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Micro Interactions: Take User Experience at New Level

 

What Are Micro Interactions and What Is Their Purpose? 

A well-designed mobile application capitalizes on the ability to create experiences that are positive, personalized, engaging, and valuable. This is done by creating a visually appealing interface and pairing it with a meaningful experience that is emotional, user-friendly, and accessible without instruction. Companies building digital products like mobile applications, it is critical to creating, retaining, and building business momentum. Why? Simply because poor user experience results in your end users feeling a negative emotional connection to your product. Micro interactions are the small moments in user journey that influence users through feedback, rewards, and direction. These elements can take a good digital product and make it exceptional.

Many of us are unaware of the countless micro interactions we come across on a daily basis because these moments are programmed by keeping social engineering in mind. An example of a micro interaction would be the download animation you see after tapping a file to download or the animation and sound you hear when you lock and unlock your phone. A micro interaction has one single purpose, to create an emotional moment that is engaging, informative  and constructive for next step we want targeted user to perform.

There are four basic elements that make up a micro interaction.

The first is a trigger, which is what initiates the interaction. This could be anything from clicking a specific element on the interface or touching a notification that pops up. A trigger can be user-initiated or a system-initiated trigger, which requires software to initiate an action once certain qualifications are met.

The second element are the rules that determine what happens once a micro interaction has been triggered.

The third is the feedback provided to help the user understand what is happening. While a micro interaction is occurring, anything that the user hears, sees, or feels is considered feedback. In most cases, feedback is provided to show the user that the micro interaction has been successfully completed.

Finally, the fourth, the loops and modes that are used to determine the duration of the interaction and what actions the user needs to make to continue the process of the event. These also determine what happens to a micro interaction when the conditions or rule sets change.

Why Do Micro Interactions Matter?

 

The primary reason why micro interactions matter is because they often evoke a positive, emotional response from the user while simultaneously keeping them engaged and interested. Beyond this, they also help with the following:

  • Website navigation is improved as users find it easier to interact with a website that as mini-directions and feedback,
  • They provide instant and relevant feedback about completed interactions,
  • They provide direction or tip off the user as to whether they are using the website or mobile application correctly,
  • They communicate important information about the design interface of the device or software,
  • By providing visual animation and response, a user feels more rewarded,
  • They encourage the user to like, share, or interact with content,
  • They teach the user how to work within the system they are in,
  • They pull in and direct user attention,

When done right, not only do micro interactions provide immediate visual feedback to the user, but they also influence users’ actions and produce positive feelings about your mobile application, brand, and business.

When Should Micro Interactions Be Used?  

In mobile applications, micro interactions should be used at any time where communication is required with the user.  There are generally seven types of micro interactions that should be used at specific times.

  1. Swiping is probably one of the most well known micro interactions due to how interactive it is. Not only does it help guide the user subconsciously but it can help a user switch between pages or tabs of information in an addictive and fun way.
  2. Whenever a user has to input data, using animations like password strength provides some interactivity to an otherwise frustrating and dull experience. This helps keep users engaged with the process while accomplishing the end-goal.
  3. Animations are used with micro interactions as a way to improve or enable them. They can personify a micro interaction, make a micro interaction interesting, and produce a unique aesthetic style.
  4. A current system status micro interaction is used whenever a user needs to be kept informed about the status of what is happening with the application. For instance, when a user goes to upload a document to the cloud, a status bar keeps the user engaged into what is happening and whether the process is successful or not. If there is no micro interaction at all, a user is more likely to get frustrated and exit the application.
  5. You can make tutorials or information interesting by highlighting and simplifying the features and controls of the application through micro interactions.
  6. A micro interaction can be used to nudge the user towards a call to action by providing a rewarding experience for completing the call to action.
  7. Animated buttons are used to provide a seamless transition from one interaction to another. Within this interaction, things like loading bars and special effects show the user how to move through the engaged process.

How Are Micro Interactions Designed? 

Through careful design experimentation. Animations need to be aesthetically pleasing, functional and enhance the user experience. If you use too many animations, this becomes an annoying user-experience and so developers should focus on minimalistic, intuitive, & entertaining designs that aim to please. 

What Are Some Tools Used to Create Micro Interactions?  

  • If you are able to code micro interactions, use tools like Xcode and Android Studio for mobile, Framer for web and mobile, and CSS animation for just web interactions.
  • If you want to design an interaction between a touch-screen push and a module, you can use both Invision and Marvel.
  • If you want extremely detailed interactions, choose Principle, Adobe CC, Protopie, or Origami Studio.
  • If you want to create interactions and add in animations, use After Effects.

