Several weeks ago Google updated their Google Images page interface design to move from a text-based to a more image based user interface.  The most noticeable changes include search image results that are assembled in a larger, more mosaic style pattern.  Google vice president of search products and user experience Marissa Mayer also maintains that “stripping [the interface down] and highlighting the image” will be simultaneously enticing and beneficial for users.  The idea is that users will have visually visceral and instantaneous access to the products that they seek.

Further changes to the Images interface include the way Google allows users to view selected pictures. Users can now click on the desired image and it will be blown up with the website of origin shown as faded in the background.  Google will also be phasing out text ads and replacing them with image ads to further improve the usability and clarity of its interface design.

But now let’s look at the interface design features that struck me: OnLive’s interface design is, in a word, cinematic. Upon starting the program a small overlay opens up requesting log in details. The background of the menu screen is made up of a number of small screens with running games, supposedly being played that moment by other users. The layout of the interface design is nicely suited to video games as there aren’t too many menu options, and it’s clearly designed to be easily navigable with a control pad. Choosing one of the menu options, such as the Marketplace game store, reveals breadcrumbs at the top of the interface design – one of those usability best practices. When acquiring a demo, the top right of the interface design layout of the games menu displays how much more time users have to play the game until they must purchase or rent the full-version. All in all, this is an interface design that is refreshing and easy-to-use, which is a great plus with online gaming services.

OnLive’s greatest challenge to date is keeping the lag down to a minimum of micro seconds. When streaming video, buffering time of 3 seconds is manageable. While playing a video game, 3 seconds could well mean game over. OnLive feels to me like a service intended for use two years from now (ready for use in Japan). The service is currently only available in the US where only 25% of broadband connections are faster than the 5 Mbps threshold needed to use it. Despite this, the service holds promise, working and sporting the same interface design on multiple formats such as PC, Mac, Linux, TV and even the iPad, which may make it a triumph of interface design.

I recently came across an interesting gaming platform that I thought I’d share. It seems appropriate since there were several things that I noticed which stood out with regard to its interface design. Well, you’ll see for yourself if you read further.

OnLive is a new service that seeks to turn the gaming world upside down with a decidedly disruptive Web 2.0 approach. Thus far video games have been largely an affair of hardware, localized at that. You (which usually meant mum or dad) would buy a game console or a PC with the best possible graphics card etc… Once that business was out of the way all that was left was to buy the games. This meant buying a piece of plastic with data on it. With the advent of ubiquitous internet, downloading games directly to your local hard drive became possible through services such as Steam. However one needed compatible hardware to be able to run the software. OnLive’s premise is to harness the cloud and a web-browser for gaming. The games run on servers in a remote data center and the audiovisual output is streamed to your computer in exchange for your controller inputs. This means that as long as you have a good internet connection, the hardware settings of your computer do not matter. All very nice so far.

What else has changed?

Users with a WizeHive account can now log in with their Google account. This enables them to access Google Docs from within WizeHive’s interface design and link the appropriate documents to specific workspaces. Data can also now be tagged thus adding to the usability of the software tool offering users a way of organizing information in way that is meaningful to them. In addition to these changes, WizeHive has released a free iPhone app that manages to cram as much of the functionality of the web-app into an interface design that fits the iPhone’s smaller screen real estate. Changes such as these further underscore WizeHive’s easy-to-use collaborative interface design concept and point into a future direction of pushing aspects like collaboration and mobility even further.

Overall, the interface design changes seem to have a positive effect on the usability of the application and they may be a good example for other tools to follow.

WizeHive, an online collaboration tool that lets users share files, manage projects and track activity with others in secure, private workspaces recently revamped its interface design along with adding further functionality. A great opportunity to look at some interface design questions. WizeHive allows users to track multiple people and projects through its project management system. Users can create workspaces tailored to a specific client for the sharing of key business data, notes, documents and tasks. In addition, WizeHive helps to automate business processes, such as job applications or contests, through its WizeApps.

What has changed in the interface design?

Perhaps the most notable change to WizeHive’s interface design is that the new interface design is now much more streamlined, thus saving users time when they work with WizeHive, which may potentially bring down costs.  As before the interface design displays recent activity within an activity stream like Twitter, but now up to five workspaces can be added to clickable tabs at the top of the screen for easy access in addition to a ‘More Workspaces’ tab to access other workspaces that are not displayed by an individual tab within the interface design. There are further little improvements that all seem to add to the usability and clarity of the program.

How do users use the Guardian’s interface design?

For Phil Gyford, this meant creating a website with a unique interface design that features nothing more than a page that starts with the leading article from the daily newspaper. The date features at the very top of the page. The main navigation options are clicking right and left (for next and previous article respectively) thus meaning that users have no option but to read articles in the order presented. Users can however jump between sections (namely the main section, sport, g2, and film & music) right from what the developer has tentatively called the “sparkline/scrubber” at the top of the interface design. This same area of the interface design also indicates in red the current page as well as article length for users to be aware of where they stand in reading the daily edition.

