Curious to learn about interaction design? Learn the ten principles of the discipline here with hands-on steps for applying each one.
With an increasing number of companies recognizing the importance of the user experience in their businesses’ success, interest in interaction design over the last decade has soared. This is because interaction design not only impacts user engagement but also influences a user’s overall experience and satisfaction with a brand. When an organization prioritizes the key components of interaction design, such as usability, accessibility, and user-centricity, a positive relationship with users can be established and nurtured, boosting a company’s sales and long-term success.
If you’re interested to know more about the foundational principles of interaction design and how you can apply them to your digital products, then read on. In this article, we’ll be running through each of the ten principles and giving you step-by-step instructions on their application. We’ll also be offering real-world examples and common definitions to boost your understanding of this important design field.
Contents:
What is interaction design?
Interaction design is the process of creating interfaces and systems based on a detailed analysis and understanding of user needs. The goal is to enable meaningful and intuitive interactions between users and digital products, optimize usability, increase accessibility, and boost user satisfaction. Interaction designers seek to create seamless experiences for users with interfaces across all device types and platforms. er
What are the principles of interaction design?
Let’s dive into the ten principles of interaction design, their importance, and how to apply them.
1. Visibility
The visibility principle in interaction design states that the more visible a design element is, the easier it is for users to know and use it. The opposite is also true: if components are not visible to users, they will be harder to know about and engage with. This principle asks designers to prioritize what users need to see in order to achieve their goals and make those elements as clear, visible, and accessible as possible.
To apply the visibility principle, you’ll need to:
- Create a clear interface layout and organize related elements together. A visual hierarchy can help you to prioritize important components.
- Ensure navigation elements are consistently visible across all pages.
- Reveal information and options progressively. This means showing them to users only as and when they need them. An example of this is a tooltip that shows additional information when a user hovers the cursor over a particular element.
- Display key functions prominently, prioritizing them in the order of importance to the target user.
2. Feedback
The feedback principle in interaction design refers to when a design acknowledges a user’s action and makes clear the process that has been completed, conveying the results of the interaction in a clear and understandable way. Feedback in interaction design can take multiple forms, from visual cues and tactile alerts to notification sounds. Whichever form you choose to utilize, what's crucial is for the user to know what they have done and the result of their action, with no room left for ambiguity.
Typically, your design feedback should address the user’s location, their current status, their future status, and outcomes and results of actions taken, but that’s not all. Feedback should also give a user a good idea of how close they are to completing a task, as well as if any errors have occurred and the action needed to fix them. Finally, feedback should, where possible, provide adequate warning when it looks like a user may be about to make a mistake.
Here are some feedback examples in interaction design:
- When a user hovers over navigation items, the text becomes bolder. When the user clicks on one of the items, the text changes color.
- An animation or a progress bar indicates to the user that the system is doing something and they may need to wait.
To apply the feedback principle, you’ll need to:
- Focus on providing immediate feedback - maybe by changing the color of a button when it is clicked on.
- Ensure your feedback is relevant within the context. If a user makes errors completing a form, provide feedback clearly indicating where the errors are and how to fix them.
- Keep your feedback consistent throughout the interface and use visual cues and language that will be familiar to your audience.
- Consider offering real-time validation when users are completing tasks so they can immediately spot mistakes and make changes.
3. Consistency
In interaction design, the consistency principle requires designers to incorporate similar elements and interactions into their designs to improve findability and recognition, reduce the user’s cognitive load, and promote familiarity. Uniformity should be maintained across all versions of the interface, whether viewed on a tablet, laptop, or smartphone.
Consistency should be applied to every part of the design. The following are key areas to consider.
Visual consistency: Typography, colors, iconography, and layout
Functional consistency: Actions and behaviors of the interface
Interactive consistency: Platform responses to human interaction and requests
Content consistency: Voice, tone, terminology, language, and style of written text
Platform consistency: Mirrored experiences across different devices
To apply the consistency principle, you’ll need to:
- Maintain the consistency of all visual elements and design components.
