On Feb 12, 2008, at 10:01 AM, paige saez wrote: > I think calling an interface intuitive presupposes an enormous > amount prior > knowledge. Something is intuitive only to someone already familiar > with it.
I run into this issue at least twice a day. Basically, I've come to describe it as this: An interface is intuitive if it maps to the mental model of the person using it. Nothing more, nothing less. So if you want something to be "intuitive," you better know exactly what your user's mental models are for the product you are designing. Otherwise, you're best hope is only going to be able to design something that is "straight forward." Easy to use? Forget it. That only comes rarely and if the problem you need to solve is fairly simple itself. If you are designing a poker application, for example, using pure numbers with a dollar sign is one thing, but to make it feel intuitive, you'll also want to add "chips" since that's how people think when betting in poker. That approach maps to their mental model and therefore gives the application the proper feel. > Essentially I am thinking this question: How can we create > interfaces that > teach new behaviors? Some measure of intuitive plus novel would > seem to be > the recipe....particularly as interfaces move away from computers > and into > mobile devices and more ambient technologies I am curious about > what the > word "Intuitive" means when we are no longer in the realm of the > familiar AT > ALL. Can anyone suggest anything? There is no way to do so out of the gate unless the application you are designing has a strong model to follow in the real world. In designing Lightroom, one of the problems was how to handle digital RAW files in a way that photographer could uncerstand. Basically, in researching Lightroom, it became clear to treat the entire flow of the product as the digital equivalent of developing a negative, since essentially, that's largely what RAW is equivalent to. By equating RAW to the same concepts as a real negative (where a negative can be developed into a print multiple times and in multiple ways), it opens the door for that new technology and new ways to use it while also providing a basis for people to start from that maps to something they understand. Is Lightroom intuitive? For some, I certainly think it is, but if you are not a photographer, it probably is not. The whole "Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print, Web" in the top right corner basically maps to the large blocks of how many photographers think, generally speaking. And using "Develop" treats RAW in the same manner as one would treat a negative in the darkroom. That's the first road down the path of mapping to the person's mental model of how they handle photos. I used to get a lot of people telling me products like InDesign aren't intuitive. Well... if you've never set type and don't know what leading is, or never laid out a 100 page magazine, of course it's not intuitive. You have no basis to even begin to understand the product. For those that do, it's only intuitive if the controls they are looking for are generally in the spots they would find them. But to make it "intuitive" generally speaking? That's not a useful exercise. You have to know your audience and how they think before you can even bother attempting to make something intuitive. And if your audience is "consumer" good luck. You'll need to know more than that. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
