5 main principles of interactive design you can’t leave out

Interactive design let users interact with digital publications with animated texts, sounds or graphics. The interactive sector evolves quickly step by step introducing remarkable advances.

There are several essential principles related to interactive design. They are not only important by themselves, but they are also fundamental for the proper development of interactive publications. The first step is planning digital publications; the next one is studying all the key factors in order to reach our project’s goals.

Concepts described in this post are indispensable criteria to develop interactive designs because they guarantee the best experiences and solutions. Discover these aspects we are talking about.

Non-negotiable principles of interactive design

1. Consistency

Permanent elements on the interface should have the same grid design and proportions as the screens where digital experiences take place. User notice negative stimulus when some element is not properly set: when some elements change their aspect or move with no purpose, the interactive design is poorer. Consistency should be always present in the appeal, lay-out and performance of the digital elements. If they are not properly displayed, the user learning is harder because they are forced to find a different scope. An interactive design with consistency in appeal and performance means a guarantee to meet users’ expectations and avoid a bad experience.

2. Learning

Communication with users is always easier and more intuitive if it is developed with the goal of facilitate learning. Strongly related to the previous point, it is fundamental to understand the importance of design consistency and patterns: people usually interact with new interfaces the same way they do it with existing ones. The objective is not to force users to learn something new but provide them something that they are able to understand. If they can manage navigation through the interface the first time they use it, the experience will be positive in every level and will ease users’ understanding of our tools.

3. Usability

An interactive design should be able to ease usability, efficiency and user experience; in fact, there are some ways to improve interactivity in your digital magazine. Designers should have in mind the importance of providing easy and intuitive interactions to users. An interface can be perceived in a different way by different people. This is why it is recommendable to provide a wide range of advices and indications: icons, signs, buttons, textures… Usability and accessibility to interactive media (which means the way a user uses the interface) are factor that determine a good or bad experience: if users are able to click or use fingers with no need of thinking, we have developed a good design and an efficient usability. This way, we can’t develop interactive and accessible contents if we haven’t a proper digital publications tool to create them.

4. Prevision

Designers should also ask themselves where are located interaction possibilities in the interface they are developing. Context should be significant and reach stablished expectations. Demos, instructions and previews are really useful to guarantee interactions are properly developed to meet users’ requirements. The way users interact with the interface is essential to prove if it is understandable and ease to browse. A plugin to design is the best solution. Even though, prevision of these aspects helps to predict results.

5. Feedback

Feedback provides knowledge about users’ interactions and it also ease the experience. It is essential to continuously test the design to avoid bad experiences.

Those are the five principles of interactive design that every professional should embrace in order to observe, interact, understand and communicate knowledge. This is the best way to assure users easily understand the interface.