Functional Interaction Design

ver walk up to a door and pull on the handle, only to discover the door is push-only? Do you really know how to operate your clock-radio? Doors may be pretty, clocks may look cool, but when we have to actually use them, the measure of their design changes.

Same with websites. A website may be pretty at first blush, but can you find what you’re looking for? Can you do what you want to do? Can you even figure out what you’re supposed to do?

This presentation is on functional design concepts and how they apply to things we use every day, including websites and web apps. Topics include affordance, legibility, chunking, color, error handling and other aspects. Lots of slides, looking at examples of good and bad design in the real world and on the screen, with lessons that can be applied to Drupal workflows, modules, themes, etc.

While it has “design” in the title, this presentation is also for developers and information architects.

This presentation builds upon the presentation I gave at DrupalCamp Colorado.