Intro to microinteractions reading
“My philosophy is ‘It’s much better to be upset with yourself for having done something stupid than to be upset with a device that made the wrong decision on its own initiative.’”
I totally agree with this, when a mistake is made by someone else (or something else in this case), it could make people much more upset than when we embarrass ourselves by doing something stupid. This is one of the reason why I got interested in UX design in the first place. I was always frustrated with confusing design that interrupted me from completing a simple task, and I think it is way easier for users to point out bad designs that leave them with frustration while users don’t even realize that they are interacting with good designs because having a smooth interactions with products and services would not leave a strong emotion like frustration or confusion.
The difference between a product you love and a product you tolerate is often the microinteractions you have with it. They can make our lives easier, more fun, and just more interesting if done well.
If the microinteractions are poor, the main features, no matter how nicely done, are surrounded by pain and frustration. The design of your product is only as good as its smallest part.
These quotes are similar to the one I chose above, but as it says, small things change the whole experience which I totally agree with. There are still times when I just give up using an app or website just because I get irritated, especially when I try to do something with my muscle memory with other products and experiences that I previously had and it doesn’t work like the ones I already got used to - it is completely personal, but it is users that make any product survive or not, so we cannot just ignore it. I think good UX is about eliminating frustrations from users’ experience, then adding useful functions and cool designs later.
The tiny things we unthinkingly interact with every day on desktops, laptops, and mobile devices were once novel microinteractions: everything from saving a document to organizing files into folders to connecting to a WiFi network were all microinteractions that needed to be designed.
I personally love this part, because when I think about what we had 10 years ago, I would’ve never thought about what we have been using on a daily basis right now. Currently I have 4 Alexas and 6 light bulbs that I can control through sending Alexa voice commands. I have Roomba that automatically starts cleaning when it detects that I left the house every morning. They are all something I didn’t even know that would be in my life at all, but here now I use them everyday, and can’t even think about my life without them. Every technology and microinteractions that we experience every day right now was once novel inventions, and while it might still sound scary, there are more to come in the future.