- Implement the same visual cues for the same actions across a page or site.
- Follow established design patterns.
- Maintain the same functionality across all interactive components and ensure that similar actions yield similar results.
- Implement interaction patterns that users are familiar with.
- Keep the same terminology, tone, and style in all pieces of content.
4. Affordance
Affordance in interaction design is when users are directed or given an indication of how to use an item or object. With this in mind, the interaction designer designs objects with specific properties, characteristics, functional cues, or visual cues that imply how they can or should be used, usually without any additional instructions. These subtle indicators help users achieve their goals in a seamless and intuitive manner.
The affordance principle is beneficial in interaction design because it enables designers to create highly intuitive interfaces that support users in fully interacting with the system without having to consume instructions or guidance.
Examples of affordances in interaction design include a button’s raised shape to indicate it can be clicked on, the colour of an icon and how it changes when interacted with, or simply the placement of a menu.
Examples of affordances in interaction design include a button’s raised shape to indicate it can be clicked on, the color of an icon and how it changes when interacted with, or simply the placement of a menu.
To apply the affordance principle, you’ll need to:
- Pinpoint key user requirements and actions within the interface.
- Design buttons, icons, menus, and other visual elements that indicate the action the user wants to take.
- Make use of recognizable real-world metaphors to indicate the properties of components. For example, use an envelope to indicate email.
- Respond to user action with ongoing visual feedback. This reassures users that the actions they are taking are successful.
- Test your design with users to gain a sense of how effective the affordances are.
5. Learnability
Learnability is an important element of interaction design and refers to the ease with which users can understand, accomplish, and become proficient in using a system or interface when they first encounter it. This principle also addresses how many times a user must repeat an action before they can remember how the system works and become fluent in interacting with it. Essentially, the learnability principle requires designers to focus on creating interfaces that enable users to achieve their goals with minimal instruction or effort.
Important aspects of learnability include:
- The intuitiveness of the design: how well the layout, organization, and functionality of the interface match the users’ expectations and existing mental models.
- Clear, immediate, and consistent feedback from the system.
- Consistency of terminology, patterns, and system behavior.
To apply the learnability principle, you’ll need to:
- Conduct user research to understand your users’ goals and existing skill levels with similar interfaces.
- Focus on essential features and hide advanced features to simplify the user interface as much as possible.
- Design intuitive, clear navigation that helps users find what they’re looking for.
- Provide visual clues and hints to guide user action.
- Provide immediate feedback to help users understand the consequences of choices and actions.
- Ensure consistency and familiarity with terminology, feedback, and visual design elements.
6. Flexibility
The flexibility principle in interaction design focuses on providing users with options on an interface that enables them to tailor their experience to better meet their needs. Customization plays a major role here, with interaction designers creating interfaces that enable users to personalize their own experiences through, for example, the alteration of color schemes, layouts, and font sizes.
Adaptability is also important, with interfaces designed to be compatible with a range of screen sizes, device types, and usages. Modularity is another method that might be applied to increase the flexibility of an interface. This involves compartmentalizing interfaces into components that can be rearranged, hidden, or customized according to the needs and preferences of the user. Accessibility ensures those of all abilities can interact with and enjoy the design and needs to be considered by designers seeking to implement the flexibility principle. This might involve providing alternatives for input methods and even text so that all users are catered to.
To apply the flexibility principle, you’ll need to:
- Research your target user preferences to understand the diversity of their needs.
- Implement a range of customization options that help to meet the needs you have identified.
- Consider how you will adapt your design to different devices, screen sizes, and input methods using responsive UI design principles as your guide.
- Test, gather feedback, and make adjustments based on the suggestions of users.
7. User control
Great user experiences are defined by giving users the feeling of control over the interface they are interacting with. What this often means in practice is enabling them to correct mistakes or change their minds about decisions without consequence. Not only is this important for building a user’s trust in a system, but it also facilitates learning; encouraging users to discover new features and explore the interface more deeply. When users feel a lack of control, or the interface doesn’t support a user in getting out of trouble quickly and easily, users can feel dissatisfied, trapped, and frustrated.
