Questions tagged [interaction-design]
Defines the structure and behavior of interactive systems. Interaction Designers strive to create meaningful relationships between people and the products and services that they use, from computers to mobile devices to appliances and beyond.
156
questions
35
votes
3
answers
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Modals on top of modals
Using bootstrap modals, I keep running into the issue of having an info modal with content inside of it, but there's a need to have a "confirm your decision" modal/popup on top of the initial modal.
...
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99
votes
2
answers
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Why is Google using a (new) 2 step Gmail sign in process?
I am not asking about the two factor authentication process where the user needs to enter both a password and a one-time-password.
Gmail recently (I don't know from when exactly) changed their login ...
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645
votes
13
answers
320k
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Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?
Is this a legacy thing or does a tilted cursor serve a purpose? I can tell that the angle provides a totally vertical left edge which helps when highlighting text but what else apart from that?
EDIT: ...
- 4,449
55
votes
4
answers
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Character limits on textarea fields - pros and cons and best practices?
Some of our form fields have character limits. We're debating whether we should reflect the current size of data entry, or to simply hard-limit and inhibit data entry beyond that size.
In HTML, ...
- 9,311
29
votes
8
answers
34k
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How do you deal with very long dropdown values?
Usually, dropdown menus are made as long as their longest value. However, that works well only for dropdowns with a predefined set of values. How can we deal with a dropdown that receives its values ...
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20
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3
answers
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Design patterns or strategies for complex or large table data in Mobile phones
I want to display a table with 4/5 columns and possibly 100 rows (as in desktop app right now) in smartphones. The table cells are also editable. Now we want to port this desktop app to smartphones (...
- 1,201
364
votes
23
answers
91k
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Is this rotating cube interface user-friendly?
I'm working on a prototype for an innovative form interface, where different parts of the form are shown on different sides of a cube. The cube rotates, and the user can fill it out as the cube spins. ...
- 5,298
81
votes
14
answers
41k
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Make people understand they can click on a button in a flat design
I'm creating a flat-ish responsive website, which basically is an online résumé.
I'm displaying skills (but it could be whatever) in a grid system. Each skill is clickable, to display some ...
- 913
29
votes
9
answers
10k
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How should I interview UI and IA job applicants?
I'm a programmer who knows enough about UI/IA to sound convincing and cares enough to want to hire someone who actually knows what they are doing. Interviewing programmers is easy - they go on and on ...
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26
votes
4
answers
9k
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Building logical criteria (with AND , OR, etc)
I am looking for inspiration on this. We have a Dot.Net web application, where we are building pretty complicated criteria. It works, but I would like to change this, re-shape this, possibly from the ...
- 363
25
votes
15
answers
8k
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How to build a budgeting interface (sum of items must equal 100)?
I'm trying to build a visual web interface where users can distribute a budget over some (varying) number of items. For example, if the budget is 100 points, I might allocate:
50 points to 'Apples'
...
- 359
17
votes
4
answers
18k
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Press-and-hold or Long-Press Gestures: Unintuitive?
Often, I find people struggle with the usage of press-and-hold gestures on mobile/web platforms. The mere thought of having a user press on a defined object and hold for an arbitrary amount of time ...
- 530
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votes
3
answers
8k
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Behavior of the Enter button in a form
What is a better experience for a user if they press enter when using a form?
Should it submit the form or move to the next field?
- 187
6
votes
9
answers
1k
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Should the results of a calculation happen automatically, or require a button push?
This is a problem I've ran into several times, and I imagine that others have ran across it too.
Basically, I have a complicated equation, and I want the user to type in the values needed to ...
- 378
5
votes
2
answers
2k
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What affords scrolling?
Besides the obvious:
Scrollbar
Touch interfaces (especially mobile ones)
A sign saying "You can scroll here you know!"
This for a desktop application.
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72
votes
10
answers
22k
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Undo History - Why limit it? [closed]
Why do most applications have fairly limited 'undo' history functionality?
I've been caught out on multiple occasions (granted its technically my fault) where I've needed to undo a number of changes ...
