There’s a very good chance your day kicked off with microinteractions. Maybe you tapped your alarm off or pulled down a navigation on your phone for the latest news. At that moment, you engaged with a user interface with elements known as microinteractions.
Your modern day goes on to include microinteractions at almost every turn: playing a favorite playlist, checking email, answering a text. It’s likely that you don’t even think about these little prompts, or maybe you do. But they are made to be invisible engagements that become a part of our daily lives, all in an effort to create a more seamless user experience.
What is a microinteraction?
Firmly rooted in a user-centered design approach, microinteractions are functional interactions that enable a main purpose by creating an engaging moment to achieve a task within a device, app, interface or digital product.
Our creative team uses microinteractions not only as a method of boosting a positive user experience, but as a way to instill brand awareness and trust. This is to say that every detail of any product we create is as important as the design of these products.
In his book Microinteractions: Designing with Details, Dan Saffer writes, “The difference between a good product and a great one are its details: the microinteractions that make up the small moments inside and around features. How do you turn mute on? How do you know you have a new email message? How can you change a setting? All these little moments—which are typically not on any feature list and often ignored—can change a product from one that is tolerated to one that’s beloved.”
Connecting The Brand
A well-designed microinteraction has the capacity to positively transform a user’s perception of a brand. By offering prompts, interactions and engagements that serve the user, the experience promotes a positive connection to the brand, instilling a level of trust that the user may not even realize.
Branded microinterations can appear at any point in the experience, but all ideally include elements inclusive of authenticity, consistency, emotion and innovation. A recent editorial from the Nielsen Norman Group examined what happens when you send a “happy birthday” text message on Apple’s Messages app: Balloons fill the screen, and users are exposed to an “emotional and sensory experience” that shows Apple’s more playful side.
I’d recommend design and strategy teams begin with an in-depth assessment of a brand to inform the microinteraction development process. By focusing on user needs, emotions and expectations, you can key into their habits, interactions and intentions. One piece of advice for microinteraction integration is to always provide targeted calls to action that allow the user to interact with expected information and inform them of narratives and content they may not be aware of. CTAs are essential to spark interaction with an application or website.
Why do microinteractions matter?
Microinteractions in UX provide a user with an instant acknowledgment of their action. Whether it is a 404 error page that provides further direction on how to get to the right place, or an ecommerce microinteraction like adding a product to a shopping cart, the user is made visually or audibly aware that the interaction was accepted, and they can be guided further in the experience. Additionally, microinteractions have far-reaching benefits in improving overall website navigation by increasing ease of use, providing feedback, preventing errors and offering rewards throughout the experience.
Designing For Interaction
When designing branded microinteractions, strategy and solutions should be based around both the task at hand and the overall brand experience. Users may have become accustomed to a specific type of microinteraction delivery, but that is not to say a brand cannot introduce new pathways to delight and surprise a user. Unexpected interactive UX details can engage users to the point where they choose one brand or product over another.
In addition to the elements of visual and contextual consistency to align with the brand, microinteractions should contain cues and directives to complete the action. Because microinteractions encourage highly engaged users, the most successful microinteractions are repeated, forming a routine cycle of sorts.
According to Saffer, there are four elements to a microinteraction:
• Trigger: A trigger is the beginning of a microinteraction that initiates the action. Singular triggers might include the click of a button, and a system trigger could be the sound of a chime as a text message is received.
• Rules: The rules of a microinteraction determine what happens after a trigger is performed. For example, when a button is pushed on a keychain, the car locks.
• Feedback: Perhaps the most important aspect is feedback that lets a user know their action has been acknowledged and what is happening. This can be a sound, vibration or visual cue meaning “working on it,” etc.
• Loops And Modes: Is it a repeating microinteraction? If so, cues are determined to repeat. Otherwise, you would experience a notification, visual or audible, that states the microinteraction is complete and moving into another functionality.
Branded microinteractions need not always be complex. Rather, the most effective interactions are those that reflect the brand’s perspective, allowing the user to more meaningfully connect. These small moments, while seemingly invisible, leave the user with multiple opportunities to both engage with a brand and accomplish their goals with ease.
