Interaction design connects user intent to a product action. It’s not just about what’s displayed on the screen, it’s about how users click, slide, swipe, move, decide, and complete tasks within your experience.
Amazing visuals, sleek animations and new components can elevate the user experience if it’s rooted in understanding your users. What are their cognitive models and understanding of how software behaves when interacted with?
Evaluating interaction design through a usability lens means asking whether it supports ease, clarity, and flow.
Here's how to evaluate how well the interactive elements of your product are working for your users:
Don Norman defined the concepts of affordances and signifiers in his book The Design of Everyday Things as:
Affordances determine what actions are possible. Signifiers communicate where the action should take place. We need both. - Don Norman
For example, a smart phone affords touch and a button signifies where to touch (or tap) the screen. Another example could be a slider that affords sliding and a label signifies what the slider adjusts.
Consider the following questions:
When filling out a form or completing a multi-step or multi-page journey each transition should feel smooth and predictable.
When transitioning from different elements such as a text input to a dropdown or date picker is flow maintained? What may seem like small interruptions such as having to change from typing to mouse control can break flow and increase effort.
Consider the following question:
Is this interaction helping the user or slowing them down?
Interactions that could slow a user down include:
When people are presented with too many options, they are more likely to struggle to decide which one to pick.
The paradox of choice is a phenomenon where an abundance of options can counterintuitively lead to less happiness, less satisfaction, and hamper the ability to make a decision. - Barry Schwartz
Effective techniques in reducing cognitive load and helping users make decisions include:
When the interface responds to a user is just as important as how it responds. If an interaction is too quick, a user may not notice it. Too slow and a user may assume that something is broken or has gone wrong.
A common interaction that can cause frustration because it is too presumptive is the early error message often seen on forms. This is the error message that tells the user they haven’t filled in the field correctly before they had a chance to type anything.
Interactions that are too slow can lead to the user clicking the same button over and over again or navigating away from the page, refreshing the page or closing the page down all together because they believe something has gone wrong.
Consider the following:
Interaction design that creates an ease of use doesn’t happen by accident. It’s carefully crafted using both affordances and signifiers, creating a flow that doesn’t slow the user down or surfaces unnecessary distractions and displays the right information at the right time.
By evaluating interaction design through the lens of usability, we can shift focus from what it looks like to how it feels to use. All of these things make software easier to use, making it feel intuitive and effortless to your users.
If you’re new to usability evaluations or want expert input, we’d love to support you. Whether you're looking for advice or a full independent review, get in touch - we’re here to help make your product better.
