Key words: interaction design, five elements of interaction behavior, behavioral logic, physical logic.
After extensive attention and continuous practice in previous years, the understanding and application of interaction design concepts and methods in domestic academic circles and industries have achieved initial results. Especially when Baidu, Taobao, Alipay, WeChat, Xiaomi and other emerging business ecosystems from a single product to the whole industrial chain gradually mature, the industrial environment served by designers, the product attributes they pay attention to in their work, and the evaluation criteria of design process and results are very different from the physical product design we were familiar with five years ago. Before we reflect on the ontological attributes of design objects (what is it), change the design process (how) and redefine the judgment criteria (why), there is a very important thing that needs to be clarified, that is, the objects of interactive design and the decision logic in the design process.
First, the object of interaction design: the design of behavior
As a formal research direction, interactive design began as early as 1960s. Early interaction design mainly focused on the interaction between people and machines, especially computers. Its main purpose is to make computers and other emerging digital products accepted by more ordinary users by providing an easy-to-understand operation interface. With the continuous maturity of information technology and the development of Internet industry, user experience has a greater and greater influence on consumption decision-making. One-time interaction design almost covers product research and development in different fields and industries, including information technology, Internet, Internet of Things, service and experience. However, as a widely used concept and method, interaction design still lacks a relatively stable theoretical framework to summarize its research ontology and describe its decision-making rules.
1, the difference between "design of behavior" and "design of things"
Design is generally understood as creation in the traditional sense, that is, the design of things. On the other hand, interaction design is creating "behavior". It also needs things, but only regards things as a medium to realize behavior.
Take the mobile phone as an example. As a communication and social product widely used by consumers, the user experience of mobile phone is often a topic discussed by interaction designers, and it is also the focus of mobile phone brands and service providers. IPhone is generally regarded as a successful model of interactive design. Although few people can clearly describe the interactive form of iPhone or say that it is different from other mobile phones, we can get a lot of inspiration from the following simple phenomenon. Whether designers or ordinary users have their own iPhone, they will pay attention to various interfaces and like to show them to friends and family. Slide to open the interface, enlarge the picture, flip automatically, flip the CD record and so on. Think back to the release of Motorola V3. From the company itself, designers and users, we all talked about the thin black metal flip shape of V3. Subsequently, V3 kept its original shape and introduced different colors. This seemingly ordinary phenomenon provides important clues for us to understand interaction design. When people describe Motorola V3, they always regard it as a successful case of industrial design to describe its physical properties, such as shape, size, structure, color, texture and so on. However, when describing the iPhone, people rarely try to describe its physical properties, but choose to demonstrate an event, such as browsing pictures or playing music.
Let's look at another example of mobile phone interaction design. Figure 1 shows the comparison of user usability between a certain Nokia mobile phone and a Samsung mobile phone, and analyzes the user usability through information architecture visualization [1]. The figure compares the functions (tasks that can be achieved) of Nokia (marked in black) and Samsung (marked in blue) and the process of achieving the tasks. The circle in the middle is the function of the mobile phone, and each operation step needed to realize each function is unfolded in turn along the concentric circle. As the picture shows, it takes five steps to make a phone call with a Nokia phone, while it takes eight steps to make a phone call with a Samsung phone. It takes 8 steps to send a text message with Nokia mobile phone, while it takes (8 6)14 steps with Samsung mobile phone. By analogy, we can see more differences between the two. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why in the previous user perception evaluation, users generally think that Nokia's user experience is better, because it can make tasks easier and operations easier.
Figure 1 usability comparison between Nokia and Samsung mobile phone users
The same is to adjust the screen brightness. In the case of similar appearance, Apple's iOS operating system and Android system provide users with completely different paths (Figure 2). The lines with different colors in the figure are the paths that users have tried in the actual user test. Obviously, the path of iOS is more convenient and clear. Although Android system provides more possible paths, it makes users spend more time in the selection process, and the probability of making mistakes increases accordingly.
Fig. brightness level path comparison between iOS (left) and Android operating system (right) screens.
The aforementioned comparison of user concerns between iPhone and Motorola V3, the comparison of user usability between Nokia and Samsung, and the comparison of iOS and Android operating systems should clearly reveal the essential differences between interactive design and traditional product design. Interactive design has changed the traditional object-oriented design in industrial design, graphic design and space design, and directly takes human behavior as the design object. In the process of interactive behavior, objects including software and hardware are only media, tools or means to realize behavior. Interaction designers pay more attention to designing reasonable user experience than simple product functions. In this way, consumers get not only a single product, but a complete service platform based on products. The difference between interaction design and product design is shown in Figure 3. [2]
2. Five elements of interactive behavior
As early as the early 1990s, Professor Richard Buchanan clearly defined the object of interaction design as behavior, "creating and supporting human activities through the intermediary influence of products" (creating and supporting human behaviors through the intermediary function of products). [3] Unfortunately, although this definition clearly points out that the object of interaction design is human behavior, and this definition has successfully guided the development of interaction design discipline in Carnegie Mellon University, this definition has not been understood by more people, more accurately and deeply. Many people pay attention to the user interface, that is, the intermediary influence of the product, and ignore the activity itself.
