Re: ::scr Re: Cognitive Friction

[celia romaniuk <space@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 22 Dec 2001, Tony Bowden wrote:

> Does Raskin believe that one interface can really suit beginners and
> power users without either confusing the beginner or constraining the
> expert?

Yes, he does.

In his summary of the book*, he says

"In spite of a commonly-believed myth to the contrary, we are not novices
or experts with regard to whole systems or applications, but go through
the learning and automatic phases more or less independently with regard
to each feature or set of similar features. If learning one of a set of
features makes you automatic on the entire set, or greatly decreases the
time it takes to become automatic on the rest of the set, we say that the
set of features exhibits consistency.

"In keeping with an industry that has, until recently, been primarily
concerned with introducing computer applications to a rapidly widening
audience, most interface design work has concentrated on facilitating the
learning phase. The current trend that culminated in Macintosh OS and
Windowsstyle graphic user interfaces (GUIs) began when designers at Xerox
PARC made operating systems more comprehensible by introducing a desktop
metaphor, giving a graphic representation to previously invisible system
features, and making their relationship to your task more understandable.
Programs became task-oriented, and turned into applications, which were
presented each in its own separate region of the display, or window and
each with its own characteristic behavior.

"During this period, not much attention was paid to those qualities of
interface features that allow you to enter the automatic phase. The design
principles that encourage the development of automaticity in a user are
quite different from, though not incompatible with, those for
learnability. Unfortunately, some of the methods that have been used to
enhance learnability in GUIs make it impossible to achieve automaticity
throughout the interface. The present paradigms cannot be evolved or
reworked to solve this problem; novel approaches to interface design at
the system level as well as in the details are required. Because some of
the present methods for promoting learnability cannot be used, they must
be replaced by other methods equally or more learnable, methods which are
also compatible with automaticity.

"For an interface feature to be humane it must be easily learned and it
also must become automatic without interfering with the learning of or
habituating to other features. The present blend of hard-to-learn keyboard
shortcuts and difficult-to-automatize menu choices fails on both counts.
Adaptive menus and other features that are changed by the system in
response to your patterns of use defeat habituation (controls suddenly
shift from where you have learned to expect them to be)."

In reference to your question, my understanding of Raskin's approach is
that if features are consistent throughout, then this favours the future
expert of the system. That is, someone new to it should be able to learn
its basic features quickly, but then stepping to more advanced features
should be relatively easy.

* 
<http://www.jefraskin.com/forjef/jefweb-compiled/humaneinterface/summary_of_THI.html>

The whole summary is worth a read, but better still, read the book. My
memory's so poor that I could definitely do with a refresher myself.

-- 
celia
...(small town, slow news day)