Is There Such a Thing as "Too User Friendly"?

rtphokie asks: "The story about the TiVo get-together along with some recent trials and tribulations rolling out a knowledge base along with the time I've spent recently helping my 80 year old grandfather with this VCR and TV has gotten me thinking about user interfaces and the elusive "user-friendly" label. When someone who thinks of themselves as 'non computer savvy' works with a gadget like TiVo and compains that it's 'too complicated', how should we react? Why are users immediately forgiven for not even taking the least amount of effort to look for a solution to their confusion in the manual. The tendency has always been to blame the interface and ultimately the engineers who designed it but isn't there a point where users have got to share some of the blame? Why do today's software and consumer electronics users expect to be able to fire up their new toy and magically have a complete understanding of how to use it?"

users

[Patrick13]

with all respect to your G'father, he has probably not operated enough electronic items to learn the "language" of electronic gadgets. The more he operates, the more likely he would intuitively understand how to use something.

This idea is discussed in Donald Norman's Design of Everyday Things [amazon.com], which is a great book for UI people.

Also, I have never seen the Tivo's UI, so it could be poorly designed... ;)

How the VCR Illustrates the Geek Gap

[fm6]

Here's a conversation I have -- not a lot, but often enough. Some context: like a lot of Slashdotters, I'm the person everybody in my family, and a lot of their friends, turns to when they have a technical problem, from not being able to configure PC software, to programming an overdesigned digital watch with a poorly translated manual. I also explain things for a living (writing programming manuals), so people who are curious about basic details often ask me the "dumb questions" they're afraid to ask other geeks.

Now, every once in a while I get asked this question: how is it that a VCR can record a TV show when the TV isn't turned on? Yeah, I can hear the snickers. But I get this from a lot of basically intelligent people. And the frustrating thing is, I've never found an explanation that makes sense to the asker. To me it's obvious, "You see, there's two tuners, the TV has one, the VCR has one...." But the eyes just glaze over.

So the whole idea of Making Systems User Friendly is just plain bogus. It assumes that people can come to terms with any system if you just find the right methaphro for them to use. Doesn't work.

In the real world, there are three solutions to this problem:

1. You do a better job of explaining the basic concepts of the system to your users. But only a few really brilliant teachers seem to have much luck with this approach.
2. You build systems that do a good job of hiding the unfamiliar paradigm with a simpler paradigm ordinary people can wrap their minds around. But again, this takes a certain brilliance on the part of the designer, who has to be at home with both paradigms.
3. You take the Kuhnsian approach [emory.edu]. That is, instead of trying to bridge the nerd-mundane gap, you wait for both sides to die off, to be replaced by big-thumbed [nctimes.net] folks who've grown up with the technolgy and have no trouble coming to terms with it.

Now, you might think that solution number 3 is basically a cop-out. And I'd agree. But I think it's the solution that will be implemented -- by default.

Re:Intuitive interfaces

[mrdlinux]

You didn't get it.

First:

• The Cookie Monster: Intuitition is not about knowing how to do something in the complete absence of any learned knowledge, it is knowing how to do something new because your brain has pattern-matched the problem with similiar situations you've dealt with in the past
• Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary: Intuitive ... Knowing, or perceiving, by intuition; capable of knowing without deduction or reasoning.

If intuition means knowledge without reasoning, then that knowledge must vary from person to person. Without clear logical steps there is no way to duplicate the intuition of one person in another person. All one can hope for is that the results might be the same, due to environment. How much shared environment is there between all peoples? Ediger thought it was breast-feeding, but even that's not so (admittedly it was in a humorous vein). Therefore, how useful is such a term as "intuitive" in describing interfaces? Absolutely useless. It is a buzzword, at best.

Example: You are presented with a box and a plastic tube sticking out of it. What do you do?

Next, try recursively following your examples and you will see why Ediger said what he said (and another poster pointed out that even the nipple wasn't intuitive!):

First, you must abandon all your preconceptions. Make like Descartes.

