Goals

It is the process of generating and evaluating products, systems or devices that meet the objective for which they were designed and that support the activities that people perform in their work, as well as in their daily lives.[6]​.

It is also the technique by which adequate interfaces are produced between humans and automated systems, in order to:

The objective of interaction design is to present useful, satisfactory and usable experiences to the users of the artifacts; it is necessary to know the actions through which it fulfills its purpose and the elements involved during its development. Interaction design accomplishes these activities:

On the one hand, by carrying out these activities, interaction design investigates, proposes and evaluates the performance of artifacts in relation to their users.[8]​.

On the other hand, the person who carries out the interaction design is a professional who works to define how the product has to work so that it is useful and usable. To achieve this, you must design the product from the user's point of view, not from a technical or artistic point of view.

The interaction designer must internalize and understand the objectives, tasks, needs and desires that users have when they are using the product.[9]​.

Information architecture

With the emergence of the Internet in the 1960s, the massification of internal university networks (intranets), the creation of hypertext and HTTP as a useful communication protocol to link different media, in addition to the development of the HTML language and its descendants, made possible, starting in the 1990s, the appearance of a large number of useful information resources on the Internet: electronic magazines, "Portal (Internet)" portals, search engines, etc. But, along with these resources, inconsistent products have been disclosed, without a coherent organization of the information and that generate an extremely difficult recovery process.

This amount of data and information requires a structure and development of methods, disciplines and, at the same time, professionals that allow users to focus on their need for information, since the Internet offers various applications and development alternatives for those who use it and has contributed to the formation of new activities, such as that specialized in Information Architecture (AI).

We can define the information architect as the person in charge of designing and creating the building, its components, its corridors, its open spaces and its service areas. Only now the building is digital, its components are the information content, and its internal space is created with the organization of the content and with the navigation, access and labeling systems of the information.[10]​.

Richard Saul Wurman") was the first to use the term in his book Information Architects. In 1976, Wurman chose this concept as a topic, because as an architect by profession, he was the top director of the annual conference of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), held in the city of Philadelphia, United States.

Information design

Information design can be defined as the art and science of preparing information so that humans can use it effectively and efficiently. Horn (1999) defines its objectives in a holistic way, as the connection between information, human thought and use. In turn, it identifies three requirements for good information design. These are:

It has a wide variety of disciplinary roots, including interface design, visual communication, information presentation, typography, and educational psychology. Each discipline needs information design, but from different perspectives. Thus, graphic designers have realized that traditional design principles are not suitable for the digital world, while psychologists provide knowledge about the human factor in interactive processes.

Dervin (1999) states that information design should be analyzed in terms of communication processes. He argues that in the past information was considered simply as the description of an ordered reality, while in the Renaissance, skills and technology increased the information available. In the 20th century, the order of information and reality and information about it was challenged by cultural, personal and spatio-temporal differences. In the 20th century, information was presented as an instrument of power due to its role in decision-making. Furthermore, the belief that an ordered reality underlay underlying the information was questioned.[12]​.

Information design for the web is a growing and constantly developing discipline. The novelty of the medium, together with its interactivity and the accelerated appearance of new techniques and tools, has allowed the creation of a new field in which professionals and experts from very diverse areas have been progressively integrated, each of whom has contributed approaches and methods that have enriched it.

"The process of creating digital documents is inherent to the current development of information and documentation sciences, so information design must be understood within this framework."[13]​.

Designing information is working with data that can become valuable information for a reader. Design pursues not only the communication of information, but also its assimilation or learning in order to become knowledge.

In the design of information systems, available resources are optimized, such as human resources, perceptual resources - visual, auditory, tactile, etc. -, the economic ones, among others. The information that is designed is based on the intention, experience, culture, ways of seeing and feeling, and other characteristics of the reader or user.[14]​.

Interface design

As in the study of traditional human-computer interaction, it involves the design of the interface elements to facilitate the user's interaction with the functionality.[15]​.

The design of interfaces (interface understood as the physical and cognitive contact surface between user, software, computer and information networks) must generate and formalize understandable, interactive, navigable hypermedia documents and facilitate their visualization. In broad terms, it implies the linkage and interconnection between individual, computer and culture.[16]​.

Various best practice guides emphasize microinteractions and visual cues (hover states, cursor, confirmation toasts) to clarify interactivity and provide immediate feedback.[17]​

They also recommend preventing errors with disabled input masks and buttons, offering an "Undo" option, and facilitating actions such as "one-click copy."