Here are few more examples of Micro Interactions.

    

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Startup Zone Charlottetown, PEI

It would be unfair If Startup Zone does not get a blog post on Personal Blog.

Last 3 months have been crazy as I have been stationed here in Charlottetown , PEI  which certainly has impacted few of the ventures I am involved it.  You almost try to justify about your decision you make. When you are stationed in small town your life tends to slowdown.

Being selected at Innovation PEI , I had an opportunity to select office space at Launch Pad PEI and Atlantic Center as well as at offices in Summerside. But I just wrote an email to Pattric ( CEO SUZ) and He just told me get in. And thats it. I have never seen such welcoming gesture in past.

(I remembered before few years I had approach NIDus for getting one design startup incubated. CEO at NIDus ripped me apart 🙂 After that I have nurtured 3 startups & generated more than USD 2 Mn in Revenue with no external funding.) 

If any good thing has happened to me in last 3 months then it is Startup Zone. I met few amazing folks from SUZ PEI team ( Pattric, Medlyn, Erin are freaking great).

Every workshop I attended has added value into my life learning lesson. This is like a Christmas to me.

If I have reason to come back to Charlottetown PEI  after my vacation then it is Startup Zone PEI.

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Great Indian Phenomena

Recent Meltdown of our batting order during 1st Cricket Test Match against Australia portrays great Indian phenomena.

I  feel Indian batting should start from 3rd batsman , first 2 should be kept in waiting until all other gets out. NO kidding We probably end up scoring more by this way #cricket #India

Great Indian phenomena exists everywhere including cricket  most valuable people (Cheteshwar & Rohit) has to keep proving themselves again,again and again & overrated steals the show.

Gautam Gambhir played his last test at 32 years, Irfan Pathan played last test at 24years (Can you believe it ?)  & Murali Vijay is in team at 34. Probably only Indian opener without single man of the match award after 50 plus test cap. I ll standby with view of getting rid of him from an Indian cricket team even if he performs well in this season.

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5 Most Important contextual tips for your Next IT Project

Be it Small project or large scale project these 5 Principle will ensure to improve success ratio of your next project

  1. Make sure error messages are contextual. Not just plain simple. Based on nature of business error messages should be friendly, strict, humorous but should not be plain.
  2. Make sure all Buttons in your next project are contextual. Do not just end up with “Submit”. Button / Anchors are main call to actions in which drives business. Make-sure to use language which your target audience can understand + enticing enough to drive user action as per your goal.
  3. Show your system’s navigation to 10-15year kid. If he is unable to navigate properly, change navigation system. If system is not easy to navigate users are like to leave & never return back.
  4. Ensure to load your screen with in 3 seconds even at low bandwidth internet. Implement special architecture for low bandwidth internet. User does not trust the app or web which takes more time on loading. If content is not loading with in 3 seconds you are likely to loose the visitor & potential customer.
  5. Make enough effort on Dashboard of the system be it Admin or User. This Screen is going to be used maximum amount of time. If it is not appropriate enough system is going to die quickly ( even before your realise), Every pixel on Dashboard matters. Probably value of every pixel is more then 1 sq.ft space in Manhattan. So give top level effort on making it super useful ( graphs, charts, analytics, updates, setting ,configuration, numbers & what not)
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Here are 10 simple ways to recover the loses of revenue if govt reduces state taxes on fuel.

  • Increase Driving License fees 5 times from what it has current for all kind of personal licenses.( Current fee is ranging from 150 to 200 INR ). Increase four wheeler LMV license cost to minimum 5000 INR.
  • Reduce Driving License renewal tenures to 3 years for first time driving license holder. Impose hefty renewal fees up to 5 times for irregular drivers. Renewal can be made only by paying extra fees based on number of time tickets received on particular license. ( Giving 20 years of license validity is absolute nonsense)
  • Private Vehicle Above 1499 CC should have 3-5 times more road tax. with a yearly renewal cost as well.
  • Double the Road tax & Insurance for second four-wheeler on same residential address.
  • Double the PUC Fees for four wheelers (it is 50 INR) & reduce tenure of PUC from 6/12 months to 3 months.
  • Toll Tax for private registration vehicles should increase on all state boarders.
  • Increase International Driving Permit fees from 1000 to 5000 INR. (Person Is leaving the county, he must have enough to pay & he must pay his debt to country, state and city.)
  • Increase taxes on Automobile Accessories.
  • Impose 1000 INR fees on State Boarder crossing for personal vehicles (excluding boarder district vehicle)
  • Start Corporate transport subsidiary funded by PPP model ( Who would not be interested in major cities to have corporate transport for employees, it can save millions in buying parking lots)

Average 1 million new licenses are being issued  yearly & State has total 23 Million vehicle. I think it should be enough to help people who really can not afford fuel prices going high. Other then causing effect on inflation higher fuel prices has detrimental effect on society from dropping out from schools, dropping out from extra activities, concentrated population as well as brain drain from the state & country.

