interface design decisions

What is most troubling about Facebook’s interface design is that it could be a systemic problem plaguing thousands of websites and users. It begs the question: what exactly are the intentions of web designers and how safe is it to trust in the intuitiveness of any interface design?  This is a heated topic that will probably continue to keep internet users on their toes.  For now, it is important to remember that if you are creating a website, the interface design should be simple and usable!  Who knows what the ramifications of Facebook’s latest design changes will be.  Probably nothing.  They seem to own the internet already.

It’s no secret that consumers are flocking to the internet to fulfill their shopping needs. Online shopping has become one of the most popular forms of commerce in the last ten years.  According to Reuters, consumers spent 27 billion dollars online during the 2009 holiday season—and that was only in the United States.  It’s easy to see why eCommerce is so alluring.  In theory, the internet should be a shopper’s paradise—click a few buttons and buy anything you want from the comfort of your own couch. But in reality, online shopping isn’t always such a delightfully efficient experience. No matter how interesting the product or beautiful the graphic design, many consumers lose patience with online shopping sites because they simply aren’t usable.  Usability is the driving force behind eCommerce and if your site isn’t functional due to poor interface design, the consequences can be disastrous for you and your company.

Rendering apps useless can have significant impact on user behavior
Rendering popular apps useless is a surefire usability and user experience annoyance that in today’s super fast real-time web environment could cause serious problems for an app. According to Pinch Media, just 30% of people who buy an iPhone app use it the day after it was purchased. After 20 days less than 5% are actively using it!

Is this quarrel about the usability of third party apps’ interface design?
One might speculate if this recent quarrel has anything to do with usability issues of third-party Facebook apps. It is obvious that especially in the mobile context, the usability of apps is paramount to enabling users to make the most of them. Was Facebook fearing for its reputation? After all, even after the most recent drastic interface design changes, Facebook can be considered an example of good usability and user interface design. Or is it a purely IP-related issue?

With Twitter buying Tweetie to create the first official Twitter app another question remains: could Facebook be hoping to wrest control of the Facebook app market? This would leave fickle users with no other choice than to turn to the official app.