One version this Article originally published on the blog Percolate.
in the spring of 09, I graduated from the School of Architecture. At the time, the post-recession economy was rough and not much was happening for architects. With an interest in entrepreneurship and technology, I took a risk and decided to try working at a tech startup. To my surprise, I fell in love with the industry and 5 years later, I am now a product designer at Percolate in New York, a company that produces web and mobile marketing software.
Since my pivot career, I have noticed many interesting parallels between architecture and product design. Although the mediums are different, it is amazing how the design principles and processes are the same. To some extent, the same tools can be applied to both design industries. In this post I will discuss how traffic is a fundamental property of the utility of two buildings and products.
One of the biggest lessons I learned in architecture school is the importance of circulation systems in the building design.
Think about some of your favorite buildings. To move between floors, you need stairs, lifts and ramps. To move between the bedrooms upstairs, you must hallways and corridors. The traffic methods are key functional elements in all buildings.
When I moved from architecture to product design, I immediately realized that the concept of the traffic was very applicable to the design of software applications. To see what I mean, look at the following diagram I created to show how how to move between floors in a building is similar to moving between screens in a mobile application. The purpose of the stairs of the building is the same as for the application tabs. In both cases, it is the main method of helping people to move between base areas.
circulation greatly affects our perception of products and architecture. Think about renting an apartment on the 7th floor of a building. If you entered your building and had to climb seven flights of stairs to reach your apartment, your legs are in great shape, but you might feel tired and have a less enjoyable experience. If you entered the same building and got to take an elevator to reach your apartment, your perception of the building could be more favorable.
The movement of buildings not only affects your perception of them, and your use and behavior within them. Using the example of the apartment, the stairs would likely cause you to go home as often as you would if you had an elevator in the building. The presence of a lift would likely cause you to bring in the biggest house, heavier items. The lesson learned is that we do a lot of choices based on circulation systems available.
Circulation in Percolate Apps
to Percolate, the design team spends time thinking about systems traffic in our iOS and Android. This is more commonly called "navigation". Our first mobile application, Photographer, includes a list of full-screen browsing. Users tap the icon on the top left burger and are brought to a full-screen list where they choose a destination. This navigation was chosen to draw the attention of the user on the basic functionality of the application, which is to take pictures and display images in the media library.
the full list of the navigation screen feels a bit like stepping into an elevator, selecting a floor, then down to the desired location. In architecture, the method of elevator traffic is often good. However, when there are only a few points of destination, you might start to wonder, "Is a lift really necessary"
With this question in mind, we decided to explore the simplest navigation systems we have developed new applications. earlier this year, during the development of the ambassador, a workers advocacy application, we sketched and iterative on navigation systems. in doing we noticed tabs improved the experience of these ways:
- Less clicks: tabs simplify navigation by reducing the number of shots required to move from one screen to basic 2 taps in the full screen list (hamburgers> destination) with a single tap on the
- More explicit :. tab names and icons are easy to understand and always visible to the user, rather than being hidden inside a full list size
- most navigation :. Because the tabs make it faster and more obvious navigation, users are more likely to skip between different fields of application. This is an important consideration for applications such as the ambassador where we want users to interact with messages of both the brand of the business and the shared inbox of their team, living on separate tabs .
After further consideration, we decided tabs offered a better flow design for our applications. Since exploration, we started to develop all our applications to include a navigation tab. Today, the tabs are now living in the Ambassador, Marketer and Community Manager applications.
lessons learned
as an architect, I learned circulation systems, including stairs, hallways and elevators are very important to help people navigate buildings. circulation systems Similarly, as a product designer, I learned, such as the list of menus and tabs are needed to help people navigate products.
Outside Percolate, we are pleased to see other startups think about traffic. More than 10 million visitors booked rooms through Airbnb last year, according to this article in the Wall Street Journal, the founders believed to traffic early:
The rest 08 was spent adding more robust website features that make it easy to use Airbnb. Steve Jobs was famous insisted on a maximum of three clicks from the user to get a piece of the Apple iPod. Airbnb has adopted this mantra: three clicks booking
As you develop your next product, remember to think about the circulation early and often in the design process .. the easier it is to navigate your product, the more likely it will be a success.
Melissa Mandelbaum is a product designer at Percolate. You can follow me on Twitter at @lissalauren.
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