• A tablet - How long did it take you to learn how to write? Was it "intuitive"? Were you born knowing how to write, and use a tablet/writing surface? (presuming that this is what you mean, even)
• A machine with one button that does only one thing - Button... hrm. What do I do with a button? Oh! They can be pushed! Great, I learned how to deal with buttons! Now I suppose I can generalize about all buttons, right? How do I put this shirt on ... hrm..

In fact, the only conclusion I've been able to draw about the meaning of the adjective "intuitive" is that it applies to just about nothing but instinctive (ie. born with/genetic) reactions. Everything else you learned at some point. (Note, the noun "intuition" still has meaning: "knowledge without known reasoning", but you can't say a piece of knowledge is "intuitive" because there exists some person who doesn't think so--guarenteed) When most people speak of "intuitive" interfaces, they really mean "reminiscent" interfaces. Interfaces that remind them of ones that they've already learned. The question of designing a good interface is of designing one that can rely on prior experience, can introduce new concepts in a tolerable fashion, that communicates with the user well, and is efficient to use.

Possibilities for box and plastic tube:

• Suck on it
• Blow into it
• Bend it
• Pull it
• Push it
• Cut it
• Chew it
• Step on it
• Kick it
• Pour something into it
• etc...

So which one is "intuitive"?

Not that Unix/Linux people couldn't go a long way to designing better interfaces. But demanding "intuitive" is probably one of the reasons why it's taking so long. No one can code "intuitive" interfaces, if they can't even figure out what "intuitive" means! (Unfortunately, it looks like "intuitive" is coming to mean the ugly Windows interface more and more. It's now the most "reminiscent" for most people. So sad really, considering the advances that happened many years ago and were mostly forgotten.)

Re:Of all the places you could post this question.

[porges]

I remember a web-site that covered the worst software UI's. I cant remember (or find) the site. It covered Quicktime, some IBM software and others.

The Interface Hall of Shame [iarchitect.com], most likely.

not to be obvious but...

[Anonymous Coward]

..it might be your mom has the beginnings of a biological problem, she has classic symptoms you describe. Beginning alzheimers or CJD-of which there's a lot more than the scared medical establishment will admit to-show symptoms like you describe. As the brain gets destroyed piece by piece, some areas are fully intact, other areas gradually stop functioning. Once you've seen someone actually not be able to remember a familiar face you'll understand. Much longer term memory might be still useful, but others simply cease to be available, they have been actually destroyed. Learning "new" things becomes increasingly difficult as less and less intact neural pathways are available. As you learn you develop new ones, when the brain can't build new ones from disease and stress and accumulated trauma and in some instances chemical buildup that crosses the brain membrane area then new learning becomes almost impossible.

Not saying this is it, but it might be. Look for other clues before proceeding. 200 tries is way too much of a clue to ignore.

If there are more, by all means do some net resarch into the alternative therapies before rushing into a straight western style drug em till they drop approach.

good luck friend

Even the simplest of interfaces can be spooky

[Anonymous Coward]

My grandmother has a nifty gadget - a Ceiva picture frame [ceiva.com] - a neatly framed LCD with a modem that calls Ceiva nightly and downloads pictures I've uploaded for her. (See also the /. article [slashdot.org].) She raves about it to me and her neighbors and enjoys seeing whatever picture I might send her next. I take care of the technical end of uploading pictures, configuring the dial-up number for the modem and other frame settings.

The frame has arguably one of the simplest interfaces possible. It presents pictures to the user. It normally runs in a slide-show mode, showing pictures for a pre-set amount of time. A white button on the back allows the user to step through the pictures at will. A black button (camouflaged with the back of the frame) allows the user to adjust brightness. Two cords, a power cord and a phone cord, connect the device to the outside world.

On several occasions, my grandmother has called upon my father (and would have called upon me had I lived closer) to fix one of those cords when it came unplugged. Reducing the number of cords would make the interface simpler - but not by much.

Once in awhile, we talk about some picture I've sent recently, and I suggest she could show it to her friends - but she says she doesn't know how! All she has to do is push the white button on the back of the frame. Each time I explain it to her, she seems to understand. I wonder how many more times I'll be explaining it.

