Microinteractions: Designing with Details

It’s the little things that turn a good digital product into a great one. With this practical book, you’ll learn how to design effective microinteractions: the small details that exist inside and around features. How can users change a setting? How do they turn on mute, or know they have a new email message?

Through vivid, real-world examples from today’s devices and applications, author Dan Saffer walks you through a microinteraction’s essential parts, then shows you how to use them in a mobile app, a web widget, and an appliance. You’ll quickly discover how microinteractions can change a product from one that’s tolerated into one that’s treasured.

• Explore a microinteraction’s structure: triggers, rules, feedback, modes, and loops
• Learn the types of triggers that initiate a microinteraction
• Create simple rules that define how your microinteraction can be used
• Help users understand the rules with feedback, using graphics, sounds, and vibrations
• Use modes to let users set preferences or modify a microinteraction
• Extend a microinteraction’s life with loops, such as “Get data every 30 seconds”