These operational guidelines complement traditional theoretical approaches to UX.

Navigation layout

The navigation structure of a website is defined by the visitor's browsing experience by virtue of which they can jump from one page to another within the same website using the hyperlink system.

The navigation structure is usually chosen based on the type of content. There are different types of structures:[18]​.

Tree structure in which there is an index or main page from which the rest of the pages are accessed. From these subpages you can access others and so on, creating different levels or hierarchies. It is ideal for center or project websites. It is not advisable to use more than 4 levels to prevent the user from becoming disoriented during navigation. It is advisable to place a "Menu (computer science)" menu on all pages that allows you to move easily and directly through the different levels and pages of each level.

It is a very simple structure similar to the pages of a book. From a specific page you can go to the next page or the previous page. It is especially useful if we want the user to follow a fixed and guided itinerary without the possibility of accessing other pages that could distract them. Example: Learning guide or tutorial. It is not recommended if the number of linked pages is very high because it produces a feeling of fatigue and does not allow you to easily resume the sequence where you left off in the last session.

It is a hybrid structure that tries to take advantage of the advantages of the two previous structures. The pages and subpages are organized hierarchically, but it is also possible to navigate linearly through the pages of the same level.

From the index or main page you can navigate to another or others without any apparent order. It is a freer structure but it is not advisable when the number of pages is high because it disorients the user by not knowing where they are, nor having the resources to go where they want.

visual design

A simple way to evaluate a product's visual design is to ask: where does the eye go first? What elements initially catch the user's attention? Are these elements designed around the important deliverables in the strategic objectives? Or this is the first object of your attentive distraction for your goals.[20]​ Among the stages in which the design of a website must be developed, the visual design is one of the last, since many of the visual aspects of the page depend largely on determinations made in other stages of the design.[21]​.

This does not mean that visual design is something superficial or secondary. On the contrary, like other aspects of website design, the visual aspect can influence its popularity.

Let us keep in mind that visual aspects can psychologically influence a visitor and that the designer must take this into account, trying to influence the visitor to make decisions, or at least have a certain tendency to do so.

If the website we are developing is a virtual store, the visitor must not only be attracted to the products offered, but must also want to access some of them. Visual designs, both for printed and web elements, are currently made up of a series of blocks or modules arranged in a more or less standardized way, which allow users to capture with simple visual tours where the different elements that make up a page are located. This standardized layout responds to visual logic models that are related to user behavior.

Based on this, graphic designers must aim to create a visual hierarchy that allows the user of a web page to immediately detect which elements are important and which are secondary, define which will be the functional regions of the site and form groups of related elements so that visitors can clearly see the structure of the content.

When designing web pages, models that are familiar to users should be used, which helps them locate functional areas and important content.

Designs that are excessively full of elements, with busy backgrounds or low contrasts, can make it difficult to establish visual reference points that make the organization of the content understandable.

When browsing different pages of a site, the visitor should have the feeling that the different pages they visit belong to the same site. This is achieved by repeating some elements, which give a defined style to the site. This repetition, in addition to giving a visual unity to the entire site, allows visitors to locate the most important elements, since they will find the same (or similar) distribution at all points of the site.

User Experience in Video Games.

Video games, being interactive systems, have to be designed with users in mind, focusing attention on the player and involving them as much as possible. All this goes hand in hand with the design of a good interface that is easy to understand and use along with an experience that has the ability to hook and involve the user/player with the game itself.

A video game is created with a very clear purpose: to make the player feel comfortable while interacting with it. This is where a very important concept appears in video game development and determines the experience that the user will experience when interacting with the game. This concept is called "playability."

According to the article "From Usability to Playability: Player-Centered Video Game Design", playability is defined as "the set of properties that describe the Player's experience with a specific game system, whose main objective is to entertain and amuse in a satisfactory and credible way when played alone or accompanied."[22]​.

Therefore, we can understand that the concept of gameplay does not only refer to the user experience. If we base ourselves only on the usability of the game as a user experience, we are leaving many other important aspects out of it. For example, its story, character design, aesthetic aspects, music, sound effects, rules, mechanics and even the sensations and emotions that the user suffers throughout the game. It is thus demonstrated that gameplay, in addition to being a concept conceived from the origin of the User Experience (UX), has other elements that make it different, providing a broader experience than the experience that a user has in a traditional interactive system, forcing video game developers to identify new forms of experiences for the player.

