Sure -- though this is exactly not (if not _exactly_ the opposite of)
the tutorial situation I'm talking about. That is: if the
*abstruseness* of some information is part of the point of that
information, doesn't an interface for getting at it that makes the
path to it *not* automatic reinforce the point of the information?
A huge percentage of what we do on computers isn't like this; early
interfaces were bad because they made everything obscure including
the 95% that shouldn't be. All the UI guidelines are ways of making
designers conscious of that & so correcting it. My point is that,
while doing clerical work on a computer (which is most of what most
people use programs for -- from email to w.p. to googling) shouldn't
make any extra, irrelevant demands on users' attention, I don't
believe that applies to everything people do on computers.
On Jul 5, 2005, at 12:05 PM, Judy Perry wrote:
Yes, and one of my favorites to use in teaching is "The Art of the
Obvious" (Lind, Johnson & Sandblad, CHI 1992).
While it is largely concerned with "automatically processed
components of
the task of reading frequently used documents", the authors contend
that
their findings suggest "implications for task analysis and interface
design".
Specifically, they (and others) have posited that one of the very few
visual attributes that humans always automatically (without additional
conscious processing or thought) register is location.
Thus, scrolling buttons = requires higher-level brain function and
this
does not making using an interface analogous to the eventual
functional
automaticity of, say, driving a car.
Fascinating read; if anyone's interested, I can email you the PDF.
Basically, their experimental design was to take hospital and other
medical charts, remove the higher-level data (numbers and specific
letters) and replace them all with XXXs in an emergency room
context to
see if/how the doctors could still roughly review the "information"
for
rapid diagnoses ... and... they could because they were familiar
with the
layout of the various forms and knew what the presence (or absence) of
those XXXs in specific locations could signify.
Judy
On Tue, 5 Jul 2005, Thomas McGrath III wrote:
I agree. It is not good moving buttons in fields or groups. It
makes it
too hard for users to develop a motor plan for those buttons. A motor
plan is what happens during touch typing or even during walking where
our muscles develop a plan to those activities without having to
think
about it.
<snip>
There have been hundreds of papers and years of research done on
this.
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Charles Hartman
Professor of English, Poet in Residence
Connecticut College
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*the Scandroid* is at cherry.conncoll.edu/cohar/Programs
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