Should All Software be Intuitive?
// January 27th, 2009 // No Comments » // Design, Development
TechRepublic Blogger Justin James has a great post about the pressure to make all software (and web application) interfaces intuitive. He argues that given a complex task, the interface for dealing with that task is going to be likewise complex, and that the insistence on making it “intuitive” is unrealistic in many cases.
There’s some good points made by the commenters (software should be made intuitive to the target, skilled user, but not for John Doe off the street) and Mr. James laments the state of modern general computer education (learning how to use Facebook is not learning how to use a computer).
One of the things that struck me while reading the post was how the web industry in particular has put so much focus on things being “usable” and “intuitive”.
I would argue that this has created a mentality that everything in the world can be designed to be “intuitive”, no matter how complex the task. This has manifested itself (in my experience) with clients who look at a design or interface for 5 seconds and say “I don’t get it”. Sometimes they’re right, and we’ve missed the mark, using terms and iconography that don’t make sense, but other times the demands on the interface design are just out of line with all the tasks that the interface is required to handle.
Problems also arise when the client has a different idea of what is “intuitive” vs. what the designer thinks is “intuitive” vs. what is actually “intuitive” for the person who will be using the app.
Designing things to be intuitive is a great goal to aim for, don’t get me wrong. However, sometimes the only way to handle a design problem is to write better documentation and provide better training.
