Understanding UI and UX with case #1 - Search portal site
After I defined UI and UX literally, I have thought that I need to compare the definition based on the real cases. I chose the search portal service for the case, and I explained that. Firstly I guessed user’s task in the search portal site, and state UI side and UX side of each.
(Translated in Korean: Link)
Review
In the previous article, I compared the concept between UI and UX, as I remind you the concept below.
-UI: All systems for communication and interaction among 'Human to Human', 'Human to Machine'.
-UX: The concept that considers various concepts like usefulness, usability, emotion.
1. Criteria for choosing the case
In this article, I'd like to explain the concept about UI and UX with an example. I've just considered what kind of example will be good for the explanation, and which case will be easy and common for people to understand the concept?
I wish that the concept would be meaningful after many people already verified and discussed the case. Lastly, I wish I would have enough knowledge to explain it. That's the most important for this because I can explain it based on my experiences in that case.
For this reason, I just choose the case about the web site in order to explain the concept, UI and UX.
Many professionals have researched Web Site in UI/UX a lot, and normally people can be so friendly for understanding that. By the way, I also considered that I would choose the case for Mobile or TV for the recent trend. Although I just choose the case for Web Site because you can understand many things with the case, and Web Site case can be basic for all works. (Of course, I am going to deal the other cases few chapters later though.)
Which web site is the best fully to explain the concept about UI/UX?
You know there was no correct answer because web site is so various like search portal(Google, Yahoo), shopping portal(ebay, amazon), blog and so on.
In my opinion, people use web site for searching the information frequently more than any other purpose.
I assume that if an user doesn't do shopping once a day but the one visit Search portal once a day at least. That's why I am so sure that search portal site is going to be mostly proper to explain it.
2. Before talking about...
I have believed that the most important thing for UI is to design what users really want to do now. Generally, it is defined as a Task in literature.
A task can be explained as some sub-tasks like Task1-1, Task1-2 ans also can be defined sequentially or hierarchically. On the other hand, that is also define as a parallel concept like Task 1 and Task 2 without no connection each other.
Let's see the example about a task below.
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Task 1. An user tries to purchase a product.
Task 1-1. An user tries to pay for it with cash.
Task 1-2. An user tries to do it with a credit card
Task 2. An user just want to look around for window shopping.
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Like this, we can define a task that is a kind of purposed behavior for doing something in a situation.
Therfore, it's very hard for us to design a good UI if we don't analize the tasks rightly.
As an easy example,when an user wants to have hot soup(this is a task), can you imagine that you give a fork(this is an UI) to an user? That must be so ridiculous.
3. Case study (Search portal site)
This is a wireframe of a search portal site. (We can show a structure of an individual web page with it.)
In the wireframe, we can make sure that which contents are including and which function is in the page. Surely, you can find out how UI is designed as a communication tool for interaction to users.
I'll deal with what the wireframe is and what the wireframe does and what the wireframe should include in the next time.
Let's look at the case in detail at this time.
Under the site A, the first picture, you can find a search bar so easily in the upper part of the site as a search portal. Beside this, you can see a lot of contents, news, blog and shopping contents, that users can be interested in.
Under the site B, it serves a very simple UI on the site, and also the contents are also not so complicated compared to the first site. What does the difference cause from?
3.1. Understanding UI
When I worked in a company that makes search engine solution, many people frequently argued which site is better or not.
Anyway I'll treat it for the evaluation in another chapter but in this chapter, I'd just like to explaun what UI items are different on users' task. I also focus on understanding how to explain and understand UI and UX concept with the case.
There are some tasks for users to search in the first image.
By the way, I just focus on explaining task that is just related to seach task so I don't consider another task like just clicking a hyperlink and so on.
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Task 1. Input search keyword.
Task 2. Click popular keyword.
Task 3. Click latest issued keyword.
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You can perform the task like this in the second image.
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Task 1. Input search keyword.
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There is a big difference between the two cases in the cases that users can do from the first page on the site, and you can also see the different UI for performing the tasks.
At the first case, There is UI to put the keyword by themselves for searching(number 1), and also UI for making people search with popular search keyword(number 2), recent hot keyword(number 3).
On the other hand, other UIs are not given in the second case except search bar(number 4).
By the way, UI is a important system to interact between people and people or people and something.
On the case, search bar(number 1) is a system to interact between people and search engine, and also popular keyword list(number 2) and recent hot keyword list are the system to interact between people to search engine.
In the site A, service provider wants users to stay more and more no matter how users want to do that intentionally.
That's why the site A would rather show lots of alternatives to the right search result than clarify users' needs, and they deploy the strategy for users to stay in the site more and more.
In this case, UI is designed for passive users in searching. (By the way, in the search service industry define that users putting the keyword to search are more active. In other words, users to click the keywords means normally passive users.)
However, the users' intentions are so clear for searching in the site B, and you can guess the only search bar enough for the users.
If you are a professor to design UI of the web site, that can be very usual about making a strategy how to design UI and guessing how the users are doing with the UI and considering which UI is proper in that task.
However, mostly people don't think enough how to get this straight objectively and they just believe that is not so important to define the problem.
Moreover, many people might just say UI and UX as the same word in their own thought. (Of course I may be one of them.)
Anyway I am just a little ouf of the topic but UI should be processed from the UI strategy to the final outline like the whole process.
(I have always thought that designing UI should be followed step by step like that but you know the reality usually is not so cool.)
-UI Strategy: How to analyze the users using your service, and it's service stragy (eg. Whether you consider active users or passive users for your service)
-Analyze task: What kind of tasks are there on your web site. (eg. If the users try to input their keywords by themselves or just input the keywords served by your service.
