Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 03:33:43 -0500 From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> To: Erik Rothwell <erothwell@callgtn.com>, "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Intuitive interface - was RE: vi Message-ID: <15141.54247.364114.616824@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <106336819@toto.iv>
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Erik Rothwell <erothwell@callgtn.com> types: > By "realistically" I mean that programs should work in as close a manner > as possible to everyday, real world axioms -- i.e. we should find > things, files, menus, commands, etc. where we'd inherently expect to > find them The real world doesn't *have* files, menus or commands that deal with them, so there is no place where one would "intuitively" expect to find them. There is *no* real world training that would lead one to expect them anywhere - only familiarity with other computer programs. > if I put my pen down on the table, and walk away, chances are > good that when I come back to the table my pen will still be there, in > the same place -- rogue pen theives aside ;). This is vaguely the concept of "focus of attention", which maintains that you don't make anything happen except where the user is watching for things to happen. I claim this is obviously a good idea. Most user interfaces in comon use violate it. It also doesn't match the real world very well, because things are always going on where you aren't looking all the time. > Therefore, for instance, directory structure is intuitive. No, they aren't. They're just familiar, because they've been used on computer systems for over three decades now. > It's a good > way classifying things, first, so it's more intuitive than.. say.. a > single directory into which all files go. It's more organized, certainly. More intuitive? I dunno - how many people say "get me the files in the upper left-hand desk drawer"? Most people want files based on some internal attribute - like what it describes. A directory structure is better for those kinds of queries because it allows more organization than a flat collection of files. An interface that provides a real-world model - which the directories full of files clearly are not - would be more "intuitive". It's not clear it would be better. > The intuitiveness of a program, I think, as well, is just a measure of > how quickly and easily one can figure out a program simply by *using* > it. If the menu options or commands required by a program make some > logical sense -- determined by past experience, perhaps, or perhaps > simply the over-all self-consistance of the program's UI -- and fall > into the place you'd expect it -- the place you'd intuit it to be. You've just described "consistent" and "familiar", respectively. Neither of these has much to do with being "intuitive", though being consistent is a good thing. > A directory listing command "ls" and "dir" are both intuitive. More so, > perhaps, is "list files" or selecting a folder, choosing File -> Open > (ignoring the double-click, for now.) from a set of menus. Listing a > directory by typing "xaksaja" is less intuitive than any of these > options, significantly. No, it's just less *familiar*. Just because someone familiar with computers is unlikely to guess it - unless it happens to mean "list files" in their native language - doesn't mean it's less intuitive. > The other end of the spectrum would be something like... putting the > command to save your work 25 levels down in a menu structure that starts > with "Graphics Options" -- this is counterintuitive and plain bad UI > design. True. On the other hand - anything that isn't *immediately* visible is bad UI design. > So, I don't think the word intuitive as applied to user interfaces is > strictly a misnomer for "easy" or "common" interfaces. You quickly > understand what "intuitive" is when you see some truly unintuitive or > counterintuitve user interfaces :) I claim the Windows and Mac window managers are counterintuitive. After all, who ever saw a piece of paper that had to be on top of everything else on the desk before you could write on it? A lot of people disagree with me. That's because these things aren't intuitive, they are *familiar*. I'm familiar with one window managers behavior, a lot of people are familiar with another one. Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm@toybox.placo.com> types: > >Nevertheless, when you put something into a directory, leave the > >directory, and come back -- the file is still there. (Evil h4x0rs or > >user error, aside ;)). One step further -- the MacOS 9 Finder is a0 > >particularly good example of "spatial computing": when I open a folder, > >put a file in it, close the folder, and return -- my document is not > >only there, but in the same screen position in which I left it. > >Things of this nature are "intuitive." > I disagree - things of this nature are "obvious" They're only obvious after you've explained them. Interface design is a *science*. Interfaces have properties that make them good or bad. You can measure how quickly people learn an interface, how often they make mistakes, and how fast an interface is after it's been learned. You can make hypothesis about how important certain things - constency, focus of attention, and such like - are to an interface, and then design experiments to test those hypothesis. <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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