- 2,464
68
votes
19
answers
43k
views
Form for inputting operating hours of a business
I am designing an interface where restaurants need to input their operating hours. I am thinking of using a slider control for timings for a single day, and then let the user choose days of the week ...
- 4,633
58
votes
6
answers
30k
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What's the point of a "Read full story" button?
I've noticed a lot of news websites, particularly on mobile, sometimes will cut off their story with a button you have to click to see the rest of it. I can understand why they'd do this if they ...
- 683
53
votes
13
answers
39k
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Better way for users to select a date range
In my application, users select a date range for which results are required. The UI looks something like this:
My users don't like this, because the date picker requires them to select a specific ...
- 8,311
24
votes
3
answers
14k
views
Is the usage of text embedded in an image a bad practice, for very controlled uses?
What are your thoughts on writing your text in images?
I'm not saying throughout the whole website... But in certain key locations like image carousels. And I'm not talking about the special cases ...
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23
votes
9
answers
2k
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How can you make a user experience addictive? [closed]
What factors and techniques contribute to making a user experience addictive?
I ask this in the context of websites, games and other software. What makes people want to keep coming back for more?
Philip Morton
19
votes
7
answers
5k
views
App interface for changing relational percentages
Has anyone ever seen or used a good app interface (web or mobile) for changing relational percentages? E.g I need to change 3 amounts to make up £100 and I need to be able to use any permutation to do ...
- 441
15
votes
4
answers
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Multi-selection dropdown list implementation best practice
Many websites do not use multi-selection dropdown lists anymore, and the reason often cited by UX practitioners is that this UI element does not 'test well' with users. An example of what I am ...
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3
votes
2
answers
314
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How to set a quantity by entering an exact number, or a difference (add/substract amount)?
I have to design a form with one field being a quantity that represents the number of available items of a given product. I want to allow the user to modify this quantity in 2 different ways, in the ...
- 133
2
votes
1
answer
592
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What is the best graphical interface for inputting a list of pairs?
I want to create a graphical interface for inputing skill build orders for an RPG game. A skill build is an ordered list of (skill, number) pairs, like this (see footnote):
(A x1) -> (B *) -> (...
- 121
51
votes
16
answers
23k
views
Should double click be avoided in web applications?
I find that double click is a great gesture that could be successfully used in graphical interfaces but for some reason has negative connotation on the web. Should it be avoided at all costs?
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votes
12
answers
27k
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Are two toggle buttons better than a tri-state switch?
I have a grid of people where for each person the user needs to decide whether to include the person in a predefined group, exclude them from the group, or leave it undecided. The initial state is ...
- 31.2k
32
votes
10
answers
33k
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Which way should arrows point for a dropdown button?
In the following images I've animated a button dropdown where the arrow animates to the downward position when displaying the dropdown menu.
Wondering if there is any usability studies on this or if ...
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31
votes
6
answers
4k
views
What makes users register?
First off - I want users to register on my site. It's a site for image sharing, sort of like imgur.com. But what makes a user on a website register? I have people coming back to my site but they never ...
- 451
18
votes
8
answers
3k
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Is it ok to change the (US) address input field order in favor of a pre-fill feature?
I am working on an international site that requires the user to enter his postal address. I am wondering if it makes sense to have a slightly different order of input fields in favor of a time saving ...
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17
votes
3
answers
5k
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What do you call websites that make heavy use of vertical scrolling?
This question is similar to Why did scrolling vertically became a pattern?
I see a lot of modern websites moving to larger, singular pages with more content and more vertical scrolling. This is often ...
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15
votes
9
answers
7k
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How can the design for elevator/lift door open/close buttons be improved?
The typical symbols for operating lift doors are:
Door open: ◄ | ►
Door close: ► | ◄
More examples here.
They look confusingly similar, especially at times of emergency. Have you ever pressed the ...
15
votes
3
answers
48k
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What should be maximum and minimum length of persons User Name & Password? [closed]
I am wondering because I am trying to make sure that person have right amount of spaces for their user name.
User Name and Password are security measures and should not be easy to guess. I have fixed ...
- 355
11
votes
4
answers
4k
views
When is it appropriate to split functionality into separate apps?
