While reading about design in terms of user experience rather than visuals, I thought about Google’s “Material Design” spec, for which Google won a 2014 UX Award. It was recognized for its ability to “add clarity to user-initiated events by creating strong visual connections from user input.” This Google spec is about establishing visual language, new possibilities with mobile design, and “meaningful motion.” As in, meaningful design that has the purpose to help the user’s experience be more intuitive and pleasant, rather than gimmicky. There is a section specifically about design responding when interacted with by the user, which is an interesting cross between experience and visual design in my opinion. I kept thinking about Shneiderman’s “Golden Rules” of designing with your users in mind. Google’s spec is basically a guide to their language, and to the logic behind it. It explains why their designs react and interact the way they do, and is also interesting because many of the designs are made in a way to not be noticeable by the users, so seeing them as a blatant design shows just how smart they are. The “Responsive Interaction” section is a guide on consistency in actions, the number one rule of Shneiderman. It combines with two other rules – feedback for actions, and making users the initiators of actions – to become a successful guide to achieving this “meaningful motion” they mention. Consistency is important because the user needs to know what their actions are doing, and what the hierarchy of their content is. Buttons should react the same way when pressed, transitions should be consistent and subtle, hover functions should indicate active content the same way, and windows (browsers and pop-ups) should be layered according to a system. If something is suddenly different, the user will expect a different action to occur, and if there is no reaction from the design, the user will think their action didn’t get processed. This is why feedback on actions is important, and why designing them needs to be part of the ux process. It can also make the experience of using your website enjoyable for your users, and make them want to click on more things, which leads them to discovering more of your content! These reactions from the design are part of the interactive design process, but they are also very dependent on their visual design. A ux designer can decide that there needs to be a shadow under a window, for example, but the look of this shadow (subtle, gradient, behavior) is just as important in the user’s experience of it.
http://www.google.com/design/spec/animation/responsive-interaction.html#responsive-interaction-material-response