ReFinE: Streamlining UI Mockup Iteration with Research Findings

TL;DR

ReFinE is a Figma plugin that helps designers incorporate HCI research insights into UI mockups by providing contextualized, actionable guidance, thereby streamlining the iteration process.

Contribution

This work introduces ReFinE, a novel tool that synthesizes and contextualizes research findings to support real-time UI design improvements.

Findings

ReFinE reduces designers' cognitive load during mockup iteration.

The tool improves designers' ability to integrate research insights into UI mockups.

User study shows increased efficiency in design revisions.

Abstract

Although HCI research papers offer valuable design insights, designers often struggle to apply them in design workflows due to difficulties in finding relevant literature, understanding technical jargon, the lack of contextualization, and limited actionability. To address these challenges, we present ReFinE, a Figma plugin that supports real-time design iteration by surfacing contextualized insights from research papers. ReFinE identifies and synthesizes design implications from HCI literature relevant to the mockup's design context, and tailors this research evidence to a specific design mockup by providing actionable visual guidance on how to update the mockup. To assess the system's effectiveness, we conducted a technical evaluation and a user study. Results show that ReFinE effectively synthesizes and contextualizes design implications, reducing cognitive load and improving designers' ability to integrate research evidence into UI mockups. This work contributes to bridging the gap between research and design practice by presenting a tool for embedding scholarly insights into the UI design process.