Functionality

Your constantly-updated definition of Functionality and collection of videos and articles
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What is Functionality?

Functionality refers to whether a design works and helps the users meet their goals and needs.

From products such as chairs or tables to designs such as books or web interfaces, functionality varies but is everywhere.

When a design is highly functional, it does what it’s expected to do and does it well. Good design has a purpose and is crafted in such a way that it will consistently and reliable execute a particular function.

UX designers know the importance of creating functional products, so they run a lot of usability tests to ensure everything is working properly and as expected.

Literature on Functionality

Here’s the entire UX literature on Functionality by the Interaction Design Foundation, collated in one place:

Learn more about Functionality

Take a deep dive into Functionality with our course Dynamic User Experience: Design and Usability .

Web technologies make it easy for websites to become more interactive and behave more like native applications. For instance, content on a website can now be loaded dynamically without the browser having to load or refresh the page. However, mindlessly increasing the interactivity of websites can sometimes damage the user experience rather than improve it. How can a designer make use of dynamic content to improve user experience, while making sure that the website is both usable and accessible?

This course will equip you with an understanding of how the use of Ajax (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) can turn a static webpage into a dynamic one. In particular, we will cover how to use Ajax appropriately, so that you can identify areas of a static webpage that the application of dynamic content can improve. At the same time, this course will teach you how to do so without sacrificing usability and accessibility, and hence achieve the optimal user experience. No technical knowledge of Ajax or coding is required, as this course is more focused on the design, rather than implementation, of dynamic web content. Implementation details are hence mentioned only briefly.

This course has been presented at many international conferences and is built on evidence-based approaches, as well as solid evidence, distilled from over 40 years of experience in the development of interactive systems. The course is taught by the founder and principal consultant of Syntagm, William Hudson, who is also a writer and teacher in the fields of user-centered design, user experience, and usability.

All open-source articles on Functionality

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