When the behavior process is the design object, its properties are no longer the physical properties such as function, structure, material and color that traditional industrial design usually pays attention to. Interaction is a round of interaction caused by "action" and corresponding "reaction". Action here generally refers to conscious behavior, of course, the person who performs the action, the purpose of the action, the means or tools to realize the action (which can be software and hardware, a certain part of the body, or even the external environmental media) and the scene where the action takes place. For the time being, people, actions, tools or media, purposes and scenes are defined as the basic elements or five elements of interaction design (Figure 4). The Five Elements is inspired by Kenneth Burke's theory of the five-in-one and "identity" in drama [4]. If a new concept of an industrial product can be obtained by changing the material, color, structure or function, then a new concept of interactive design often needs to start from the perspectives of redefining participants, positioning behavioral motives, planning behavioral processes, seeking new means, and creating new scenes and environments.
Figure 4 Five Elements of Interactive Behavior
Second, from physical logic to behavioral logic.
When a designer needs to reasonably integrate five elements, such as people, action, tools or media, purpose and scene, to complete a task and make users get a good experience, the logical laws he follows are necessarily different from those of product designers, who mainly consider how to reasonably use physical properties such as structure, material and color to realize a certain function of the product.
Comparison of 1, Yahoo and Flickr homepage interfaces
Let's look at the comparison of two Internet services, Yahoo and Flickr (Figure 5). In order to organize complex information, Yahoo's homepage at least uses the "LATCH (Location, Letter, Time, Category, Hierarchy) method, the classification method in the information organization method (top and left information or service parts), hierarchical division (video in the middle," hot topics "in the upper right corner), and chronological arrangement ("all news "in the middle and bottom). Of course, these are not all ways to organize information on Yahoo's homepage. As a search engine and portal since the mid-1990s, in order to meet people's demand for information, it is Yahoo's main task to organize information and corresponding services carefully. The organization and presentation of information here (such as the use of latch method) is similar to the optimal combination of product functions, structure, modeling, materials and colors in traditional physical product design, because designers believe that reasonably organized information and services are the basis for Yahoo to serve Internet users. Next, look at the Flickr website. The design of Flickr homepage adopts a completely different idea. The three eye-catching entrances of "upload", "discovery" and "sharing" in the center are obviously not three picture information plates set according to a certain classification method of pictures [5], but appear because of three typical behaviors of users. The first thing that people who come to Flickr think of is what I can do, "upload, find or share?" Instead of browsing which pictures are available in Flickr. Here, the user's behavior has become the main object of design, and the different behaviors of various users are presented on the homepage as typical user behaviors through user research, which fits the possible and ideal behavior path of mainstream users to the greatest extent.
2. Behavioral logic and physical logic
If "reasonable organizational behavior is the basis of decision-making" is called "behavioral logic", then "decision-making basis that emphasizes the rational distribution of things' own attributes" can be called "physical logic". Yahoo and Flickr are both Internet products. Although both emphasize serving users, they reflect two completely different ideas. First of all, the objects of concern are different, Yahoo's concerns (virtual information) and Flickr's concerns; More importantly, due to different objects, the design decision-making process depends on completely different logical thinking. Yahoo is a reasonable organization of "material" attributes (classification, structure, presentation form, etc.). ) as a virtual object, it follows physical logic; On the other hand, Flickr plans the behavior process according to people's behavior, purpose and habits, and it follows the behavior logic. It is difficult to judge Yahoo's information organization simply from Flickr's design concept. I believe that Yahoo's designers also consider the needs of various users as much as possible and present information to their user groups as reasonably as possible. Similarly, it is difficult to judge and modify the design scheme of Flickr with Yahoo's thinking, unless Flickr is completely changed, such as using Yahoo's information classification to present the pictures uploaded by users to Flickr on the home page according to types (scenery, people, art, etc.) for users to browse. ), area, time, pixels, etc.
If Yahoo and Google are compared to the Internet services of search engines, the differences brought by their different thinking logics are even more obvious. When Yahoo wants to present all complicated information to users in a reasonable way, it relies on many methods and tools to organize information. At the same time, users also need to find the information they need at different levels of Yahoo's information architecture. Google, on the other hand, adopts behavioral logic, and its one-click mode is undoubtedly the most economical and reasonable from the behavioral point of view. It is hard to say that a certain logical thinking has more advantages, and the conclusion may be different from different angles.
