Interaction Design | Techlist.io

figmaAug 22, 20182 min readCurated summary

The finale of Prototyping Week: Interactions | Figma Blog

Figma concluded Prototyping Week with **Interactions**, allowing prototypes to respond to user behavior more realistically. Designers can now model hover, pressed, mouse, touch, and timed behaviors, making prototypes more suitable for realistic testing. The release also rounded out a week of updates focused on navigation, device presentation, and external linking. ## Interactions for More Realistic Prototypes - New interaction types include: - On Click - While Hovering - While Pressing - Mouse Enter - Mouse Leave - Mouse Down - Mouse Up - After Delay - “While Hovering” and “While Pressing” can show button hover states or pressed list-item states. - “Mouse Enter” and “Mouse Leave” provide finer control, such as keeping a dropdown menu open until another interaction occurs. - On device frames, some interactions appear as On Tap, Touch Down, and Touch Up. ## Timed Transitions with After Delay - “After Delay” automatically transitions between screens after a specified duration. - It can simulate notifications, splash screens, and automatic redirects. - The transition applies only from one screen to another, rather than from a specific layer within a frame. ## Other Prototyping Week Releases ### Landscape Device Frames - Figma added device frames for screens designed to be viewed in landscape orientation. - This expanded the device-frame support introduced with Figma 3.0. ### Clickable URLs - Prototype frames can link to external websites or other Figma files. - For example, a presentation can link directly to a designer’s portfolio. ### Back Transitions - Users can return to the previous screen without duplicating screens or transitions. - Back navigation preserves the user’s starting point when a screen is reachable from multiple locations. - If the original navigation used animation, the back action plays that animation in reverse. Figma’s updates make prototypes better representations of real application behavior. Designers can use the new interaction triggers, timed transitions, links, and back navigation to create more accurate and flexible user-testing experiences.

Read original

Interaction Design Figma Prototyping User Interface Design+2

figmaJun 27, 20183 min readCurated summary

Art of Listening: One designer’s foray into experiential design | Figma Blog

The article profiles IDEO interaction designer Mike Godlewski and his side project, Art of Listening, a communal music experience built around focused, uninterrupted listening. Inspired by a movie club, Mike created a space where people listen to an entire album in silence, reflect creatively, and discuss it afterward. The project demonstrates how listening, intentional constraints, and offline experiences can enrich both personal creativity and professional design work. ## Listening as a Design Skill - Mike believes good designers should listen more than they speak. - Understanding human problems requires exploring people’s motivations, needs, and context rather than jumping directly to solutions. - This idea connects design with John Maeda’s distinction between design as a solution and art as a question. ## How Art of Listening Began - Mike was inspired by a friend’s movie club, where participants watched films quietly and discussed them afterward. - He adapted the format to music because he wanted a communal listening experience in his own life. - The project was designed to eliminate digital and social distractions while encouraging reflection. ## The Art of Listening Experience - Participants sit together in a living room and listen to an album from beginning to end. - The central rule is to stay quiet and pay attention: - No conversations - No phone checking - No arriving late - Participants may doodle, write down memories, close their eyes, or simply listen. - Afterward, they discuss the album and share sketches or other responses. ## Designing the Event - Mike carefully selects artists whose albums have strong rhythm, structure, and narrative arcs. - He researches interviews, podcasts, social media posts, and B-sides to understand the artist and album more deeply. - During the listening session, photos and quotations appear on a monitor, adding context beyond what a typical distracted Spotify stream provides. - The event’s simple rules and carefully curated environment make deeper attention possible. ## Offline Creativity and Interface Design - Art of Listening gives Mike a creative reset from his screen-based, systematic interface work. - He observes that many designers seek similar breaks through analog practices such as film photography, letterpress, or bookbinding. - The project shows that unexpected creative activities can replenish designers’ energy and influence their professional work. - Mike’s experience also illustrates how creative pursuits can lead people into unfamiliar roles—in his case, event planning. The article ultimately encourages designers to make room for focused, offline experiences. Listening deeply, imposing thoughtful constraints, and exploring unexpected interests can generate fresh perspective for design work.