Goals

It is the process of generating and evaluating products, systems or devices that meet the objective for which they were designed and that support the activities that people perform in their work, as well as in their daily lives.[6]​.

It is also the technique by which adequate interfaces are produced between humans and automated systems, in order to:

The objective of interaction design is to present useful, satisfactory and usable experiences to the users of the artifacts; it is necessary to know the actions through which it fulfills its purpose and the elements involved during its development. Interaction design accomplishes these activities:

On the one hand, by carrying out these activities, interaction design investigates, proposes and evaluates the performance of artifacts in relation to their users.[8]​.

On the other hand, the person who carries out the interaction design is a professional who works to define how the product has to work so that it is useful and usable. To achieve this, you must design the product from the user's point of view, not from a technical or artistic point of view.

The interaction designer must internalize and understand the objectives, tasks, needs and desires that users have when they are using the product.[9]​.

Information architecture

With the emergence of the Internet in the 1960s, the massification of internal university networks (intranets), the creation of hypertext and HTTP as a useful communication protocol to link different media, in addition to the development of the HTML language and its descendants, made possible, starting in the 1990s, the appearance of a large number of useful information resources on the Internet: electronic magazines, "Portal (Internet)" portals, search engines, etc. But, along with these resources, inconsistent products have been disclosed, without a coherent organization of the information and that generate an extremely difficult recovery process.

This amount of data and information requires a structure and development of methods, disciplines and, at the same time, professionals that allow users to focus on their need for information, since the Internet offers various applications and development alternatives for those who use it and has contributed to the formation of new activities, such as that specialized in Information Architecture (AI).

We can define the information architect as the person in charge of designing and creating the building, its components, its corridors, its open spaces and its service areas. Only now the building is digital, its components are the information content, and its internal space is created with the organization of the content and with the navigation, access and labeling systems of the information.[10]​.

Richard Saul Wurman") was the first to use the term in his book Information Architects. In 1976, Wurman chose this concept as a topic, because as an architect by profession, he was the top director of the annual conference of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), held in the city of Philadelphia, United States.

Information design

Information design can be defined as the art and science of preparing information so that humans can use it effectively and efficiently. Horn (1999) defines its objectives in a holistic way, as the connection between information, human thought and use. In turn, it identifies three requirements for good information design. These are:

It has a wide variety of disciplinary roots, including interface design, visual communication, information presentation, typography, and educational psychology. Each discipline needs information design, but from different perspectives. Thus, graphic designers have realized that traditional design principles are not suitable for the digital world, while psychologists provide knowledge about the human factor in interactive processes.

Dervin (1999) states that information design should be analyzed in terms of communication processes. He argues that in the past information was considered simply as the description of an ordered reality, while in the Renaissance, skills and technology increased the information available. In the 20th century, the order of information and reality and information about it was challenged by cultural, personal and spatio-temporal differences. In the 20th century, information was presented as an instrument of power due to its role in decision-making. Furthermore, the belief that an ordered reality underlay underlying the information was questioned.[12]​.

Information design for the web is a growing and constantly developing discipline. The novelty of the medium, together with its interactivity and the accelerated appearance of new techniques and tools, has allowed the creation of a new field in which professionals and experts from very diverse areas have been progressively integrated, each of whom has contributed approaches and methods that have enriched it.

"The process of creating digital documents is inherent to the current development of information and documentation sciences, so information design must be understood within this framework."[13]​.

Designing information is working with data that can become valuable information for a reader. Design pursues not only the communication of information, but also its assimilation or learning in order to become knowledge.

In the design of information systems, available resources are optimized, such as human resources, perceptual resources - visual, auditory, tactile, etc. -, the economic ones, among others. The information that is designed is based on the intention, experience, culture, ways of seeing and feeling, and other characteristics of the reader or user.[14]​.

Interface design

As in the study of traditional human-computer interaction, it involves the design of the interface elements to facilitate the user's interaction with the functionality.[15]​.

The design of interfaces (interface understood as the physical and cognitive contact surface between user, software, computer and information networks) must generate and formalize understandable, interactive, navigable hypermedia documents and facilitate their visualization. In broad terms, it implies the linkage and interconnection between individual, computer and culture.[16]​.

Various best practice guides emphasize microinteractions and visual cues (hover states, cursor, confirmation toasts) to clarify interactivity and provide immediate feedback.[17]​

They also recommend preventing errors with disabled input masks and buttons, offering an "Undo" option, and facilitating actions such as "one-click copy."