I urge  government to Reduce State taxes on Fuel in direct proportion to revenue received from these sources.

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Sometimes you have to Break Down to go up.

It is so phenomenal that when you grow you tend to slow , everything around you feel is pacing up & you keep thinking how do I pace it up.  In this fast-moving world don’t get broke instead of that break down.

Breaking down seems to be the best approach.

No matter how humongous task is breaking it down in small pieces can help us to achieve it faster and efficiently.  Drill down the simple approach

  • Break it down objectives for daily, weekly , monthly
  • Retrospect progress everyday , revise and readjust for next week.
  • Delegate what can be done by someone else.
  • Only pursue the goal if you are not going to regret the time you will waste if it fails.
  • Keep Hustling

 This year has been really amazing , We increased our Net Profit , Average Hourly Rates by constant & steady improvements in processes and with communication.

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Judgment Call

 

Being an observant personality I tend to observe how people “precept” about others when they meet them first time or how they decide to take relationship further. Here are few of my experience & with sip of tea I am deeply thinking about not being judgemental

Bad Aadmi lagta hai Kapade Achche Pehane the ( He seems to a big man , Was wearing trendy clothes)
One of my friend gave me a feedback after meeting a person. I began wondering how he can be a big man based on clothing ? what is definition of a BIG?

“Party plays in billions”
I & one guy were just walking & discussing about some work at the same time he met one old age looking person. Person was his relative ( not closed one). After few minutes he told me this party plays in billion. I don’t know why he told this or he tagged him with that.

Seems to be a big shot , wears Rolex
Judgement call one more time. someone rated one person that he is a big shot just by meeting once & seeing him having Rolex on his wrist.

“Color” Fool Judgements
Many of friends have problem about racism, we discussed it many times. But when it comes to their own skin preferences about selecting a friend , relationship they tend to forget about their own problem about “Racism” 🙂

 

What is your Judgement call about how you judge others?

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LetsNurture Brings ‘Konnected Art’, iBeacon Technology, with ‘no coding required’ For Museums Management

KonnectedArt-for-museums

iBeacon technology has already been used in diverse industries ranging from retail to hospitality and museums. We’ve seen adoption from a small number of high-profile brands, such as Disney, Hudson’s Bay Company and SXSW.

iBeacons have been proven to boost the purchase intent twenty times.

iBeacon app development constructs a good impact on the retail sales. It is noted that customers are likely to keep a retailer app installed if they received iBeacon notifications through it. The only problem lies in the adoption of a technology that not every consumer is aware of. It’s a particular stretch for small businesses to invest. LetsNurture has introduced KonnectedArt to solve such issues.

iBeacon app development where ‘no coding required’

Museums and Art galleries are one of the industries that have invested in these technologies and are glad to do so. Museums are looking for innovative ways to interact with visitors. KonnectedArt, is an IoT solution that provides the interactive ways to connect the visitors with the art.

A beacon associated with the art or a particular art segment, sends a signal to the server and the server then fetches the data inputs to notify the visitors. The data can be a detailed description of art, an audio or visual display of the description or merely the directions.

Step-by-step implementation of the iBeacon solution for your museum

  • Once you have decided where you want the beacons to be set up, all you have to do is login into the KonnectedArt admin portal.
  • Each beacon comes with an unique ID. You can add details of the art or segment associated with that beacon. The details can be the descriptions or audio/video.

iBeacon solution for your museum

  • You can add custom notification as per the art segment or user type. The visitors get notified about the art as they explore each segment.
  • You can also send personalized notifications according to the users. If you would like to notify the audience about the upcoming event that is specific for jewelry designing, you can target the female visitors as a priority.

