What is interactive design? In the vast arena of user experience, interactive design is a significant component. In the simplest terms, we can understand that the interactive design process establishes a direct line of communication between the product and its consumers. In the majority of cases, people talk about interactive designs when the product includes apps and websites. User experience design or interactive design has the goal to enable the users and the customers achieve their objectives with the brand through the best medium experience.
The concept of interactive design process involves many communicational elements like sound, motion, aesthetics, space and many other things. Each of these elements has multiple specialized fields like the designing of visuals and sounds for user-interactions. Interactive design comes with the following dimensions:
- Words: Like those used in labeled buttons. These words have to be lucid and clear, carrying meaningful accents. The information should be communicated to the user without being too much overwhelming.
- Visuals: This dimension includes graphical elements like icons, images & typography through which the users can interact freely. They help in supplementing the words used for communication.
- Space and physical objects: Users interact with a website or app with the help of devices like computers, mouse or phones. It is important to build a design that will adapt into the screen of any of those devices through preset optimization of the elements.
- Time: Here, it signifies two things- the amount of time the user dedicates to spends to have a complete experience and also the time taken by the elements to load on the page. It is crucial to measure the turnaround time of every aspect to track the progress, potholes and scopes of enhancement in the interactive design process.
- Behavior: This is analyzing how the users perform their actions on the website and operate for getting a product, including gauging their emotional responses and feedback.
Questions asked by every professional during any interactive design project:
- How do the users interact with a website or app by using the mouse, stylus, finger, or any interface? The answer helps the designer with the possible circles of user interactions with the product.
- How do the color, size and shape of any element hints the user about its function? The answer to this question provides the idea of possible user-behaviors.
- Do the featured error messages explain the persistent problem as to why it occurred? The answer to this question helps in minimizing any kind of errors.
- What kind of feedback is provided to the user after any action? The answer to this question shows the kind of feedback given to the user at the time of any function.
- Are the elements of the interface functional to interact with? The answer helps in determining the usability of the added elements in the interface.
- Are the designed elements new or based on pre-explored formats? The answer to the question gives an idea about the product’s learnability.
Understanding the job of interactive designers:
In a large company with in-house creative teams, there will be a separate team for developing the UX for its apps and websites. As a part of the extensive team, some employees will have the job for interactive design process where they will be handling many ‘interaction designing’ tasks like:
- Design strategy: This area is concerned with the user goals and the kinds of interaction that are required to achieve them. It is all dependent on the company’s branding goals and its offered goods and services before they create a design strategy for aiding the user interactions.
- Prototypes and wireframes: Again, depending on the company profile, the interactive designers are given the task to make wireframes that form the product interactions. Along with it, they also build interactive & high-fidelity prototypes that may represent the actual app or website before finalization.
Characteristics of interactive design:
With the internet growing to be functionally penetrative, it has gradually made an intimate place in our lives. With the advent of leisure as well as home competing, there has emerged a plethora of digital devices that work by adapting to the human interactions. Before 1990, the concept of interactive programming took a backseat, but with the turn of the century, it started to gain popularity as a way to acknowledge more innovations beyond efficiency and utility. Today beyond just management tools, interactive design principles etch the ways into literary networks, media, study programs, and many other avenues.
The concept of interactive designing has many understandings, but mainly, it is all about shaping the digital mediums for peoples’ use. Here are certain characteristics of interactive design we should know:
- Designs are all about transformation. Interaction designs help people evolve the concept of communication on the digital platform.
- Interactive design helps the professionals to explore new alleys and ways in which communication and interactions can be placed.
- It is through interaction design that people find solutions. The digital precinct is challenging as well as confusing and with the knowledge from interactive designers, they make the models more accessible and easy.
- The design process involves sketching or tangible representation of ideas. It is the simplest way to portray what the artist is thinking and how his or her thought can prove to be of value for the company.
- Interaction design is a discipline which works at multiple aspects for different environments. Thanks to the flexible technology, the process becomes instrumental in forming impactful and impressive designs.
The best interactive design tools for designers:
1. Framer X
This is Mac only software that in-built react components for allowing designers for performing high fidelity prototyping.