These operational guidelines complement traditional theoretical approaches to UX.

Navigation layout

The navigation structure of a website is defined by the visitor's browsing experience by virtue of which they can jump from one page to another within the same website using the hyperlink system.

The navigation structure is usually chosen based on the type of content. There are different types of structures:[18]​.

Tree structure in which there is an index or main page from which the rest of the pages are accessed. From these subpages you can access others and so on, creating different levels or hierarchies. It is ideal for center or project websites. It is not advisable to use more than 4 levels to prevent the user from becoming disoriented during navigation. It is advisable to place a "Menu (computer science)" menu on all pages that allows you to move easily and directly through the different levels and pages of each level.

It is a very simple structure similar to the pages of a book. From a specific page you can go to the next page or the previous page. It is especially useful if we want the user to follow a fixed and guided itinerary without the possibility of accessing other pages that could distract them. Example: Learning guide or tutorial. It is not recommended if the number of linked pages is very high because it produces a feeling of fatigue and does not allow you to easily resume the sequence where you left off in the last session.

It is a hybrid structure that tries to take advantage of the advantages of the two previous structures. The pages and subpages are organized hierarchically, but it is also possible to navigate linearly through the pages of the same level.

From the index or main page you can navigate to another or others without any apparent order. It is a freer structure but it is not advisable when the number of pages is high because it disorients the user by not knowing where they are, nor having the resources to go where they want.

visual design

A simple way to evaluate a product's visual design is to ask: where does the eye go first? What elements initially catch the user's attention? Are these elements designed around the important deliverables in the strategic objectives? Or this is the first object of your attentive distraction for your goals.[20]​ Among the stages in which the design of a website must be developed, the visual design is one of the last, since many of the visual aspects of the page depend largely on determinations made in other stages of the design.[21]​.

This does not mean that visual design is something superficial or secondary. On the contrary, like other aspects of website design, the visual aspect can influence its popularity.

Let us keep in mind that visual aspects can psychologically influence a visitor and that the designer must take this into account, trying to influence the visitor to make decisions, or at least have a certain tendency to do so.

If the website we are developing is a virtual store, the visitor must not only be attracted to the products offered, but must also want to access some of them. Visual designs, both for printed and web elements, are currently made up of a series of blocks or modules arranged in a more or less standardized way, which allow users to capture with simple visual tours where the different elements that make up a page are located. This standardized layout responds to visual logic models that are related to user behavior.

Based on this, graphic designers must aim to create a visual hierarchy that allows the user of a web page to immediately detect which elements are important and which are secondary, define which will be the functional regions of the site and form groups of related elements so that visitors can clearly see the structure of the content.

When designing web pages, models that are familiar to users should be used, which helps them locate functional areas and important content.

Designs that are excessively full of elements, with busy backgrounds or low contrasts, can make it difficult to establish visual reference points that make the organization of the content understandable.

When browsing different pages of a site, the visitor should have the feeling that the different pages they visit belong to the same site. This is achieved by repeating some elements, which give a defined style to the site. This repetition, in addition to giving a visual unity to the entire site, allows visitors to locate the most important elements, since they will find the same (or similar) distribution at all points of the site.

User Experience in Video Games.

Video games, being interactive systems, have to be designed with users in mind, focusing attention on the player and involving them as much as possible. All this goes hand in hand with the design of a good interface that is easy to understand and use along with an experience that has the ability to hook and involve the user/player with the game itself.

A video game is created with a very clear purpose: to make the player feel comfortable while interacting with it. This is where a very important concept appears in video game development and determines the experience that the user will experience when interacting with the game. This concept is called "playability."

According to the article "From Usability to Playability: Player-Centered Video Game Design", playability is defined as "the set of properties that describe the Player's experience with a specific game system, whose main objective is to entertain and amuse in a satisfactory and credible way when played alone or accompanied."[22]​.

Therefore, we can understand that the concept of gameplay does not only refer to the user experience. If we base ourselves only on the usability of the game as a user experience, we are leaving many other important aspects out of it. For example, its story, character design, aesthetic aspects, music, sound effects, rules, mechanics and even the sensations and emotions that the user suffers throughout the game. It is thus demonstrated that gameplay, in addition to being a concept conceived from the origin of the User Experience (UX), has other elements that make it different, providing a broader experience than the experience that a user has in a traditional interactive system, forcing video game developers to identify new forms of experiences for the player.