Norman's Seven Principles of Interaction Design

The discipline of interaction design has benefited greatly from the contributions of famous design researcher and cognitive scientist Don Norman. Norman has highlighted several important concepts and principles linked to interface design, even though he may not have a precise set of "principles" like Shneiderman's Eight Golden Rules.

Don Norman clarifies the design of commonplace items like doors, stoves, thermostats, and more in this timeless book. He then designs technology items using these universal design concepts. One of the foremost authorities on human-centered design, Don Norman's writings on the subject should be studied by all product designers. These ideas are still something I work with daily as I design Note Joy. To demonstrate how Don Norman's six interface design principles still apply to creating digital goods, I wanted to go over each one.

1. Visibility:

The fundamental idea of visibility states that the more obvious a feature is, the more probable it is that users will be aware of it and know how to use it. Equally significant is the opposite: it is more difficult to know about and utilize something that is hidden.

Despite how straightforward this idea is, designers still need help to implement it. In a recent design argument, the trade-off between tab-bar menus and hamburger side-bar menus in mobile applications revolves around this precise visibility idea. Although a mobile app's hamburger menu offers a handy location to keep a range of menu items, it has a major drawback in that the contained menu items need to be visible. To increase the exposure of their essential experiences, popular apps like Facebook have started to revert to tab-bar menus instead of hamburger menus.

2. Feedback:

The idea of feedback is to make it obvious to the user what has been done and what has been accomplished. In interaction design, feedback can take many different forms, such as tactile, visual, acoustic, and more. The secret is to create an experience that never leaves the user wondering what they have done or what the results are.

A range of design patterns have been formed to give the user input, and as new interfaces are developed, these feedback patterns are always changing. This short video demonstrates the various ways in which you can give feedback to users about their actions within a mobile application using Google's Material design style.

3. Constraints:

The goal of constraints is to narrow down the user's interaction options to streamline the user interface and direct the user to the right course of action. Constraints are helpful in this situation since they make it obvious what can be accomplished. An infinite number of options frequently confuses the user.

These days, conversational interfaces are very popular because they allow us to communicate with computers using our natural language, which seems much more organic than using more conventional user interface techniques. But up until now, these interfaces have needed more limitations: it is hard to determine what kinds of queries the conversational interface genuinely enables when there are so many possible things you could say to it. Furthermore, because modern technology is unable to provide an answer for every conceivable question, the user finds the seemingly limitless options annoying because it becomes harder for them to understand how to use them.

4. Mapping:

The goal of mapping is to establish a direct connection between controls and their impact on the environment. The feeling of this mapping should be as authentic as feasible. Here, stovetops make a perfect example. The mapping in the first image could be clearer because it's hard to see which control runs each burner. The control that operates each burner is much more visible in the second image due to its superior mapping.

5. Consistency:

To be consistent, one must use comparable procedures and components to complete comparable tasks. You can greatly simplify the use of your experience by utilizing features that are consistent throughout. It is crucial to maintain consistency not just inside your interface but also among the several interfaces users utilize on various devices.

Utilizing iOS's Human Interaction Guidelines and Google's Material Design Guidelines extensively while creating mobile applications is one of the greatest ways to promote consistency across apps.

6. Affordance:

An object's affordability is defined as its quality that makes it possible for people to use it. Fundamentally, to afford is to provide a hint. A mouse's physical button indicates that it can be clicked to initiate an action. Strong affordances make it very obvious how to use an object. Don Norman goes into great detail about how doors frequently have subpar affordances. It's only sometimes obvious when approaching a door whether to pull or push. To indicate that a door must be pushed and not pulled, one custom is to place a sheet of metal at arm's length on the side of the door that needs to be pushed.

7. Conceptual Models:

Users develop an internal mental model of a system. An effective design fits in with users' mental models, which facilitates their comprehension and ability to forecast the behavior of the system.