Let's take a look at another example, which is about the user experience test of the compound copier widely used in the office. Here, we chose Konica Minolta Bizhub 75 1 compound copier, and the experiment was completed by Xie Binhuan, a graduate student of interaction design at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, under the guidance of the author (Figure 6). What is certain is that Minolta's designers and engineers must make full use of all kinds of complicated mechanical and electronic components, cooperate with the corresponding software, and meet the complicated tasks of copying, scanning and binding for commercial users within the corresponding cost range. Its modeling must also fully consider the style of modern office. Especially when we compare it with the early duplicator, it is more powerful, smaller and more cost-effective. Simply considering the function, structure, shape and even price of Konica Minolta Bizhub 75 1, it should be said that it conforms to its physical logic as a commodity and is a successful design. However, when we start to consider the user experience, many users find that even very simple tasks can become very complicated without experience or guidance (Figure 7). In Figure 7, three colors represent three test users, all of whom need to complete the same simple task, that is, copy on both sides of A4 paper. Each gray or colored square represents a key on the operation interface, where the colored square is the key clicked by the tested user; Each line represents a path from one key to another. The horizontal axis at the bottom represents time, and the "X" on the time axis represents the path of task failure. From the complicated path and many clicked buttons in the picture, we can imagine the confusion and helplessness of the operator at that time. In other words, a machine with perfect function and reasonable structure can not meet the requirements of behavioral logic well from the perspective of usage behavior, especially task flow.
Fig. 6 konica minolta Bizhub 75 1 compound copier
Fig. 7 User experience test using Konica Minolta Bizhub 75 1 copier.
According to the test and analysis report, the main reasons why Konica Minolta Bizhub 75 1 copier is difficult to operate simple tasks are as follows: 1) The symbols on the control interface can't match the user's behavior language of copying tasks well, that is to say, the key icon can't clearly tell the user the specific tasks it performs and the corresponding results; 2) The information architecture provided by the interface well follows the requirements of the machine's own function, structure or acquired software programs, but it cannot match the user's thinking and behavior habits; 3) The division of interface information often follows the division of function blocks, but does not correspond to typical task flows; Because the machine needs to fully display various functions, as a result, there will be a lot of information interference in each operation process, which will bring a lot of misoperation; 4) There is no result preview or reminder to avoid misoperation, which cannot be corrected in time. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that the "unreasonable" design of the operation interface leads to poor user experience in the testing process. However, even the tester who can't successfully complete the given task can clearly feel the powerful function and reasonable structure of the machine itself and a set of logic behind the control interface, but the physical logic following the machine attributes can't match well with the behavior logic of the user to complete the copy task. In this way, it is not difficult to understand why most manufacturers provide free on-site machine training when customers buy composite copiers, and it is not difficult to understand why the instruction manual of Konica Minolta Bizhub 75 1 copier is 604 pages thick.
3. Functional user interface design and behavioral user interface design.
According to Yvonne, Sharp and Preece, the interaction between users and hardware products or software products can be divided into four modes: guidance, dialogue, manipulation and exploration. User interface is often divided into graphical user interface, entity user interface and natural user interface according to the technical realization means of interface.
From the comparison and analysis of physical logic and behavioral logic, the interface can also be divided into functional user interface and behavioral user interface. The former uses physical logic to organize the interface, the main purpose of which is to meet the function realization; The latter emphasizes the user experience and organizes the interface with behavioral logic.
Fig. 8 is a comparison of different user interfaces of the physical logic and behavioral logic design of the same refrigerator (for confidentiality reasons, some details are not convenient to expand here). On the left is the user interface information architecture of refrigerator function around physical logic, and on the right is the behavior information architecture redesigned according to the concept of behavior logic on the premise of satisfying the same function. The dotted lines in pink and orange respectively represent the running paths of two typical tasks based on different information architectures in the actual test. Although almost the same user research method was used in the design of two different interfaces, the typical task flow was analyzed for typical users, and all the function nodes in the task flow, that is, the different operation icons reflected in the interface information architecture, were obtained. Obviously, the original design reasonably integrated all functional nodes into a concise information architecture according to its technical attributes. The redesigned information architecture is obviously more complicated than the original architecture, because it does not integrate the same function node in different task paths, but retains the complete task flows of all typical paths, thus inevitably causing the same function node to be repeated many times in different task flows. In a sense, or from the classification of functional attributes or the rationality of technical implementation means (including the difficulty of background programs), the original information architecture may be more reasonable. Theoretically, such a functional user interface can satisfy the smooth completion of all tasks, but users need to learn and be familiar with the distribution of different functional nodes in the information architecture through repeated practice. Simple information architecture does not conform to users' habits, so users often need to jump between different functional blocks and different information levels when completing a task. On the other hand, the seemingly complex behavior information architecture is more intuitive and convenient in practical use because of its combination of organizational principles and typical paths of typical tasks. In fact, this simple case also reflects a phenomenon that many interaction designers often ignore, that is, it is impossible for a user to present a complete information architecture level in his mind during the use process, and he rarely operates under the condition of fully understanding the information architecture. At every decision moment, users usually face a simple choice, including giving up. In other words, the complexity of information architecture itself and the complexity of users' use are judged by different logical thinking.
