People often say that user interfaces in computing applications should be designed to be “intuitive”. I think that’s a load of rubbish. The trouble is that the definition of “intuitive” for most people is “the way I would do it”, which of course is potentially different for every person on the globe.

An engineer helpfully pointed out to me the other day a much more meaningful design principle …

“the user interface should not create uncertainty in the mind of the user”

The application may not work the way I would want it to, but it’s still clear what steps I need to take to achieve what I want to do.

[This content was originally posted to Google Buzz, #127]