Jared Spool – What Makes a Design Seem Intuitive?
A presentation given at Web Directions North, Vancouver Canada, January 30 2008.
We’re sorry, but slides and podcast for this presentation are unfortunately not available.
Session description
Everyone wants an “intuitive” interface: the users, the designers, and the content publishers. But building them is hard. User Interface Engineering’s recent research has given insight into why it’s hard and how to get past major obstacles.
To build an “intuitive” interface, a designer has to do two things: (1) Take complete advantage of what the user already knows, so what they see is completely familiar to them and (2) make the act of learning anything new completely imperceptible to the user. It turns out, if the interface requires the user to realize they are learning something, the “intuitive” label disappears instantly.
In this talk, Jared will show:
- How users need both tool knowledge and domain knowledge to complete their tasks
- How simple problems with designs can cause big problems for users
- What successful teams are doing to create experiences that delight
Jared will show examples from Microsoft Word, MSN, Google Talk, Flickr, Avis, and many more.
About Jared Spool
Software developer and programmer Jared founded User Interface Engineering in 1988. He has more than 15 years of experience conducting usability evaluations on a variety of products, and is an expert in low-fidelity prototyping techniques.
Jared is on the faculty of the Tufts University Gordon Institute and teaches seminars on product usability. He is a member of SIGCHI, the Usability Professionals Association, the Association for Computing Machinery, and the IEEE. Jared is a recognized authority on user interface design and human factors in computing. He is a regular tutorial speaker at the annual CHI conference and Society for Technical Communications conferences around the country.
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