February 7, 2001
Untitled
Here’s something to chew on. During some interface discussions we were having this afternoon, we were evaluating web page elements that a user is supposed to interact with. I came up with the following observation. In terms of the elements and their functions, there is a difference between being transparent to the user and being invisible. It’s quite easy to hide controls or triggers out of sight until such a time as they are required. But doing so can severely hamper the user’s ability to locate them when they are needed. A classic case is Microsoft’s attempt at simplifying application menus by showing recently used commands first. This system appears transparent, because the software makes changes based on your habits or usage. In reality, the system makes things invisible rather than transparent by changing the rules as the game is played. The menus will never be configured the same way twice if you’re not performing the exact same task over and over again. I like to think that people can filter out what they don’t use or need automatically, providing of course that the context of what is being put through filter doesn’t shift around. If it’s necessary to hide things to simplify the environment, why not do it in fixed stages. Having two states, like the simple and regular settings in the Mac OS Finder, makes way more sense than having to choose between standard and random states.
This item was posted by .
Categories:
Leave a comment or send a trackback from your own site.