![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
It's the Interface, Stupid
A lot of everyday frustrations with technology (among many other things) come from a simple root. The interface of the technology wasn't designed for the ease of use for the user, it was designed for the ease of building or or saving money or reusing an old design or to look "cool" or whatever the needs of the designer are. The best interfaces are those that are simple enough to become invisible with little practice. Yes, people can get used to almost any interface with sufficient practice, and then they're going to not want to change and start over again. Witness the survival of the QWERTY keyboard. Which is all the more reason to get things right the first time.
So what's a good interface have?
It should be as simple as possible. That's important. People only can remember so much stuff at once. By simple, I mean the number of options at any one time is limited, and each is distinct. And what they do should be fairly obvious.
Feedback. When the user does something, the interface should respond, and the response should be clearly tied to what the user did. That way people build associations to them quicker. And if they do something wrong, it should say so too, also clearly. And help lead them to what they want to do.
Those are the two biggest ones I can think of. I'm sure there's others, but I'm not an interface engineer. I'm just a guy who has to use crappy websites to put in reports. The main thing is this. The interface needs to be designed for other people, not for the people designing it. The best interfaces become invisible, the more the user has to notice it and think about how to work it, rather than thinking about what they're trying to do, the worse the interface is.
So what's a good interface have?
It should be as simple as possible. That's important. People only can remember so much stuff at once. By simple, I mean the number of options at any one time is limited, and each is distinct. And what they do should be fairly obvious.
Feedback. When the user does something, the interface should respond, and the response should be clearly tied to what the user did. That way people build associations to them quicker. And if they do something wrong, it should say so too, also clearly. And help lead them to what they want to do.
Those are the two biggest ones I can think of. I'm sure there's others, but I'm not an interface engineer. I'm just a guy who has to use crappy websites to put in reports. The main thing is this. The interface needs to be designed for other people, not for the people designing it. The best interfaces become invisible, the more the user has to notice it and think about how to work it, rather than thinking about what they're trying to do, the worse the interface is.