Dante Murphy: State Mapping for Interaction

As websites have transitioned from a series of hyperlinked static pages to rich, interactive applications, the traditional means of documenting their structure and behavior has struggled to keep pace. Site maps fail to capture the detailed interactions on and across pages, use cases fail to show the relationship between activities, and data flow diagrams ignore the nuances of presentation and user choice.

Enter the state map. Evolved from scenarios and storyboards, the state map demonstrates the flow of information and interaction across all of an applications possible activities for all user types. The state map is a foundational design element, able to inform detailed technical, behavioral, and aesthetic design.

This video demonstrates the creation and use of state maps in three key situations; defining and pitching a concept, designing an application, and reverse-engineering existing applications to facilitate comparison and gap analysis.

About Dante Murphy

Dante is the Director of User Experience for Digitas Health, the health agency of Digitas and a global leader in digital and healthcare communications. His responsibilities include ideation, design, testing, methodologies, and building a world-class multi-disciplinary design practice.

Dante’s career in application and experience design began in 1996; previous to joining Digitas Health in 2006, Dante was a Principal Information Architect at GSI Commerce. Assignments and clients include Toys R Us, Siemens, Radio Shack, Sony, Burberry, NFL Football, Vanguard, adidas, Merck, Astra Zeneca, Palm, and numerous others.

Originally posted by Nasir Barday, 17.03.2009.