This article is a bit misogynistic, but does a good job of showing how interfaces like Australis are actually terrible for average users. Though it is about web interfaces, it applies to any user interface.
We assume everyone knows what a save icon does. My mother used floppy disks for a few years but has undoubtedly forgotten all about their functionality. I see interface after interface that use only icons for actions such as “New document”, “Copy”, and “Delete”. Sometimes I’ll be walking her through some sort of interface over the phone and I’ll tell her to delete a file, only to realize that “Delete” is an icon. I’ll have to tell her at that point to search for some icon that looks like a trash can or an “X” or something. I’ve heard her say something genius after finding it like “Why doesn’t it just say ‘Delete’?”.
Icons are completely antagonistic to the thought process of the average user. (I wish there were a better term than “average user” or “regular user” because in my experience the “average” user is 80 or 90 percent of users.) They simply don’t understand what icons do, even after repeated use, and thus are afraid to click on them for fear of something unexpected occurring.
And when something unexpected does occur – like the old interface being nuked and replaced with cryptic one, à la Australis – regular users are paralyzed and then jump ship (how do you like them mixed metaphors?).
Understand that if you are redesigning a website that has loyal users, drastically changing an interface on them means they have to relearn all of the links and menus, and that will probably drive them away in frustration.
My partner’s mother did not know what the standard play/pause/stop buttons did in Winamp even after having seen them for at least forty years in other contexts. And guess what? This is completely normal. I am sure everyone reading this blog knows what they do. Not one regular user reads this blog, though. That, like the Mozilla devs, is a self-selection issue that leads to poor design.
That smart people are often only smart about the very, very tiny arena that they know something about should be explored more, in all areas. But that’s a much harder problem, I think.
My partner’s mother did not know what the standard play/pause/stop buttons did in Winamp even after having seen them for at least forty years in other contexts. And guess what? This is completely normal. I am sure everyone reading this blog knows what they do. Not one regular user reads this blog, though. That, like the Mozilla devs, is a self-selection issue that leads to poor design.
How much of that is generational, though? The actual play/pause/stop icons predate widespread use of home computers. The save icon is an actual floppy disk (how many people under 25 have actually used a floppy disk?) The file button is a yellow manila folder. How long do you think you’ll see file folders and magnifying glasses in programs long after they are in common use? Icons rely on this assumed crystallized knowledge of the world.
I think designers overestimate the willingness of users to start playing in their application and underestimate the value of redundant clues and ways to do things.
For example: She doesn’t realize that her iPhone does that for her. It will show her a missed call, the time of the call, their number, and if she knows them, their name. Yet, it’s almost automatic for her to set up her voicemail with that message. Would this be solved by the iPhone telling her to record a different sort of message? Maybe.
Most people text me. Most people do not leave voicemail, but for people who do leave voice mail, that message is there.Why? It’s entirely possible they’re calling from a unlisted number (I have family members who do) or they want me to call a different number other than the one they are calling from. Or it’s possible that someone other than the person named on the caller id is making the call.
“I think designers overestimate the willingness of users to start playing in their application and underestimate the value of redundant clues and ways to do things.”
My girlfriend and I were discussing something similar the other day, about how removing all alternative ways of doing things and having the “one true way” that tasks should be completed really is troublesome as users — especially experienced ones — tend do think and perform actions in really disparate ways.
But it makes coding, I am sure, marginally easier for the programmers. But this should be a secondary concern. In user-hostile design, though, it at least appears to have become a primary one, though I think other sub rosa concerns are the true reasons. But that’s a topic for another post!