All Annotations of What Does Rich Mean? - Boxes and Arrows: The design behind the design[Preview]

saved by6 people, first byKate Brigham on 2007-06-05, last byMatthew Heinrich on 2008-05-20

• what does rich mean to a UI (user interface) designer who wants to craft intelligent, compelling, and memorable interactions?
• Before delving into notions about richness, it is critical to acknowledge the core challenge of designing rich experiences. Designers face an ongoing battle for human attention across the digital landscape—from websites and desktop applications, to mobile devices and beyond.
• It is useful to briefly remind ourselves that richness existed long before computers. Just think back to the last dinner you enjoyed with friends or family, complete with a delicious meal, aromatic wine, and sumptuous dessert. That moment exemplified a rich experience. The exchange of ideas, the multi-sensory objects, and the choreography from the arrival at the restaurant, to the waiter’s performance and the food’s presentation, all contributed to a sense of richness. This example and others like it can be a powerful remedy to hype-driven attempts at designing for richness.
• I think the promise of rich web apps is to change the user to active participant in content creation and assembly. From this perspective, the purpose of apps is not to communicate a message to the user but to provide the tools for the user communicate his/her own message. While some effort must be made to communicate the availability of new tools to the user, the emphasis is not to tell the users what the they can do, but in make what they can do it easier, faster, less cognitively demanding, and more fluid, allowing them to forget the site and focus on their own communication.