Read original

Interaction Design Figma Design Thinking Visual Design+2

datadogMar 23, 20182 min readCurated summary

What product designers can learn from explanatory journalism

Explanatory journalism offers product designers a useful model: prioritize important context over the latest information, prevent context from being lost, and explain decisions clearly to different audiences. The author argues that thorough research and documentation make design communication more concise and persuasive. A well-maintained “papertrail” becomes the foundation for better decisions and explanations. ## Favor the Important Over the New - Constantly updating feeds encourage people to value recent information over significant information. - Designers face the same bias when reacting to the latest: - Support ticket - Meeting summary - Customer call - Feedback should be collected in one place and labeled by source so it can be weighted appropriately. - Tracking how many customers or teams request something helps identify common needs and prioritize them. ## Prevent Context Collapse - Sharing tools make it easy to distribute mockups and updates, but recipients may lack the background needed to evaluate them properly. - Product decisions often draw on many sources: - Customer support conversations - Product managers’ customer meetings - Sales requirements - Design research interviews - Executive goals - Designers should assemble this context over time and preserve it in one accessible location. - During reviews, the designer must explain not only the proposed solution but also how it responds to—or intentionally excludes—the concerns of each audience. ## Use the Available Space - Digital publishing and podcasts are not constrained by the same space limitations as traditional media, making background and context easier to provide. - The author describes design work as two phases: - **Expansion:** Gather research, precedent, data, requirements, and evidence. - **Contraction:** Distill that material into concise explanations and decisions. - A thorough, organized research record makes short summaries, presentations, and conversations more accurate and effective. - Links from concise explanations to the underlying research preserve context without overwhelming the main narrative. ## Build and Maintain a Design Papertrail - Documentation benefits the designer even when nobody else reads every detail. - A papertrail should be: - Created during the research process - Kept up to date - Revisited regularly - Used as the canonical source for design decisions - The work focuses primarily on product usability, workflows, and interaction design, while product managers may focus more on pricing, prioritization, timelines, and business considerations. The practical recommendation is to document broadly, organize the evidence, and explain selectively. Designers who maintain strong context will make better decisions and communicate them more effectively.

Read original

Interaction Design User Experience Product Design Social Media+4

figmaMar 8, 20173 min readCurated summary

Did Snapchat succeed because of its controversial UI? | Figma Blog

Snapchat’s confusing, unconventional interface may have helped rather than hurt its success. By rejecting standard usability rules, it created a product that encouraged exploration, social teaching, creativity, and a sense of insider belonging. Its design was partly accidental, but it also introduced influential mobile interaction patterns that made Snapchat distinctive. ## Breaking Conventional Usability Rules - Snapchat violated the principle of making interfaces immediately understandable. - Its navigation was chaotic: - Stories used both vertical and horizontal scrolling. - The camera screen contained unrelated controls. - There was no consistent navigation bar. - Designers argued that design should solve a problem, even if the result is less polished or intuitive. - Snapchat demonstrated that usability is not always the most important measure of a successful product. ## Tribal Knowledge and Millennial Appeal - Many users initially found Snapchat frustrating and ridiculous. - Its hidden features, such as filters and video calling, were often learned from friends. - This dependence on “tribal knowledge” created: - A sense of belonging among users. - A private space that felt separate from parents and older generations. - A rewarding discovery process. - The app’s messy interface also reflected the informal, chaotic identity its young audience associated with itself. ## Pioneering Mobile Interaction - Snapchat was among the first major social apps to open directly to the camera. - This encouraged users to create content rather than simply consume it. - Gestures such as swiping, tapping, double-tapping, and holding became essential commands. - Swiping to access filters was more fluid than browsing static filter thumbnails. - Its multidirectional navigation arguably suited touchscreen devices better than tiny menu buttons. ## “Shareable UI” Instead of Intuitive UI - Josh Elman described Snapchat’s approach as “shareable UI.” - Rather than making every feature discoverable by individual trial and error, the app encouraged users to learn from friends. - Social products can benefit from features that people want to demonstrate and discuss. - The goal is not always immediate comprehension; a powerful or entertaining product may spread because users teach one another how to use it. ## Accidental Innovation or Deliberate Strategy? - Some designers believed Snapchat’s interface was simply the result of accumulated bad decisions. - Others saw its design as unusually attuned to younger users and mobile behavior. - Regardless of intent, its unconventional choices helped establish new patterns for camera-first apps, gesture-based controls, and socially learned features. Snapchat’s success suggests that products do not always need to be intuitive or conventionally polished. A distinctive, difficult-to-master interface can succeed when it creates social value, rewards discovery, and gives users something worth sharing.

Read original

Interaction Design User Experience User Interface Mobile Design+3