Designing & Iterating

Introduction

Designing meaningful, usable, and effective experiences is the focus of this page. Understanding users is a start, but designing for impact requires applying appropriate frameworks, principles, and iterative processes to create solutions that truly support user goals. It involves selecting design models that fit the context, creating prototypes that translate ideas into reality, and refining those designs.

In my own UX and usability projects, my teams and I have used instructional frameworks, prototyping methods, and interaction design principles to create intuitive and user-centered experiences. These projects demonstrate how thoughtful design can clarify complex systems, reduce cognitive barriers, and help users achieve their goals by leveraging evidence and theory to support design choices.

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Missouri Archives Website Redesign.

View Interaction Design Details

The principles, theories, and guidelines of interaction design provide a structure for facilitating users' interactions in a digital environment. By intentionally applying these principles, designers reduce confusion, facilitate task completion, and create intuitive and predictable interfaces. Using principles derived from human-computer interaction, cognitive psychology, and visual perception, these principles ensure that design choices support usability, accessibility, and learning, where applicable. Their purpose here was to serve as a roadmap for improving users' experience on the Missouri State Archives website, as well as enhancing how the information was organized and presented.

For the Archives redesign, my team and I applied various interaction design principles to enhance usability and minimize cognitive load. Specifically, we leveraged Nielsen’s Heuristics. For each heuristic, our team identified how it was addressed in the proposed redesign. This included improvements like persistent navigation, consistent placement of search tools, and clearer instructions.

Cognitive load theory (CLT), though not expressly an interaction design theory, also served as a guiding framework. Specifically, CLT shaped our decisions by highlighting the importance and need to minimize unnecessary complexity and, thus, extraneous load. We intentionally proposed simplified layouts, suggested the removal of unnecessary content, and added strategic hints or tooltips to support task completion.

Further, a task-oriented organizational scheme and a hierarchical navigation structure helped to align the interface with users’ mental models of archival research.

The visual presentation of content was also guided by Gestalt principles. The use of common region, similarity, and figure-ground contrast enabled users to identify available actions and remain oriented within the site through the clear grouping of related elements and improved readability.

The use of these interaction design principles led to a more accessible, structured, and cognitively aligned interface, which better supports users when searching and interpreting archival materials.

PATH: Practical Accessibility Training for Higher Ed

View the Current Prototype

Other frameworks can be used to complement interaction design principles and guide work, depending on the context, goals, and purpose of the design. For example, instructional frameworks, such as the ADDIE model, Gagné's Nine Events of Instruction, and constructivist theory, offer structured ways for understanding how people gain knowledge, practice skills, and apply what they learn. These frameworks help instructional designers, specifically, plan the flow of instruction, determine appropriate learning strategies, and support cognitive engagement so that learning experiences are both effective and meaningful.

In the PATH project, my team and I used these instructional frameworks to shape the design of a faculty development program focused on enhancing understanding of accessibility guidelines and their application in Canvas courses. Following ADDIE, a systematic approach was implemented, beginning with a formal needs assessment and followed by the development of clear, measurable objectives. Gagné's Nine Events provided guidance for structuring each microlearning unit with attention-gaining content, relevant examples, guided practice, and the like. In alignment with constructivist principles, we were able to identify and link accessibility concepts to relevant faculty tasks, helping instructors understand how these practices translate to their own teaching settings.

Together, these frameworks offered a robust foundation for designing learning experiences that met organizational needs, facilitated learning and comprehension, and translated skills to practice. While the design is complete, development is still in progress. The prototype linked at left displays the current state of the training.

Missouri Archives Website Redesign.

View Documentation

View Low-Fidelity Prototype

View Final High-Fidelity Prototype

User-centered design emphasizes the importance of iteration and prototyping, which allow teams to explore ideas, test assumptions, and refine solutions based on evidence. Using early prototypes, designers make their design concepts tangible, and iterative refinement ensures that each version is more user-friendly, accessible, and aligned with user needs.

In the Missouri State Archives redesign project, my team and I used a structured prototyping process to transform design insights into a clearer, more functional interface. To develop and illustrate proposed design revisions to enhance the overall layout, navigation, and UX-related aspects of the search functionalities, a low-fidelity prototype was created. This allowed us to focus on the fundamental tasks the design needed to support, streamlining task completion, and providing a more intuitive and usable interface before diving into more detailed visual and aesthetic design decisions. Our low-fidelity prototype was presented to classmates who offered peer feedback concerning the following:

Design Alignment with User Tasks
Placement of Key Functions/Features
Information Organization
Visual Aesthetics
Navigation
Consistency and Standards

This feedback was reviewed by the team and addressed in the subsequent designs.

Following the low-fidelity prototype and review, we created high-fidelity prototypes in Figma that refined the visual aesthetics and hierarchy, interaction patterns, and accessibility considerations. Again, classmates reviewed our initial high-fidelity prototype and offered feedback. Their feedback focused on the same six topics as the low-fidelity prototype in addition to one new topic, Conceptual Models and Interaction Theories.

A usability evaluation of the high-fidelity prototype was then conducted with test users. Based on the results of this evaluation and peer feedback, final revisions were made to the high-fidelity prototype.

By progressing from a low-fidelity to a high-fidelity prototype and incorporating peer feedback, instructor feedback, and the results of a usability evaluation, our team was able to produce a design that was more coherent, more accessible, and better aligned with the needs of users than the existing site design. Through this iterative process, it became evident how systematic refinement contributes to a final product that is more effective and user-centered.