KonnectedArt for museums

KonnectedArt for museums – More features with no coding

A customized iBeacon app, KonnectedArt, makes it possible for the museum owners to send location-specific information and create awesome user experiences, such as:

Digitize Information: Replace brochures, pamphlets and other printed material with beacons that transmit online content. Save time and money printing and update the content in real-time to be more environmentally friendly.

Self-guided Tours: Create multimedia tour guides for cities, museums, galleries and attractions with iBeacon app development. Let the visitors use their smartphones as their guide. Provide your visitors with indoor maps, photos, videos, and audio to interact with the art at their own pace.

Floor Management: The museum management can rely on the real-time dashboard to manage the peak hours. When any floor or area gets too congested, the admin can notify the visitors and manage the flow indisputably.

Automation & IoT: Share information in real-time. Let the visitors know about the latest news and events happening in your museums and art galleries.

Reach us to learn more

LetsNurture is a leading IT service provider with vintage experience of website development and mobile app development. We provide extensive IoT solutions to varied industries. With an initiative to connect the museums and art galleries to their audiences, we have incepted ‘KonnectedArt’, an iBeacon solution.

Get a free quote from us or write to us info@letsnurture.com.

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The beginning of screenless design: UI jobs to be taken over by Solution Architect

UI-Design-LetsNurture

When your mobile responds to your voice command or just a single touch, the time taken for mobile app design and development reduces. Not in terms of features or functionality but in terms of development. The design aspect of the mobile application development will be less of a hassle with the screenless architecturing.

Typically, the solution architect renders the requirements created by functional analysts into the architecture for that solution and describing it through architecture and design artifacts. But with the idea of screenless designing, I have a strong belief that the solution architects will take over the job of UI designing. Here are few points that will support the statement that I just mentioned.

1. Voice command will do majority of the task

  • Siri : Book a ride for me
  • Amazon Echo:  Play Lincoln Lawyer on Netflix

With Alexa application development, the surge in the demand of Amazon Echo has been notable. Apple has freshly launched it’s HomePod. It is fitted with Siri and has been designed to rival the Amazon Echo and Google Home speakers. The revolution of technology is inevitable.

2. Chatbot development is enhancing the customer service industry

With chatbot development, you do not need separate screens for all processes Chatbot can bring information in same window as per desire of the user.

  • Chatbot for Domino’s : Entire booking process can be integrated in one window.
  • Chatbot for Hyatt: Once the user enters the booking date and requirements of the room to be booked, Chatbot handles the entire booking process by just few commands of the user.

3. Collaborative Layers

With multiple layers like google maps and other social media app interfaces, the custom functions have become ease of navigation. Functions like sharing picture has become easy with a feature that enables sharing without even having to be on that app. Few of the examples of such mobile apps are listed below:

  • Book a ride option from Google Maps reduces screen visits at UBER or Ola.
  • Custom Notifications where you can reply or do few action on notification itself reduces screen usage at the app.
  • Deep linking : deep linking will help user to directly navigate at the right screen which eventually reduces a screen usage.

4. Storage Economy

Everything we do involves a cost in it. More Screen needs means cost of development will be high, more screens means more API calls means more bandwidth means more expense on server infrastructure. More Screens means more storage required at user device means more expense at user end.

5. IoT & Rise of Bluetooth Devices

Gartner, Inc. forecasts that 8.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2017.

We have seen rise of bluetooth devices which eventually help devices to talk with each other without manual intervention. And this will lead to less screen design need. Yes you can call it AI & Machine Learning but more or less it is just a system design, system should be self sufficient to act without manual intervention, that is what technology needs to do right. Doing right things at right time without being supervised.

6. Pile of Screen Resolutions

It makes a lot of sense to reduce screen usage because world has gone exponentially in-terms of screen resolution , there has been new adaption on auto layout for mobile apps , responsive web design for web user interface also to deal with multiple resolution.

More Mobile Less Time

As we have witnessed that the world has become mobile, very mobile rather, this changing on marketing strategy has become unavoidable. Earlier it was like how system can be designed in a way that customer spends most of the time in the mobile app. Now architecture is being thought differently and prime focus is on getting the right information at right time without any hassle. This strategy ensures you happy customers. You send motivational quotes to your friends every day to stay engaged with them versus you help your friend when they need. Which one will be more effective?

I believe, if you are into UI/UX Design field start thinking to build your system screen less or with less screens. And if you are solution architect you should master this architecture.

Tweet us your thoughts on Twitter @letsnurture or drop a post on the official FaceBook page of LetsNurture. Share your thoughts with us, we will be happy to have a discussion on the same.