unity-design team mailing list archive

[Thorsten Wilms <t_w_@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 2010-05-14 at 11:37 +0200, Jan-Christoph Borchardt wrote:

> That is exactly why interaction needs to be intuitive and not require learning.

This is totally unrealistic. Humans can't even walk or talk without
learning.

Some say the nipple would be the only intuitive interface. I've been
told that not even breast feeding just works on first try ...

Also see:
http://www.uie.com/articles/design_intuitive/

The thing that makes people think something would be "intuitive" is
actually familiarity. It might be useful to think of familiarity coming
from 3 sources:
 * Physical, real world experience that can be leveraged with metaphors
and pseudo-physical interface elements (or perhaps custom interface
hardware).
 * Experience with existing software.
 * Concepts/thought-models from specific fields.

I think the term "intuitive" should be avoided, banned even, from
further discussion. It's a symptom of a lack of understanding in this
field.


-- 
Thorsten Wilms

thorwil's design for free software:
http://thorwil.wordpress.com/