I'm a designer and my company has a single app that serves two different types of user.
One group is the general public, who uses the app to navigate big events (e.g. annual user group meeting ...
- 161
10
votes
4
answers
747
views
Does any research/study exist on what makes an interactive document better from a user experience perspective?
I am aware that there is a lot of research into page layout methodologies and the flow of design elements (text, diagrams, etc) such as the Gutenberg Diagram, Z-Pattern, F-Pattern, and so on. I'm also ...
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10
votes
3
answers
18k
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What is the difference between web design, interaction design, user experience design, and user interface design?
It seems all four of these branches of design relate to each other at one point or another, and one can easily be confused for another by novices or outsiders looking in. Job postings online ...
- 357
9
votes
3
answers
4k
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Design pattern for merging duplicate contacts?
Have you seen any good examples of applications (web or desktop) that make it easy for a user to identify and merge duplicate contacts or other records? We need our users to manually approve the merge ...
- 101
9
votes
4
answers
941
views
Design for Application consistency or follow OS convention?
When we design applications to be used in the new world of cross channeling, we need to take into account a lot of different factors. Not only do we need to address in which environment the app is ...
- 55k
7
votes
5
answers
5k
views
Should we place custom back button for websites?
How about a website that has 4 pages with list and detail view structure?
Hope most of the users will be aware of using browser back button to go back to previous screen. Or should we provide a ...
7
votes
3
answers
1k
views
Invite users to inline edit not only on hover?
It's very common to indicate to the user that they can "edit in place" by changing the style of the editable content when hovered over (e.g. adding a yellow background, "click to edit" tooltip, pencil ...
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7
votes
2
answers
2k
views
UI simplicity vs complex requirements
I'm in the process of crafting a relatively complicated interface for a niche social networking website and I'm struggling to achieve a satisfying level of simplicity for the UI.
Given that "modern" ...
- 173
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votes
5
answers
3k
views
Can we use CAPITAL LETTERS to indicate actions?
While designing for the web or the mobile applications, a natural free flowing text can be used for the general content, but when it comes to actions... can we use CAPITAL LETTERS.
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votes
2
answers
3k
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Real time filtering vs Apply filters button?
We are integrating a BI tool into our maintenance system and I am currently evaluating two viable products to put forward as a recommendation.
One item where these tools differ is their filtering ...
- 1,157
6
votes
1
answer
1k
views
What is the best format to capture addresses for a universal user-base?
What is the best and most usable format to capture address information from a universal user base? I was thinking to have the system detect the country by IP address and have that selected by default, ...
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votes
3
answers
4k
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Is it a good idea to use a Floating Action Button for non-actions?
Google Material Design guidelines recommend to use Floating Action Buttons primarily for a promoted action. However, recently there seems to be a rather solid emerging trend to use these buttons for ...
4
votes
4
answers
499
views
Is it ever acceptable to break extremely common interaction functions?
There is an adage in web UX which goes 'Don't break the back button' which refers to the fact that the back button in a browser is such a consistent function that to create a situation where it's ...
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votes
4
answers
2k
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is horizontal swipe intuitive enough on mobile
Working on a mobile checkout page and would like to know if you'll think its intuitive enough that the user knows there are more products on the right side that could be reached by swiping using the 2 ...
- 10.7k
3
votes
1
answer
281
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Why does Twitter limit tweets to 140 characters? Why this number? What are pros and cons of this design?
I am developing an educational website in which students can share luthier learning tips with their classmates. It is important for me to make the posts as small as possible. However, I don't know how ...
- 131
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votes
2
answers
1k
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What's the best design pattern for splitting things in parts?
I want to design the following interaction: user buys 1 ton of sugar and 100 apples, and wants it to be shipped to him in 3 different packs:
Pack 1: 200 kg of sugar and 50 apples
Pack 2: 100 kg of ...
- 69
2
votes
2
answers
202
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Hardware permissions in browsers
We're building an app that allows people to upload or record their voice or video using HTML5 (not flash). We've run into a problem where users can't seem to find the button to allow the app to use a ...
