Interface in Your Face

Every day I check the news on my phone, check my emails, check twitter to see if my bus will be delayed, check Facebook to see what my friends abroad are up to, if it’s after payday I might make a trip to the ATM and then head to the self-service machines at Tesco’s for some lunch. All this different information is relayed to me by a screen which I can manipulate to give me the information that I’m looking for.  Everyday people are interacting with different user interfaces. Even people who don’t consider themselves very ‘technologically wise’ (like my mom) are using these machines without much trouble. Why is that?

The user interface is one of the most useful tools that can be manipulated for information. If we look at web design there have been major advancements with Web 2.0. You no longer need to understand any programing to have your own site, and most interfaces will follow similar principles. For example most actions can be undone if you make a mistake, icons that look and behave in a similar way become easy to recognize on any site and users know how to manipulate a screen with touch or with a mouse.  Without an interface how would we be able to check our emails? Would we even have come to invent it and use it as widely as we do? I doubt it. The jobs of these various designs are to communicate messages and that’s exactly what they do.

If we take a quick look at the BBCs web page on our computers and then the same site on our mobile phones there are noticeable differences. Your mobile will have shorter story synopsises, less browsing options and less advertising. However the layout of the web site is similar with the logo appearing at the top, and the headline stories directly below. It’s also noticeable that on the phone your courser will change check you click a link which might have been incorporated into the design as you don’t have a mouse. We have come to expect our web pages to be laid out in ways that are familiar to us so we can use the interface quickly to get what we’re looking for. Scandinavian designers have always been talking about how simplicity is the key. I believe it’s the same principle when it comes to interface design. If it’s not easy to use then what’s the point? People will just look for the information somewhere else.