-UI design: How can you make your users do their tasks more efficiently with your UI? (eg. Whether you give a search bar or a list, or any other UI, and if you give a search bar, where do you locate it on your site?)
If you don't consider this kind of factors while you are designing your site, what will happen to?
For instant, you guessed that users are active, and you analyze all the tasks but actually the users are very passive. If you already designed your site for the active users, what will happen to in your web site? I think most users never visit your site in this case because they rarely know how to search something, and they don't know what kind of keywords they can use while they are searching something on your site.
Fortunately, some users might visit your site just once or twice, but they recognize that they can't find what they have wanted. They also never come to your site though. (Of course, they don't know that they made some mistakes when they searched something with their keywords. For many users don't know if their keywords are suitable or not for their searches. They just think that a search search service is not so good.)
Let's think about another situation. If you just build a very nice UI strategy but you couldn't analyze the tasks incorrectly, so the UI is not proper for your users, what will happen in this case? Like above, mostly users just think that they couldn't find a good result and they never come to visit your site as well.
Lastly, If there was a good strategy and you analyze tasks very well but there was something wrong when you design UI, what will happen to? In this case, there may already be all UI for doing their tasks but users can't find it when they do their tasks. They can't finish doing their tasks well, and they will just leave your site. (For example, imagine a case that you just give a site for young people to elderly people.)
You may think why I mentioned so many things like UI strategy, analysis tasks, designing UI when I explain just UI. I have believed that many people understand UI is just something to show to users. That's why I want to say something more. As I said that there are lots of things that you should consider when you consider UI of your site. At this point, I insist that we distinguish between UI and GUI clearly. (Apparently, how many people just interpret UI and GUI with just their views, and how many people are miscommunicating each other on their side. I think that you know this more than me. No matter what this topic is much better to talk about next time.)
3.2. Understanding UX
So now you can be embarrassed how you can understand two cases on the view of UX.
As you can see that the site A is for normally passive users and they serve various UI.
In addition, some of them are not even related to searching. They might be almost about 50% of UI.
In other words, they serve news and blog, and shopping contents as a list, they force users to consume the contents without any searches. (Even if they don't care of what people like to search on their site. How dangerous this situation is?) Actually, I've heard that many people just spend their time on the site A while they are just reading some articles that they had never intended.
Although, many users don't complain the contents too much. (You know that they were even waste of time with unintended UI and contents because they just think that they consume the contents with their will.) Surely, they are just used to enforcing to consume the contents, and they believe that this is one of the reasons that they enjoy this service.
Thus, for the users that they don't know what they search on the site is not for the only searching as their purposes. The UI and contents that is not related to searching can be valuable for the users though.
On the contrary, there is a simple UI on site B for active users. For users who like to search something actively are the best site, and the site gives a very convenient UI for them.
That means that they can focus on their tasks, which is searching something by themselves, and site B serves the only UI for searching.
Actually, most of all users search professional contents like thesis or reports more than on site A, and they visit the site for consuming the contents like them.
If this site just enforce the users to use their time without any consideration, that they just want to show many commercial and unintended information while users are searching something, they will lose their values. That means users normally think that they can't find out what they want any more.
4. Summary
UI is focusing on what the users do their tasks well, but UX is understanding what they really want to do except doing their tasks.
As I mentioned above, something is not necessary for designing UI but that is working on UI very well on site A.
There might be some people who insist like this.
"So why don't you consider everything for giving the best practice about all UI and UX? What is meaningful to distinguish between UI and UX?
I believe that this is dependent on the expert or planner for the service. If the task is so clear, this approach that you consider both of them might be meaningful. For example, in a bang, the works are very routine and you can define them very clearly. However, you know how many works can be defined so perfectly? Can you think about the situation that needs of users are even not clear too? How can you analyze users' needs?, and how can you define a good UI that users like?
In many fields, most experts are confused of designing UI in this case, and you might have heard that so many users don't know what they even want. (That's why many experts try to figure out what users really want all the time.)
Now, I wish you would know how dangerous your UI is by your thought, and that makes people inconvenient.
I believe that UX should be something to add after you design UI to do the tasks fully. I have seen so many cases that UI is not designed perfectly as they consider UX first, and this makes people more confused of UI. If you hear about any complaints, just think first about UI that you designed. I recommend you to reconsider what the UI is the best for doing tasks.
Users will be impressed with a small thing that you design, and they think that they were experienced about that. In this result, I don't think that UX should be something innovative or new. Do you think something new gives a good user experience?, or Do you believe something innovative or beautiful gives a nice user experience?
I can say how the new thing can give a good user experience even if that is not requested by users. They will just think that there is another difficult one that is learned. Of course, some of them will totally love that. I don't want to argue if you just like to give that for some users as your strategy, but if you want to consider opposite case, you are making users do something that they don't want now, and I don't want to say that you are a good expert in your job.
When many people couldn't define the concept of UI and UX, and they just like to argue about that, I have told about this. "Do you think about how proper your UI is for doing their tasks?"
I've seen too many people who just ignore this point, and they just assume that users want the UI in their satisfactions. This is too much obvious, and if you are disappointed with this, I have nothing to say to you unfortunately any more.
However, I have one thing to say to you. If you just want to hide your fault with UX, I highly recommend you not to steal people's attention with that at the moment. Even if you don't know how people are smart, but they will know how much you are stupid soon.
Finally, as I stated above, I am going to posting how to analyze tasks well for designing UI, and what kind UX is working well on your service case by case. I just reviewed how we can apply UI and UX in a real case.
I believe that miscommunication can be started by understanding something differently. At least, this article can be helpful when you understand UI and UX concept. That's enough to me.
You know there is an idiom, "A journey of a thousand miles must begin with the first step"...
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