Information Design Lab

Enhancing User Experience through Effective Transitions

80 minute course held on 18^th December, 2018 at IndiaHCI 2018 at Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology.
Conducted by Venkatesh Rajamanickam, Arihant Parsoya

Details

With dramatic improvements in display and processing abilities of computing devices, transitions in user interfaces (the visual changes on screen that take place during user interaction) have become an integral part of the user experience. However, most transitions use engaging animations or sophisticated motion graphics merely as a means to dazzle, impress or amaze users. We believe that transitions when employed correctly, can be powerful cognitive devices. They can help users form accurate mental models of complex information and task structures, navigate with ease, anticipate outcomes, and avoid errors. Drawing from time tested principles from the fields of animation, storytelling, and perception studies, this course will teach participants on how to employ good transitions to design effective user experiences.

Participants

• Students of interaction design who want to learn one of the fundamental aspects of designing good user experience.
• Industrial and academic researchers, who want to gain a new perspective on interface transitions, and be provoked to rethink the attitudes they currently have toward them.
• Designers and developers, who want to expand their repertoire of knowledge of how to improve user experiences in their practice.

Content

1. Introduction to Transitions: This section will provide brief background of how transitions are used as a means of communication in interfaces. We will discuss the fundamentals of transitions, such as Psychology of Motion Perception and Animation.
2. Elements of Transitions: This section will present important factors which should be taken into consideration while designing a transition. The factors will be explained by reviewing experiments done in Psychology of Motion Perception.
3. Principles of Transition: This section will describe how transitions can be used to convey meaning to the user. Several principles of transitions will be explained in detail. We also discuss different techniques to use the principles in practice.

Course Resources
Presentation can be found here as Google slides.
Presentation summary document can be found here
Exercises which was used during the course can be found here.

Contact

You can reach Prof. Venkatesh Rajamanickam via email