IxD Methods, Patterns and Principles
Information architecture and interaction design can be defined by naming its associated methods, patterns and principles. This page lists the common elements, although it is not comprehensive.
Methods and documentation
- Card sorting
- Content inventory
- Site maps
- Interaction flowcharts
- Wireframes
- Evaluation methods, such as GOMS keystroke analysis and cognitive walkthrough
Some methods (e.g. card sorting, site maps) are primarily for information architecture, which is not the focus of this course.
Patterns
Some examples:
- button interaction states (static -- hover -- click -- visited)
- call to action (most commonly addressed with a pop-up dialog)
- confirmation (for error prevention, e.g. repeated password)
- progressive disclosure
Principles and Theories
Below is a list of principles and terms associated with interaction design.
- affordances
- bottom-up vs. top-down information processing
- chunking human memory vs. visual display (understand distinctions)
- cognitive load theory
- consistency (aesthetic, functional, internal, external)
- cost-benefit
- control-effect mapping
- degree of control (as a function of user expertise)
- depth of processing
- difference threshold (also signal detection theory)
- earcon
- Fitts's law
- flexibility-usability tradeoff
- Gestalt principles (closure, common fate, good continuation, law of Prägnanz, proximity, similarity)
- Gutenberg diagram
- Hick's law, effect on practiced users
- inattentional blindness
- information foraging theory
- interference effects (e.g. Stroop effect)
- locus of attention
- modal error
- Norman's user action framework
- Occam's Razor
- one-to-many (data entity relationship)
- priming
- recognition over recall
- satisficing
- signal-to-noise ratio