A resource

We are collecting, curating, and illustrating promising models for presenting information, facilitating smart decision-making, and promoting follow-through on smarter behavior.

For Inspiration

This resource is for people who know they need to make a system more user-friendly, but aren’t sure what they want to build — they just want to make sure it is usable and engaging.

The Roadmap

Give the user an overview of the process, with a birds-eye view that will let her visualize what the journey will be.

The Timeline

Lay out the sequence of events, how they may occur for the user, so that she can have an understanding of what to expect in both the short term and the long term. By seeing it as a timeline, she may be able to envision consequences and faraway events in more detail. This pattern can be useful when assessing options or following through on a process.

The Checklist

Give the user a point-by-point, step-by-step set of information, that is actionable. Break up complex information into discrete & sequenced bits of actions, so that they can feel that they know what to do and get some reward in getting it done, checking it off point after point. It can also ensure that people cover all the points that they should, that they don’t forget one thing during their journey through complexity.

The Coversheet

Provide a summary of all the information and choices that the user should know, but in a quick and clear summary. It can indicate where the user might want to dig in further if she is interested in that area.

Staged Information

Break up long passages of text into bite-size chunks of content. It can be done by segmenting content into several different pages to click through, or by having it in tabs, modals, or other interface elements that selectively present deep-dive information when the user chooses to open it — but otherwise shows only the headline & quick summary version of the content.

The Expert-to-Lay

Provide a platform where experts on the system can converse with the user to give them information, hear their problems and questions, and supply custom advice and guidance to them.

Peer-to-Peer

Connect the user with other non-experts who can tell her about their experiences, their concerns, and their strategies. Even if they are not expert, the peers can help the user feel comfortable in the system and give them direction and options from their real-life experiences.

The Dashboard

Show the user a summary of her overall stats and specific metrics, all in one interface. It can let her see what trends, patterns, and behaviors are happening, so she can draw insights about past behavior and what she might need to change and do in the future. It is a custom graphic, that shows her information specific to her, and helps her make sense of it.

Strategy Calculator

A tool that lets the user enter in her data & preferences, and the tool uses its algorithm(s) to report back to her what an appropriate path is.

Conversational Q-n-A

A system that interacts with the user like she is in a human-to-human conversation, providing her with questions that classify her issues, that give her just-in-time information, and that encourage her to stay engaged with the system.

Game Mechanics

Present the user with rewards, levels, and other game-like mechanics to get them engaged in the process. It can be used to teach them about the system, give them sample scenarios and examples, or actually get work product created and tasks accomplished.

Future Self

Help the user overcome her inability to think about long-term or future outcomes, by giving her explicit reference points, stories, or data about what she will be like in the future depending on what she does now.

Limited Menu

Present the user with a very small set of options — curating down the many possible options to a small handful of them, so that it is much easier to make a choice and not get distracted by options and factors that are not as relevant to them.

Smart Defaults

Give pre-seletected choices to the user that general trends shows would be the smartest choice for her to take in the system, given her background data. The defaults will encourage her to make this choice, by making it clear that this is the best choice and easier to make it (because it’s already selected for her).

Story Matching

Tell other people’s stories (real or fictional) to let a person compare themselves and take inspiration/warning from them. The stories give them concrete scenarios through which they can understand the system and the many possible paths and outcomes that they might have to deal with.

Wisdom of the Crowds

Use data from other people’s choices, behavior, and outcomes in order to determine what a ‘wise’ choice would be for the current user, in her current scenario. The crowdsourced data points can predict what she should do.

Customized Recommendation

The user’s behavior and trends are collected and analyzed by the tool, and then the tool presents back to the user a prediction of what the best option for the user is. It can present a single choice or a whole course of action that the user should be taking, based on the user’s own data and the tool’s algorithms.