Design elements that facilitate user control over an interface include:
- A Back button
- A Cancel link
- Undo and Redo buttons
To apply the user control principle, you’ll need to:
- Work with users to identify what level of control they are expected to have over an interface.
- Provide a range of meaningful choices and controls that enable users to adapt the interface to meet their preferences.
- Offer customization options.
- Seek consent for significant actions such as changes to settings or deleting files.
- Implement undo and redo features.
8. Simplicity
With the goal of creating seamless, uncluttered interfaces that are easy to interact with, the simplicity principle in interaction design is key to creating a positive user experience particularly for those with less technological experience or who are new to a website or app.
The principle advocates for reducing the user’s cognitive load by displaying information clearly, presenting features progressively and according to need, and prioritizing efficiency and minimalism to optimize usability. The goal is to reduce an interface to its core features so users can reach their objectives as quickly and easily as possible.
To apply the user control principle, you’ll need to:
- Identify the information that is most important to the user and prioritize this in your design for the interface.
- Use plain, clear language for labels, messages, and instructions.
- Minimize the steps a user needs to take to navigate the system.
- Implement a visual hierarchy, drawing the user’s eye to the most important elements on the screen.
- Eliminate visual clutter and keep the interface clean with lots of white space and related elements placed close to one another.
- Avoid any unnecessary decoration.
- Keep all design elements consistent throughout.
9. Accessibility
Accessibility in interaction design refers to the creation of interfaces that individuals of all abilities can use and enjoy. To create inclusive experiences for every user, designers need to take into consideration how users with visual, auditory, motor, and cognitive impairments can interact with the interface and enable features to assist them. In practice, this might look like offering various input methods, such as voice commands, or ensuring the system is compatible with assistive technologies.
To apply the accessibility principle, you’ll need to:
- Acquaint yourself with accessibility guidelines, for example, WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines).
- Ensure you use HTML tags to provide context and meaning for those who rely on assistive technologies.
- Include descriptive alternative text for all images and multimedia content as this provides information to those who might have trouble seeing this kind of content.
- Provide keyboard navigation for all interactive elements.
- Create color contrast between your background and foreground elements as this will improve the readability of text and support those with visual impairments.
10. Error prevention and recovery
The final principle of interaction design is that of error prevention and recovery. This refers to anticipating and mitigating user errors that might occur while interacting with the interface, reducing the impact of those errors, and supporting users in their recovery from the same. To do this, interaction designers seek to create systems that prevent errors from occurring, at all, in addition to putting in place features that can recognize and correct errors that do still happen. Examples of error prevention and recovery include displaying clear error messages, enabling undo functionalities, and implementing error-handling mechanisms.
- Go through your interface and pinpoint areas where user errors might occur. Usability testing will be a helpful process to employ here.
- Design feedback that is immediate and that clearly communicates the problem to users when they have made an error.
- Craft error messages which are both specific to the problem and easy for users to understand.
- Enable the undo functionality so that users can easily correct their mistakes.
- Offer access to tooltips, guides, and FAQs to support users in finding solutions to their challenges or rectifying mistakes.
Conclusion
In this article, we’ve run through the ten key principles of interaction design and how to apply them so that your users can soon benefit from more seamless, intuitive, and accessible interfaces.
If you’d like to learn more about interaction design, head back to the AND Academy blog for more articles like this one, or check out one of AND Academy’s design courses.
For further insights into the UI UX design industry and how to start your career in the field, here’s what you can do next:
- Watch this session by Shiva Viswanathan, Design Head of Ogilvy Pennywise, and Naman Singh, Product Experience Designer at RED.
- Talk to an AND Academy course advisor to discuss how you can transform your career with one of our courses.
- Learn more about our UI UX design courses. All courses are taught through live, interactive classes with industry experts, and some offer a Job Guarantee.
- Take advantage of our scholarship and funding options to overcome any financial hurdle on the path of your career transformation.
Note: All information and/or data from external sources is believed to be accurate as of the date of publication.
