Recently, I read some B-side books and revisited some well-known design methodologies, in the theory of human-computer interaction, the most famous and classic theory is the human-computer interaction master Jacob. In 1995, Dr. Nielsen proposed the Nielsen Ten Usability Principles, which were developed for PC interaction design. This theory provides a good guide in our daily product design, so let's talk about where they are used in everyday products.
First, the principle of feedback
The feedback principle states that the system should provide feedback to the user on its current state at the appropriate time. This includes immediate responses to actions, progress indications, error prompts, and more. A good feedback mechanism allows users to understand the results of their operations, enhance their sense of control, and reduce uncertainty and anxiety.
The system should prompt or give feedback to the user at a reasonable time and in the right way, and the feedback speed should be in line with the user's expectations.
Every time Baidu network disk downloads a file, it will prompt the current download progress, how many percent is completed, what is the current transfer rate? And how long it will take to complete the download, which is a good relief for users' anxiety.
When 360 Security Guard performs software antivirus, it will also show the corresponding antivirus process and how long it will take to complete the antivirus, giving users timely feedback and a full sense of certainty.
2. The principle of metaphor
The system should use familiar sentences, phrases, and symbols to express meaning, and follow real-world cognition and habits, so that the presentation of information is more natural, easy to identify and accept, and reduce the user's learning curve.
In human-computer interaction design, the communication and expression of the program and the presentation of functions should be in the most natural and user-friendly way, and the expression of computer program language should be avoided. The design should be in line with the real-world cognition, so that users can easily understand the meaning of the program through association, analogy and other methods; Metaphors can be visual or actional, and they help users understand new concepts or functions through what they already know.
The icons of 360 Security Guard, Hi Format Video Converter, and Tencent Computer Manager all use easy-to-understand graphics to express, which is in line with people's daily cognitive habits, and expresses the business scene well, while also losing the sense of beauty.
3. The principle of fallback
Users often make mistakes and need a simple feature to quickly restore the program to the state it was in before the error occurred. Users should be able to control their actions, including undoing or redoing previous actions. The fallback principle provides a sense of security that users know they can recover from mistakes, making them more willing to try and explore the system's features, reducing the anxiety of user misuse.
When the QQ mailbox page is designed, there is a recall button below, when you find that you have a problem sending an email, you can click to withdraw and take back the sent email.
When the user does not like the current avatar, the user is allowed to re-modify the personal information and avatar in the settings, which also reflects the fallback principle, allowing the user to operate and modify the previous operation again.
WeChat, too, when the information sent by the user is wrong, the user has the right to withdraw the message within 3 minutes, which provides the user with the opportunity to correct the mistake and reduces the frustration caused by the user's misoperation.
Fourth, the principle of consistency
In the same scenario and environment, users perform the same operations, and the results should be the same. The style and experience of the system and platform should also be consistent.
The principle of consistency requires that the product provide the same operational feedback in different contexts, maintaining consistency in style and experience. This helps users establish intuitive operating habits and reduces learning costs. Consistency is also reflected in the use of design elements, such as buttons, icons, colors, etc., which should maintain a uniform style to avoid confusion among users.
Feishu maintains a very uniform style of empty status pages in multiple scenarios such as contacts, mailboxes, schedules, service desks, apps, and messages, and the entire product has a strong sense of unity and is relatively comfortable.
5. Error-proofing principle
The principle of error proofing emphasizes that preventing errors from occurring is better than remedy. When designing, you should consider possible user errors and design mechanisms to avoid or reduce them. For example, by disabling unavailable options, providing clear instructions and limits, and setting confirmation steps before performing irreversible operations, error-proofing increases user efficiency and reduces the chance of errors.
There is a list of recorded videos in EV screen recording, and when users click on the video that needs to be deleted, there is a chance to confirm it again to prevent customers from mistakenly deleting it, which is a good reflection of the principle of error-proofing.
In order to prevent users from making mistakes, e Cloud computer experts designed two states of the buttons when designing the button entrance of the learning mode, one is the color button with the illustration avatar, and the other is the button style that grays out the illustration avatar, so that the user can distinguish the current state well, which is a good application of the error-proofing principle.
