Week 7: Lecture notes

User interface design patterns:

• User interface design is about presenting the user the right tools to accomplish their goals
• user interface is more of a connection between the user and the experience and first impression and lasting impression either makes a website feel familiar & helpful or best invisible or forgettable & annoying
• good UI design should strive for a balance between aesthetics and effortless interactivity
• well in-designed faces should guide the users experience
• the user experience (UX) is the abstract feeling we get from using a website.

Common Navigation Patterns:

Tabs:

• tabs actually comes from the real world example of actual of a actual tabs in a filing cabinet
• can be seen as an example of skeuomorphism, which is the design concept of making items represented the real world counterparts skeuomorphism commonly used in UI, web design, architecture, ceramics, interior design.
• Tabs would be used for when content needs to be separate into sections & accessed using a flat navigation structure that gives a clear indication of current location
• you would use them when there is between 2-9 section of content of content that need a flat navigation mode
• also used when section names are really short
• also when you want to fill the entire width of the page
• The list of the highest available sections or sub sections of the website
• don’t want to show them when using content specific data e.g. a latest article

Dropdown Menu’s:

• used when to navigate among sections of a website
• saves space by organising and concealing information

Search Bar dropdown:

• shortcuts to pages

Big footer:

• used when users need a mechanism that will enable them to quickly access specific sections of a site/app & bypass the navigations structure

Home

Breadcrumbs:

• when the user needs to know their location in websites hierarchical structure in order to browse back to the high level of the hierarchy.

• it informs users of their location and relation to the entires sites hierarchy

• easily understood when laid out as a breadcrumb then if it’s put into a menu

• the name ‘breadcrumb’ is inceptive as it implies the history of how the user got to the page

Carousel:

• used when the user needs to browse through a set of items
• used when there is a large set of items
• used when not enough space

Reflection:

The most important aspect of the lecture pod would have to be the common navigation pattern ‘tabs’ because it is needed when content needs to be separated into sections and accessed through a flat navigation structure which gives the right indication of the current location, this aspect is very important for the users interface & user experience because it provides them a simplistic way to navigate to different pages with ease without having to see a whole bunch of content on one page which can be quite overwhelming for the user, that could lead to them leaving the website.