Design for Interruption

Think about the last time you used your phone. Chances are you were also doing something else. Walking. Waiting in line. Watching a show. Half listening to a conversation.

That is not a distraction from mobile use. That is mobile use.

Luke Wroblewski, author of Mobile First, has a phrase that captures this reality. He describes mobile use as one thumb and one eyeball. One hand on the device. Only part of the person’s attention on the screen. In one of his presentations, he summed up the design implication in four words. “Partial attention requires focused design.”

I find that line incredibly useful because it moves the problem away from the user. People are not careless. Their context is fragmented. Our job is to design for the attention they actually have, not the attention we wish they had.

Here are a few principles I rely on.

• Make every screen do one job. When attention is limited, a single clear action beats a dashboard of options.
• Save progress constantly. A phone call, a notification or a train stop can end a session at any second. Nobody should lose a half finished form because life happened.
• Help people pick up where they left off. When users return, show them exactly where they were and what comes next.
• Design for glances. Key information should be readable in a second or two. Status, totals and next steps belong at the top.
• Respect reachable zones. Primary actions should sit where a thumb can comfortably reach them.
• Interrupt sparingly. Our users are already interrupted by everything else. Notifications should earn their place.

Design for the moment someone looks away, not only the moment they look at the screen.

This is also a question of respect. Every unnecessary step or alert asks for attention that someone may not have to give.

John Maeda captured this perfectly in The Laws of Simplicity when he wrote, “Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.”

On a small screen, in a busy moment, that subtraction is not optional. It is the whole design.

Design for interruption, because interruption is the default. The products that win are the ones that are easy to leave and even easier to come back to.