- Enables high-fidelity prototyping with animations
- High-end app store for UI elements, icons and code-components
- Allows to bring in live data
2. ProtoPie
A high-end prototyping platform that comes with
- Impressive features like prototyping connections between the devices or any IoT devices.
- Integrates with Sketch on the Mac OS, Windows and Adobe XD.
3. Adobe XD
A Vector-based technical assistant that enables creating simple prototypes & wireframing. It
- Records audio-based interactions with desktop preview apps allowing voice record along with any click-through communication.
- Has features like playback and voice triggers
- Plugins add dummy data, easily integrates with UserTesting & React Component.
4. UX Pin
It is a collaborative platform used for prototyping & designing available for any browser, Mac or Windows. It:
- Allows multiple editor
- Interactive symbols, elements and accessibility code components & features.
- Uncomplicated library – system collaboration.
5. Studio
Another Mac only tool that aids in collaborating, designing and prototyping. You can:
- Sync in your creation with the InVision Cloud
- Make use of the shared design libraries for syncing components across Studio files
- Public API your creations to other web apps, scripts and tools.
The types of interaction design commonly seen
The best way to understand the concept of interactive design is to look at a few examples around us. After pursuing the web, you will find many examples across various verticals. Here’s what we found from our side of research:
- Captivating brand experience: In the homepage of Haagen-Dazs India, we find the impressive interactive design efforts of the professional. Not relying on the filling texts, the webpage is all about the premium range of ice-creams that the company offers to its global consumers. The interface is clean and the layout is very much plain yet attractive. The color scheme matches with its brand ethos that boasts of its creations being premium. All interactive components are placed strategically where the user would like to explore more. The images are linked with respective dedicated pages that provide more information.
- Innovative design: At the homepage of Kulture Design, you will probably get your mind blown by its fantastic looking motion banner that represents its creative approach to translate data into visuals. Below the banner you will be able to explore its various work projects and get a glimpse as to how their works are actually being appreciated around the world. Along with customer testimonials get a glimpse of their creation through a sneak peek at their Instagram section, featured on the home page below. The website is everything that is rarely seen, making it an innovate experience for b2b clients for making the deal.
- Cinematic designs: Explore the website of Resident Evil – the game and discover, perhaps the most underrated ‘Cinematic Design.’ This design is mainly used in making of movie or video game websites. In the home page, we find very minimal texts with an animated banner. The entire page has the color scheme that is at par with the theme of game- terrifying, challenging, horror and gory & of course, there is a warning strip for it at the bottom. The audience will find every detail with dedicated links and tags given through minimal texts.
Besides all these, we have come across
- Talking characters in video game or any demo-based app/website
- Advertising mediums that allow people to explore the product in 3-dimensional accents
- Artistic visuals presented through animations coupled with music and lasers in tech-based exhibitions
And Interactive Design Fetches Growth For Business
- Interactive design connects to the customers at the core level of their interest. The communicative platform answers every query and helps them shape a decision instantly.
- Interactive design works with the consumer psychology. Suppose a charitable organization asks for a donation of $1000, chances are you will walk away. But if the same trust shows you through their website about the work they are doing where you can learn beyond their words, you might just donate the amount.
- Interactive designs help in increasing the conversion rates by building trust in the minds of audience without even asking too much personal details. It is all about impressing them and not interfering. It is all about the first impression that stays as the last impression.
- With the data collected from every customer visit and transaction, your business will be able to understand the consumer behavior and from that analysis, you can enhance the personalized marketing strategies, driving more sales.
- As the audience comes back to your website, you will be on their mind time and again whenever they think of any product or service you offer.
- With the interactive design, be on the minds of targets that are built by the existing ones. This is best carried out in social media where new connection making becomes an easy job.
- Your website will receive more backlinks as you start to impress the audience enough that they take you as a prime example.
- The more traffic you gain, the better will be your chances to make it big in the search engine of Google.
And now, the time is yours…
Want to get a hold of impressive design options for your website, app, or social media visuals? Seek the professional assistance of design teams that work as an extended creative team of yours. With unique designs and class-apart thinking give your business the edge of exclusiveness and gain a competitive advantage amidst your peers.
