A human-computer-interaction concept that represents the ratio of relevant to irrelevant information. The terms "signal" and "noise" refer to anything that user has to process when using a system. To help users complete their tasks and improve the efficiency of communication through your design, you should aim for a high-signal-to-noise ratio. Every extra unit of information competes with the relevant information and diminishes the visibility of this important info to the user. 

Design Implications:
- It's important to prioritize your system's content and features and strive to only include things that are absolutely necessary.
- Features that might be used less often could be candidate for removal. 
- All visuals should have a functional purpose, afford their use, support the primary goal of your users.
- "Communicate, don't decorate."

Signal-to-Noise Ratio

Summary: "No. 8 of the top 10 UX design heuristics is to remove unnecessary elements from the user interface and to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio of the design."

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

- Tooltip Guidelines
- 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design
- Visibility of System Status (Usability Heuristic #1)
- 5 Steps to creating a UX-Design Portfolio
- Complex Application Design: A 5-Layer Framework
- 8 Design Guidelines for Complex Applications
- Feature Richness and User Engagement
- Usability Heuristic #8: Aesthetic and Minimalist Design
- Social Media User Experience
- The Top Enduring Intranet-Design Mistakes: 7 Deadly Sins
- State-Switch Controls: The Infamous Case of the "Mute" Button
- Design Systems 101
- Interaction Cost
- Similarity Principle in Visual Design
- Design to Match the Medium
- Learnability vs. Efficiency in User Interface Design
- Cards: UI-Component Definition

Nielsen Norman Group Articles

2 minute video by Kate Moran
Topics: Heuristic Evaluation,  Visual Design
https://www.nngroup.com/videos/aesthetic-and-minimalist-design/ 
Copyright © 1998-2020 Nielsen Norman Group, All Rights Reserved.

NNG Reference Article: Usability Heuristic 8 - Aesthetic and Minimalist Design (Video)

"Tooltips are user-triggered messages that provide additional information about a page element or feature. Although tooltips aren’t new to the web, they are often incorrectly implemented."

Tooltip Guidelines

These 10 general principles for interaction design, created by Jakob Nielsen, are broad rules of thumb rather than specific usability guidelines.

1. Visibility of system status
2. Match between system and the real world
3. User control and freedom
4. Consistency and standards
5. Error prevention
6. Recognition rather than recall
7. Flexibility and efficiency of use
8. Aesthetic and minimalist design
9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
10. Help and documentation

10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design

"Summary: A portfolio highlighting your design process and past work shows others who you are as a designer. The process of creating a UX-design portfolio allows you to reflect on your skills and achievements."

- What Hiring Managers Are Looking For
- Putting It Together
- Navigating Roadblocks

5 Steps to creating a UX-Design Portfolio

Complex applications are extremely diverse. However, they do have general issues they can face, even across different applications. These 8 guidelines can help address those general issues and improve user efficiency.   
 
1. Promote learning by doing.
2. Help users adopt more efficient methods to do their tasks.
3. Provide flexible and fluid pathways through workflows.
4. Help users track actions and thought processes.
5. Coordinate transition among multiple tools and workspaces.
6. Reduce clutter without reducing capability.
7. Ease transition between primary and secondary information.
8. Make important information visually salient.

8 Design Guidelines for Complex Applications

When designing for a complex application, designers should consider 5 layers of complexity based on context for the application's use.

- Integration
- Information
- Intention
- Environment
- Institution

Complex Application Design: A 5-Layer Framework

"Summary: The more engaged users are, the more features an application can sustain. But most users have low commitment -- especially to websites, which must focus on simplicity, rather than features."

Feature Richness and User Engagement

Usability Heuristic #8: Aesthetic and Minimalist Design

There are elements within social media that make it compelling to use and it is a way for users to connect with people around the world without necessarily having to meet the person. Social media generates a way for users to reconnect with people from their past and haven't had the chance to interact with them in a while. 


Social Media User Experience

Intranet tools and programs come and go, but bad UIs linger for years, impact employee productivity and morale, and ultimately increase organizational costs.

The Top Enduring Intranet-Design Mistakes: 7 Deadly Sins

Summary: "On–off controls that switch between two different system states need to clearly communicate to users both the current state and the state the system will move to, should the user press that control."
- Two Pieces of Information, Two Controls
- Two Pieces of Information, One Control
- State-Switch Control Recommendations

State-Switch Controls: The Infamous Case of the "Mute" Button

"Summary: A design system is a set of standards to manage design at scale by reducing redundancy while creating a shared language and visual consistency across different pages and channels."

Design Systems 101

"Summary: The interaction cost is the sum of efforts — mental and physical — that the users must deploy in interacting with a site in order to reach their goals."

User actions that add to interaction cost can include scrolling, reading, looking around for information, page loads, typing, and etc.

Interaction Cost

"Summary: Design elements that appear similar in some way — sharing the same color, shape, or size — are perceived as related, while elements that appear dissimilar are perceived as belonging to separate groups."

Similary Principle in Visual Design

"Avoid a one-size-fits-all approach to UX design. Consider the the strengths and weaknesses of each platform when presenting information."

For a great user experience, designers should try to take advantage of the strengths of each specific medium or platform, and do their best to overcome or avoid the weaknesses and limitations of each platform.

Design to Match the Medium

Summary: The most fundamental usability components or metrics are learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors, and satisfaction. This video focuses on two of these; learnability and efficiency. Although these two concepts. arerelated, there is an important distinction.

Learnability vs Efficiency in User Interface Design

"Summary: A "card" is a UI design pattern that groups related information in a flexible-size container visually resembling a playing card." Thus, a card can be defined as "a container for a few short, related pieces of information. It roughly resembles a playing card in size and shape, and is intended as a linked, short representation of a conceptual unit. A lot of high-profile sites such as Google (Material Design), Pinterest, or Twitter use cards."

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