self-made

Designing the obvious

Thinking of Interaction Design as a Form of Typography

Interaction designer and Typographer shared process

The best process when designing interfaces is the data driven design vs. the graphic driven design. When designing for people, for usability, designing a service, a useful object, a useful site or phone, we _as Interaction Designers_ need to think about the obvious. What is it that will make people intuitively understand the means of the product? In other words, make the end result as intuitive, and as natural to use as to turn a door knob in order to open the door.

Design should make our lives easier, and not complicate them. Design should be invisible. When designing a site, whatever this site might be, design should be the structure on which content sits and blossoms.

In an attempt to describe what I mean by Id = = Typography, I will quote a passage from, The Elements of Typographic Styles, a bible for contemporary typographers and designers, written by Robert Bringhurst :

“There are always exceptions, always excuses for stunts and surprises. But perhaps we can agree that, as a rule, typography should perform these services for the reader:

• invite the reader into the text;
• reveal the tenor and meaning of the text;
• clarify the structure and the order of the text;
• link the text with other existing elements;
• induce a state of energetic repose, which is the ideal condition for reading.

While serving the reader in this way, typography, like a musical performance or a theatrical production, should serve two other ends. It should honor the text for its own sake – always assuming that the text is worth a typographer’s trouble – and it should honor and contribute to its own tradition: that of typography itself.”

The Invisible

Embracing the future, letting go of the past

The keys to hold in your hands as a designer, specially one designing interfaces aimed to serve as a service, or as a bank of content, is the following:

• invite the reader/customer/blogger into the content;
• reveal the tenor and meaning of the content of the site;
• clarify the structure and the order of the site;
• link the content with other existing elements of the site, or other services, or other contents;
• induce a state of energetic repose, which is the ideal condition for reading/browsing/using the information.

Your design should be honoring the content of the site. Content itself should be placed on an invisible and solid structure balanced in space and organized in a hierarchical way favoring priority of information. Brand should have enough space to deploy its colors or shape not overlapping the information, or compromising the understanding of the content.

Concepts of visual design can be applied when thinking of an interface. Concepts like how the eye reads in diagonal, “le vide est aussi important que le plein”, catchy elements, color attention, and so on. However any type of ornamentation, or decoration should be abolished when thinking and drawing an interface as it serves no purpose for the content. The goal and purpose of the site is aimed to invisible and transparent.

When designing the obvious, the useful, the seamless, it is important to always be reminded to know the content of which you apply Information or Interaction design to. The structure that is thought first, then drawn should also be basing itself on reality (data) and feasibility.

Check List

Things to remember

1. Get the content
2. Make a thorough content inventory of the site
3. Work on a content strategy
4. Know where this product is positioned in the market, and who else is offering the same type of things (competitor research can inspire you a lot!)
5. Research who is going to use it, and how