Is It Time to Jettison the Jargon Intuitive?
April 9, 2013
Search vendors, who have embraced facets and visualization, are no strangers to the concept of the “intuitive” user interface. Now, that idea is getting some push-back in a piece at the MIT Technology Review, “I’m Boycotting ‘Intuitive’ Interfaces.” It isn’t the slick and/or easy-to-use UIs themselves that writer John Pavlus has a problem with, but the impression that these designs just somehow “feel natural.” He writes:
“[Jef] Raskin points out (and any HCI expert or UI designer worth her salt will already know this) that ‘intuitive’ is just a sloppy quasi-synonym for ‘familiar.’ If you don’t feel like you have to learn how to use a tool–that you ‘just get it,’ that you ‘already know,’ or ‘it just works’–then it feels like it’s magically tapping into your ineffable ‘intuition.’ It ain’t. You still have to learn how to use it. It’s just that the more familiar it is (or seems), the less you notice the effort of that learning (or the less effort there will be to begin with). A pen is ‘intuitive’ because you’ve used a zillion pens, pencils, crayons, markers, and stick-shaped inscriptor-tools in your life. A computer mouse is ‘intuitive’ for the same reason (if you were born in or after my generation). If you grew up 500 years ago in an agrarian society, you might think a plow or a scythe was pretty [darned] intuitive. Would you know what the $#*& to do with a plow if I put it in your hands right now?”
The man has a point. So what, one might ask, why not let UI designers (and marketers) continue to throw around the word “intuitive” willy-nilly? Because, Pavlus insists, it sets up unrealistic expectations for users. Besides, he asserts, trying to minimize the learning curve distracts designers from what should be their top priority—facilitating connections between people. I’m not sure I’m on board with his boycott of the term, but I expect I will now hear the word “familiar” in my head whenever I hear or read “intuitive.”
Cynthia Murrell, April 09, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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