6. The principle of memorization
Let the relevant information of the system be displayed when needed, reduce the user's memory burden, help users get started quickly, and improve the ease of use of the product. For example, automatically saving the user's input, providing history, using shortcuts, etc., can reduce the amount of information that the user needs to remember; When switching pages, the user should not be asked to remember the content of the different pages, but should actively present or prompt the previous information where appropriate.
Petals, Qiantu, Bilibili platforms all have a search history function in the search bar, and the words that have been searched before, when the user wants to search again, the user does not need to enter it again, just select the corresponding history tag directly.
7. The principle of flexibility and ease of use
The principle of flexibility and ease of use is not only an interaction design principle, but also represents a software product design concept. For the system to be simple and easy to use, it should provide flexibility for different levels of users. Intermediate users are the majority, and the design should meet their needs, while providing easy-to-use onboarding for beginners and customization options for advanced users for increased efficiency. Flexible design can improve user satisfaction, and personalized settings can increase user stickiness and promote user exploration.
Tencent PC Manager takes into account that everyone has everyone's aesthetics and preferences, and has designed a one-click skin resurfacing function, providing as many as 12 kinds of skin designs, and users can switch their desired skin background at any time in the personalized skin.
8. The principle of simple design
The principle of minimalist design requires the removal of unnecessary information and functions, highlighting the focus, and avoiding information overload. The design should be designed for simplicity while maintaining functional integrity and usability, ensuring that the most important features can be quickly identified and used by users.
In the application download of China Unicom App Store, the installation button of the corresponding program is not directly displayed, and only when the mouse clicks on the corresponding icon, the installation button is displayed, which simplifies the information flow of the page, and makes the page look more concise through dynamic interaction, which is a good application of the principle of simple design.
Feishu is at an information level, a page with such a complex task, each task is color-coded by the emergency of the task, and it also cooperates with the corresponding icon, the whole page design is refreshing and refreshing, and a very complex information flow is classified to make the page more simple.
9. The principle of fault tolerance
When an error is unavoidable, the system should provide clear error information and a solution. This means that error messages should be easy to understand, avoid jargon or error codes, and provide clear resolution steps or recommendations to help users recover from errors.
For many runtime errors or exceptions, computer programs will return an error code, but the user does not understand what is happening when they see these error codes, so be sure to convert the error code into information that the user can understand, and tell the user how to solve it.
Lenovo PC Manager customer service page is missing, he gave a very clear error prompt, and also attached a visual illustration design, relieving the user's anxiety.
Lenovo computer store application is also yes, the message can not be viewed, it tells the user what causes it not to be viewed, and gives the user a very clear guide and direction.
10. The principle of help
Even if the system design is intuitive, it is necessary to provide easy-to-retrieve help information. Help documentation should be clear, concise, and provide clear steps to resolve the issue without being overly complex or verbose.
Today's software products, especially C-end products, generally have a good interactive design, which can help users quickly learn to use without reading and understanding complex documentation.
However, the complexity of B-end products is much higher than that of C-end products. Because the B-end product contains many business process rules, a button in the system may represent a complex business processing logic. If you don't understand the entire business scenario and processing rules, it is difficult to understand the meaning of the button.
Therefore, for B-end products, it is much more difficult for users to carry out self-service and self-service operations, and there is still a need for help documents for B-end products. Product designers should try to do a good job of guiding prompts in front-end interaction design, and for complex rules and logic, they can consider using help documents to guide them.
The rookie wrapping mailing page, the function of entering information above the input address bar is provided, and through the one-click recognition button, the information pasted in can be intelligently filled into the information column below with one click, which provides users with a lot of help and convenience.
Kuwo Music has set up an entrance to help in the settings, and when users need help, they can provide feedback in it, and then the platform will help you.
summary
By reading combined with their daily product experience, you will have a deep impression and understanding of these design principles, just looking at these text descriptions, you may not be able to clearly appreciate its value, but when you go to life with these thoughts to find evidence, you find that these design methodologies are really a big treasure, with this methodology thinking designers can design a lot of reasonable designs, which is convenient for users to use and greatly improves the beauty of the page.
The views in this article are all personal understanding and summary, and you are welcome to comment and correct the deficiencies in the message area, and everyone will make progress together!
This article was originally published by @姝斐suphie on Everyone is a Product Manager. Reproduction without the permission of the author is prohibited
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