Designing for Flow

Flow is the seamless transition between two different states within a computer application. It not only improves responsiveness (the user has visual feedback on what the application is effectively doing) but also the understanding of how it works. For example, when the user saves a document to a folder, if the document icon is moved to that specific folder’s icon, the user understands better what was just performed, rather than being presented with just a status message. When creating a new record into a database, visually highlighting where it was placed in the table reassures the user that the action was performed, while also activating its memory to where it was located.

Recent improvements in computer processing and graphic power allow for applications to improve their flow, but most developers dismiss this as visual fluff; it takes time to develop and is mostly considered irrelevant. This talk aims to contradict this claim and argue that this is indeed something very important, while also providing examples and design considerations for when designing for flow.