As a senior actively applying to jobs, one thing that really drives me crazy is Workday applications. When I spend time filling out a long online application, only for the site to suddenly prompt me (after I click “Next”) to log in or create an account. Sometimes, it even realizes I already have an account and redirects me to a different version where I am signed in. The logical solution would be to sign up or log in first, but the problem is that not all applications require it upfront. Some let you start without logging in, others ask midway, and many don’t make it clear at all. This inconsistency forces me to guess the “correct” order of actions every time, which becomes especially frustrating when data gets lost in the process. A better approach would be a more consistent and user-friendly UX design: clearly prompting users at the start to sign in, continue an existing application, or proceed as a guest with visible consequences for each. Even more importantly, any entered information should be temporarily saved in local storage or cache, so if a redirect occurs, my progress isn’t wiped out. Small design choices like these can make a huge difference in preserving user effort and trust.
As for the reading, it was a fun and informative read. I used to think interaction design and experience design were basically interchangeable. But now I understand that interaction design is more about usability, discoverability, and understanding, while experience design is about the emotional impact and satisfaction we feel when using something. That distinction really clicked for me. I also loved the conversation about how engineers think logically and they think everyone does too or everyone should at least, but systems need to be intuitive not logical. Just because the engineers wrote a manual to use it, and the logical step for users is to read the manual before using the system, doesn’t mean they will. So it’s the desginers/engineers job to understand their audience/people and design accordingly. Human’s shouldn’t have to try to understand all the different rules different machines/systems have. I mean I can see the microwave with at least 10 different buttons, but I always use the same settings. It’s not that I don’t want more options, it’s that the way they’re presented makes them hard to understand. This is where Norman’s principles of discoverability and understanding come in. If something is hard to discover or hard to understand, we just stop using it.
In interactive media, principles like affordances, signifiers, and feedback can greatly improve how users interact with a piece. Affordances aren’t just properties of an object, but also depend on what the user is capable of doing. A heavy chair might afford sitting, and maybe lifting, depending on who is interacting with it. That highlights how important it is to design with the user in mind, not just the object. For example, a scrollable layout that hints at more content affords downward movement, a pulsing microphone icon acts as a signifier that it’s listening for input, and a search bar that updates results in real-time offers immediate feedback. These small design choices guide, inform, and respond to user actions in intuitive ways. I applied these ideas in my own p5.js generative art sketch. I included a placeholder that says “Enter a word” to clearly signal that users need to type something in the input box. Once the user presses Enter, the word appears instantly on screen providing immediate feedback.