Further considerations of this interface design

The choice in interface design works with the developer’s intention to improve the readability of the news content as there is no other clutter (in the form of links to all sorts of other articles, adverts etc.) around the article, which means that users can fully focus on one article. This consideration is of particular interest as studies have shown reading speeds on digital displays to be up to 10% lower than for traditional print products. The clean interface design of the Guardian also adds to the finishability of a day’s worth of news, something very irksome to achieve going through a traditional news website’s every subsection. A feature that I feel could be added is a calendar that allows users to jump to a specific date (for those who missed reading yesterday’s newspaper for example).

The Guardian, a major British national daily newspaper, has long received critical acclaim for its website which is also incidentally one of the most visited English-language news websites in the world. This success may not least be due to the influence of a superior interface design employed by the creators of the website, which greatly enhances usability. The website’s interface design is very efficient in layout and design allowing users to easily delve into the full gamut of news on offer along with clearly defined clickable breadcrumbs, helping users navigate easily to further subsections of the website.

What decisions led to this type of interface design?

An independent programmer name Phil Gyford has now offered users a unique streamlined way to enjoy the Guardian. Using the Guardian’s Content API he thought to tap into the need to consume news with the ease of a newspaper. No matter how well designed a newspaper’s interface design on its website may be, they all require users to actively navigate through separate sections. According to his personal blog, Phil Gyford “wanted something with reduced friction. There should be as few difficult decisions as possible, nothing harder than ‘shall I turn the page?’. I wanted to avoid having to make a big decision before reading an article. It should be as quick and effortless as possible, as close to how easy it is to start reading an article in a newspaper”. This statement speaks volumes to the importance of the ease of use with which end users (in this case the readers of the digital paper) can understand, utilize and navigate an interface design. With usability being one of the most noticeable determinants of quality online, its impact can not be overestimated, especially when addressing such a diverse audience as the Guardian does.

Usability, user experience and a user interface design to match are key. You can have a great product that does a whole bunch of amazing things, but if packaged in an abominable interface design that frustrates users, you’re setting yourself up for a failure even if your interface design is aesthetically pleasing. Your product and its user interface design needs to be as easy to use as possible and this means getting feedback through usability testing from people that fit the profile of your target users. Thankfully a number of tools exist, such as Pidoco, that allow you to easily create wireframe prototypes of your product which can be viewed, annotated and/or edited (even going as far as conducting remote usability tests) long before the coding process begins. The advantage of this approach is that is makes rectifying glaring usability and interface design flaws relatively inexpensive compared to changes that become necessary after the implementation is already finished.

Aside from the features of an app, the usability of its interface design is a key differentiating factor, and it should be considered as a unique selling proposition. There are numerous examples of products and software applications that have succeeded, not least due to their superior usability.

In this blog post, inspired by a TheNextWeb blog entry,  I shall talk about a few things interface designers and web developers should consider when embarking on creating a new app, regardless of the platform. The 2005 animated film ‘Robots’ featured the following catchphrase “see a need, fill a need” in essence as a motif. Market research is crucial. If you have an idea you want to develop look around and see what programs or websites are already out there catering to that market or segment. Positioning your website or software application to cater to a previously unmet market demand is a great place to start. If you happen to be developing an alternative to already established (and popular) players in a market you have to ask yourself: How am I going to do this better? What unique selling point(s) will my product have over my rivals’ products? A case in point is webmail, which is a very crowded and competitive marketplace. If you want to start a new webmail service, for example, what features are going to make users want to use your service rather than, say, Gmail or Yahoo. But features are not the entire story.

Although such high numbers of users are threatening to pull the plug on their Facebook memberships, in all likelihood, the threats will remain threats. While it is true that people are furious that their private information is not being properly cared for, Facebook users will still have a hard time leaving the site because of all the social networking benefits. Facebook has become one of the main arteries in the social life of millions of people. It is a way to instantly and easily share life with all family, friends, coworkers etc. Pictures, videos, messages, chatting, fan clubs—Facebook is an outlet that allows users to participate in and share a diversity of interests. In reality, it is not so easy for a user to click the ‘delete account’ button. Perhaps Facebook should think about hiding this option in its interface design.

The poll numbers are also telling in terms of the potential mass user exodus. 60% of users only threaten to leave while 16% have actually left. This illustrates the fact that most people who are angry enough to leave have probably left already. This is not to say that people aren’t really mad—many, in fact, are livid. But the anger boiling in the blood of the 60% of users threatening to leave Facebook has actually led to a more positive Facebook evolution: in the past few weeks, Facebook has begun implementing changes to its security feature options in addition to simplifying its interface design. While the social networking site has a long way to go in terms of re-building client trust and respecting client privacy, the organization has proven that it is keen to take user experience feedback into account, even when it is apocalyptically critical. Because Facebook has allowed itself to succumb to self-reflexivity, their survival outlook remains good. For now.