Fig. 8 Comparison of information architecture between functional user interface and behavioral user interface of smart refrigerator.
(Designers:, Wang, etc. ; Project guidance: Xin Xiangyang; 20 13)
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Behavioral logic aims to provide a conceptual support for the construction of interaction design methods, and hopes to provide some clues for distinguishing functional user interface design from behavioral user interface design. The following are some supplementary instructions.
First of all, because the user's behavior itself is influenced by many uncertain factors such as scenes, emotions, man-made, society and so on. Behavior logic does not expect to find some scientific or even mechanical logical connection of the behavior process itself, but emphasizes that behavior is the ontology of interface design, and the consideration of interface design is measured according to the process rationality and user experience of specific tasks. As a new design concept, behavioral logic can guide design methods, especially the transformation from scene design to user interface information architecture. The reason why "storytelling" has become a common method in interactive or user experience design is to organize "people" and their "behaviors" reasonably by designing stories in appropriate "scenes" and using appropriate "means" so as to achieve reasonable "goals". This is a way to show the results of interactive design. Behavioral logic is helpful to enrich design concepts and methods, but it does not deny various design methods under the guidance of physical logic and physical logic thinking. The role of philosophical concepts is often to provide ideological tools for solving puzzles, rather than to explain the truth that may not exist in the first place.
Secondly, there are many academic achievements in psychology and cognition for reference. Behaviorism is a schools of psychology developed at the beginning of the 20th century, which is different from traditional psychology which studies inner thinking activities. It emphasizes the study of human or animal behavior that can be observed and measured. Early behaviorists included John B. Watson and B. F.Skinner [6]. In the second half of the 20th century, behavioral science was gradually covered by the influence of cognitive science. Psychologist Donald Norman successfully transformed the psychological research results of human cognition and behavior into people-oriented design criteria and methods, including conceptual model, feedback, limiting factors and inspiration (original "influence", also translated as "preset use"), which are all requirements for design from the perspective of user psychology, cognition and behavior [7]. Obviously, these principles do not follow the physical logic that emphasizes the rationality of the object's own attributes.
Finally, as an important design field, it is necessary for interaction design to develop its own vocabulary. As a research direction, interactive design can be traced back to 1960s and 1970s. However, many people engaged in interaction design practice still cannot describe the concept of interaction and judge the quality of interaction design results in accurate language. The development of design language is not purely theoretical research, but on the basis of full practice, through abstraction, we can obtain concepts that can explain design phenomena and serve design practice. Professor Donald Norman introduced the concept of "emotion" and explained many seemingly simple design phenomena, which can't be described by traditional design language. His research has contributed many useful linguistic or philosophical concepts to the interaction design standard. The exploration of interactive five elements, behavioral logic and other concepts is also to serve design practice by enriching design concepts.
To annotate ...
[1] User usability analysis based on information architecture visualization is a method developed by Professor Xin Xiangyang when he was the director of interaction design course at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Some research results were published in the 4th National New Media Art Department (Dean) "Graduate Curriculum Outline Design" Forum on 20 10, Guangzhou Interactive Design Experience Day on 20 10, "The Neglected Interactive Essence", 2065434.200101010106
[2] For more comparison between interaction design and product design, please refer to Xin Xiangyang's Neglected Interaction Essence on Guangzhou Interaction Design Experience Day 20 10, Interaction Design Emerges from Chaos in Design Magazine February 20 10, and Interaction Design and Organizational Innovation in Beijing Interaction Design Experience Week 20 12.
3. Richard Buchanan. "Design is exploration: commonness, future and present of design." Proceedings of the International Conference of Design Research Society in 20041/month. John Redmond, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia and other editors. 2005.
[4] Kenneth Burke. Introduction: Five Key Terms of Drama is from Drama Grammar. University of California, Berkeley Press, 1969. Pages 15-23
[5] The picture shows the homepage before the revision in May 20 13. Although there are differences between the current home page and the one before the revision, it does not prevent the old version from being used as a case to illustrate the problems that need to be explained in this paper.
[6] Graham, George, "Behaviorism", "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" (Autumn Edition, 2065,438+00), Edward N. zalta (ed. ), website =.
7 Donald Norman. Psychology of everyday things. Basic book,1988.p.9.
This paper is an academic paper published by Professor Xin Xiangyang in the issue 1 5 of Decoration magazine.