Sunday, November 23, 2014

Let Us Comprehend CUBI—A User Experience Model Part 3




When we design for the user experiences, our prime target should be our end-users along with clients or business, content, and interactions in CUBI model. As we have seen the importance of content in previous part 2, now let’s explore the user goals as the next component of the CUBI model for UX designers.

When we are addressing the user goals, we need to consider types of users of our software product, their ultimate needs, identification of factors that motivate them to come at our product, study of their behavior on or with our product, and finally the outcomes of the whole exercise of the combination of the above given factors. If we arrange these above given layers in meaningful ways, they would give some solid outcomes through your UX designing. Let’s check those layers one-by-one.

Target Audience or Types of Users
It is imperative to run target audience research prior to begin any software project whether you go for web or mobile software products. In order to define our users, we create user persona by applying the best possible surveying and analysis methodologies.
This whole practice of creating user persona details
·         their various roles
·         their responsibilities
·         their skill levels
·         their demography
o   gender
o   age
o   language
o   location and more
·         their psychographics
o   personality
o   values
o   attitudes
o   interests
o   lifestyle
o   and many more

Besides these, we should know that when, where, and how they will use our software product.

Ultimate Needs of Users
Now, we have identified our user types so it is easy to define their relevant needs, expectations from product, and aspirations that can fulfill their goals of using our product. There may be very simple requirements or highly intricate needs that drive them to use our product. For sake of examples, we can list user needs in following ways:
  • Personal progression
  • Accomplishment
  • Mastery
  • Recognition
  • Status
  • Belonging
  • Expression
  • A sense of purpose
  • And many others

User Motivation Factors
As stated earlier, the user needs are the prime motivation factors for the users to come at our products and use them to meet their final goals in contexts of the products. Thus, the first and foremost duty of user experience designers to address the user needs by infusing additional motivations in wide range of intrinsic or extrinsic rewarding system or incentives. These rewards may include cues, design triggers, and many other modern techniques.

User Behaviors
When designers for UX are identifying the motivation factors and placing rewards in the design, their next goal would be to understand the user behavior for their designs. This need thorough research and implement behavior guiding or changing design solutions that may include the development of new habits/conventions and some user loyalty programs for the product of brand. 

Outcomes of Products
Once we create the combination of the described above factors such as needs, motivation, behaviors, and user types, they influencing the user goals and we can translate their outcomes into the meaningful and measurable outcomes for our end users.

If you have any query, regarding to your user experiences designing, please feel free to contact us at any moment and from anywhere.

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Author Bio:
Shoaib Marfatiya is an eminent writer in web development industry and its verticals. He has contributed a lot by throwing light on very intricate issues of web and mobile development community.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Working with and Building Modal Windows in Web Design Part 3



In previous part 2, we have discussed regarding the use cases of the modal windows in UI designing for web and mobile. Now, in this final and concluding part, I am going to give you some useful hints for usability and styling practices as well as trends you are going to build modal windows in your web designing projects.

Designing Blur and Fade out Background
As we have seen previously that modal windows usually for immediate actions and seek immediate attentions. Therefore, it is essential to highlighting modal windows through appropriate designing and scripting techniques. Recent trends show that background fading or blurring are highly used techniques to reduce obstacles in readability and attention grabbing.
Moreover, blurred or faded background gives clear indications of separations from the original web page or screen. This way, users have no visual clues to divert their attentions. Of course, giving heavy fade is not desirable practice, as users shouldn’t confuse that original page has gone. I think web designers shouldn’t go above 75% fade or blur of the background.

Designing Drop Shadow
In case of small modal windows or windows with less importance or users has to read or see the content of original page/screen in order to fill up info in modal windows, background fade or blur is not recommended. Therefore, designers take different approach to give separation effect to the windows by giving it drop shadow effects. This three dimensional visual clue grab attention of users and give opportunity to address the content or needs depicted on the modal windows with the least interferences.

Designing Exit Strategies
We know pop-ups are considering worst for user experiences so always give distinguish exit methods/clues to the users on modal windows and save them from becoming enemies of UX and usability. There are three popular designing methods of exit strategies like:


  •  X-button on the top corner of the window
  • Click outside the modal window
  • Esc button as keyboard shortcut 


Don’t forget to make them obvious and try to apply more than one method so users have freedom to use any.

Disabling All Other Functions
If you are not fading out or blurring the background of modal windows, you should disable the all-existing functions on the screen except scrolling so users can read/see entire modal windows in tiny screens too. Disabling gives better separation if you want users to see or read the background page/screen for some purposes.

Designing Transition/Animation Effect
If you give subtle animation to the modal windows and give them fading in and out like transition effects, you can win hearts of users and solve your purposes of creating better modal windows.

If you want to leverage the  benefits of modal windows and hence wish to have excellent user experiences in your web or mobile designing project Lujayn has team of seasoned web and graphics designers to give all with the least of investment of time and money.


Author Bio:
Shoaib Marfatiya is an eminent writer in web development industry and its verticals. He has contributed a lot by throwing lights on very intricate issues of web and mobile development community.

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