#dan saffer

[afutureworththinkingabout]

My Appearance on The Machine Ethics Podcast's A.I. Retreat Episode

As you already know, we went to the second Juvet A.I. Retreat, back in September. If you want to hear several of us talk about what we got up to at the then you're in luck because here are several conversations conducted by Ben Byford of the Machine Ethics Podcast.

I am deeply grateful to Ben Byford for asking me to sit down and talk about this with him. I talk a great deal, and am surprisingly able to (cogently?) get on almost all of my bullshit—technology and magic and the occult, nonhuman personhood, the sham of gender and race and other social constructions of expected lived categories, the invisible architecture of bias, neurodiversity, and philosophy of mind—in a rather short window of time.

So that's definitely something…

Read the rest of My Appearance on The Machine Ethics Podcast's A.I. Retreat Episode at A Future Worth Thinking About

[ux-thought]

It's the Little Things

In user experience, it may just be the little things—the microinteractions—that transform a product, good, or service from tolerable to lovable. We take note of microinteractions in the moments when we aren't looking for a special feature but stumble onto something that delights us.

Microinteractions can appear or happen as a result of pushing a button, waving, saying a command, or other actions or they are initiated when certain conditions are met. When done well, they are mini experiences that can surprise and delight and seem to intuit just what the user was looking for or needed.

These elements have to be thoughtfully planned, so that the “secret” button patterns, switches, and cheeky copy blurbs, are polished and pleasant and don’t impede the user’s progress or otherwise make the experience inefficient.

adapted from “Designing Microinteractions” by Dan Saffer

[uxuichopshop]

Serendipity! Micro-interactions is the theme of choice this week. This article happened into my inbox, while I was working on polishing my wireframes, and then I noticed it was also an assignment this week! I received a timely article The Devil In The Micro-Interactions and was assigned MICRO-INTERACTIONS Designing with Detail: WHAT IS A MICRO-INTERACTION?

Third times a charm, and I think the universe just might be trying to tell me something…I realized, when submitting my site map and my first draft of wireframes, that I hit most of the target points and main screens, but compared to my team mates, I had forgotten micro-interactions. These mini sticking or smoothing points in interaction design can make or break an app. I know as a user myself, if I’m not required to use something, and it is a pain in the neck or just won’t ‘work’ for me. I will delete it or find another work around myself.

The 3 Top Rules:

1. Sweat The Small Stuff

2. Details Make The Product

3. Kill Your Darlings: Don’t Get Too Cute

“Authentication is a piece of the design—what Dan Saffer would call a micro-interaction. (Dan coined the term and wrote a book on the topic, coincidentally named Micro-interactions.) Micro-interactions are small moments where the user and design interact. When well-designed they enhance the user’s experience with the design. When poorly-designed they hurt the experience.”

The article on way finding on the internet, how users are like travelers at an unknown destination, is very fitting. We follow the lead of those around us and follow the heard to baggage claim, even when we can’t read the signs language. Same in this case, we are prompted by the apps actions, to complete the transaction. And I think my design so far is strong, because I built a solid architecture and hit main points that I would like to see in a lunch app for my kids school, knowing the pickiness of young eaters, and very different eaters, I was able to (albeit dangerously) bring myself in as a persona, in addition to the built in persona’s. But even with this experience, or maybe because of it, I forgot the micro-interaction of the lunch voucher. My team mates both built this in, so I will add this micro-interaction into my app.

The app would be an epic fail, for the many users that are on lunch voucher. So I will add that micro-interaction into my needed extra screens. I think an app’s interactions is much like communication, it is so easy to fail at, too easy to miscommunicate, than to communicate properly. And the interaction that makes or breaks an app, in my opinion, is the micro-interaction, because like in communication, what you leave out is just as key as what you keep in.

“Dan Saffer has a framework that divides the design of micro-interactions into four components: feedback, modes and loops, triggers, and rules. When should the authentication request be triggered? What feedback should the system give? What rules should the system use to trigger the request or to let the user through? Under which conditions (modes) or how frequently (loops) should the system insist on authenticating the user.”

Article links:

https://medium.com/adventures-in-ux-design/the-devil-in-the-micro-interactions-83ad59399cb2

https://articles.uie.com/focusing-on-what-our-users-shouldnt-focus-on/

https://uxdesign.cc/the-dangers-of-delightful-design-bb5834a1b684

http://www.eamesoffice.com/blog/the-details-are-not-the-details/

http://microinteractions.com/what-is-a-microinteraction/

[nocarbsstudio-blog]

Has design research really become “a subjective art”? 

[rogermontserrat]

El concepto sobre la respuesta #háptica provocada por la interacción que un usuario realice en una interfaz interactiva ha recibido y recibirá multiples nombres. A fin de cuentas lo más importante cuando interactuamos con un producto digital es disfrutar de una experiencia de usuario. Si esta experiencia no cuida los detalles el usuario no nos recordará ni nos valorará tan positivamente como en aquellos casos donde si cuidemos los pequeños detalles. Mitsuo Nagamachi: Ingenieria Kansei Google: Material Design Dan Saffer : Microinteracciones

[jean8ae-blog]

What is a microinteraction?

At first, I was a bit skeptical about the notion of "microinteractions." It sounded like a marketing buzz word to repackage known design principles; After all, what distinguishes interactions from microinteractions? But, this talk by design thought-leader Dan Saffer (author of Microinteractions) educates an elegantly formed and valuable thinking model that was well worth a view.

One of the challenges I think about in the design of digital products as well as business operations in general is conveying sincerity or authenticiy of experience. Saffer cites some great examples of interactions that do just that; something he described as relating a "humane piece of the future." (see 20:00)

Webstock '14: Dan Saffer - Designing with details

[ux-thought]

Bring the Data Forward

The difference between the products we love and the ones we tolerate are the countless microinteractions we have with them — and how those microactions make us feel. If you want to design things that people love, you’ve got to identify the little moments that matter, and make them even more meaningful.

One way to do this, is to bring the information that people want or need most right up front, so they don’t have to go all the way into the microinteraction to get it. And if you really want to delight your users, give them the data they didn’t even know they needed to know.

Better yet, use behavioral data, past history, and anything else you know about the user and her environment to bring relevant data forward and optimize the microinteraction.

adapted from “Dig Into Tiny Design Details” a talk by Dan Saffer

[nsylianteng]

Over the last decade, designers have been encouraged to think big, to solve “wicked problems,” to use “design thinking” to tackle massive, systemic issues in business and in government. No problem is too large to not apply the tools of design to, and design engagements can involve everything from organizational restructuring to urban planning. The results of this refocusing of design efforts are unclear. But by working at such a macro scale, an important part of design is often lost: the details that delight. Products that we love show an attention to detail: the beautiful curve, the satisfying click, the understandable mental model. This is another way to work: not through grand, top-down design projects, but from the bottom up, by crafting—lovingly, with care—small things. This is something designers can do quite well, with immediate, tangible results. This is another way to change the world: by making seemingly inconsequential moments into instances of pleasure. There is a joy in tiny things that are beautiful and work well. This joy is both on the part of the user and in the creator, even though it certainly takes skill, time, and thought to make it so. It’s hard work, and as admirable in its own way as tackling the Big Problems. After all, who doesn’t need more joy in their life? San Francisco October 2012

Dan Saffer’s book “Microinteractions”