Designing features for New and Intermediate Users

Unlike a static piece of design, interfaces are dynamic. They are the handle by which a person may control and interact with a complex tool. As an interaction designer it is your role to plan and design this interface between the system and the user in a manner that is effective, learnable and affords the appropriate interactions and functions to allow your user (and stakeholders) to achieve their goals.

In order to successfully achieve this you, as the designer, must be aware of the capabilities and behaviours of both your product and your user as how the user of your system expects it to behave and function rarely ever matches the way it actually functions, nor should it in most situations. Your job is to create a representation of the functions of the system that allows the user to interact with the actual implementation of the system in a way that fits their own mental model of how it should work.

Your representation model is what the user will interact with. It is the interface between how they think the system works, and how it actually works, which is why it is essential you understand both your system and your user.

In order to achieve this understanding you will need to do research. Design research is vital to understanding a design context and the people within that context and it is the often the first step in any complex design process. To practice this you will be completing an interface design project over the course of the next few weeks.

For this project your team will be designing a new feature for an existing social-cycling application and so you will need to swiftly become an expert on the existing interface, analyze the interaction patterns, features and brand of the application, learn who the primary users of the interface are, and, most importantly, what are the needs and goals of these users and how you can use these goals in order to design interactions that enhance and empower their experience with your interface.