The Ceiva frame is an example of technology made simple. Yes, I had to do some setup, but that was just at the start. The Ceiva folks were smart to give the frame a slide show mode - so users need only look at the frame to see whatever pictures are there. The optional button on the back lets tech savvy folks display whatever picture they want.

User interfaces don't get much simpler than the Ceiva frame. You could use just a power cord and a wireless modem and do away with the buttons entirely, but they found a good balance between the simplest of devices (the old-fashioned picture frame) and a technological variation on that simple theme - and it's certainly not too user friendly for my grandmother.

View from the other side of the fence

[Mr_Silver]

A long time ago, myself and a number of other people would link to a chat based program ("talker") on their slashdot sig. It went something like this:

uberworld.org [uberworld.org]

That was it. In short, it's a like a MUD, except it's full of people who sit around (mainly students and sysadmins) and chat about whatever they want all day. It's proper name is a "talker" and it used "telnet".

Now this is where the problem lies. I consider the interface to be obvious. You have a bunch of commands and help files called with "help" and it's all very easy.

But the people logging in from Slashdot, just didn't have a clue. And by that, I mean they had no idea what to do. These are people who use UNIX all day long and yet they were lost.

So I looked at the mistakes they made and I added handholding, better information, cleaned up the help files and stuff but STILL and this is the clincher: even then, people just didn't bother reading the information on the screen.

Even when you first log in, there are a couple of pages of information that tell you what to expect. When you actually "arrive" in the main room, you get told of the useful help file to read. Before you register if you type a command wrong, it again points you to that help file!

Most never even found the "say" command. They would log on, scrabble with a few commands, ignore the friendly points on the screen and the automated robot that pointed them to help files and in the end give up.

In the end, I now ask people who want to link, to actually point to a website (see my sig) in an effort to stop people logging on and being rather clueless.

So what am I saying here? Nothing can ever be too user friendly. But it's amazing (and sometimes amusing) to see that even those people who assume that they are cream of the crop when it comes to IT issues get totally and utterly lost using something that we have both 18 and 40 year olds using with little to no IT experience at all.

The problem comes about when there isn't enough testing. We learnt a lot from the confusion of slashdot people, but unfortunately you get to a point where you just cannot do any more but hope that users think for themselves.

(As an aside, if you can read and can handle telnet and some basic commands - you only need 20 odd to get started - then feel free to drop by and chat, website is here [uberworld.org])

'in the world' versus 'in the head' - not so

[vldmr_krn]

Your description of in the head thinkers being somehow better able to deal with computers than in the world thinkers is nonsense. I'm working for a husband and wife couple as a technical advisor. The husband is what you describe as an 'in the head' thinker while the wife is an 'in the world' thinker. The wife without exception has an easier time dealing with computer-related issues.

A typical exchange between her and I would be something like her asking me how to do something in Word. She would start Word, go through the steps necessary to get her to the problem, and then with the info on the screen she would describe what she wants to do and what she tried to do that didn't work. If I ask her to describe something in the abstract, without it being on the screen in front of her, she will always insist that she show me on screen. She frequently makes comments like 'I'll remember what the problem was when I see it again' (meaning the document she was working with). The 'solution' that she wants from me is always how to navigate the interface to do what she wants, rather than an abstract explanation.

In contrast, the husband when asking for help does so without looking at the monitor, trying to explain the problem in the abstract. I have to insist that he bring up the problem on the screen so I can show the solution because the abstractions I give him wouldn't have a referent in his mind otherwise. A typical example of the contrast is that when the wife wants to find a file, she immediately goes to her documents folder (this is on a Macintosh) and looks visually for the file she wants, with some broad parameters as a guide to narrow her search. When the husband wants to find a file, he asks himself what sort of file it is, and where in his directory structure would he most likely have saved it. He frequently decides that the file is in (say) 'artwork,' is unable to find it, and then thinks about it more and decides that it must be in 'images,' etc.

The husband distrusts 'in the world' knowledge and insists on having everything in his head, while the wife distrusts 'in the head' knowledge and insists on dealing directly with the world. Neither is computer-savvy, but I've frequently had times when I spent several hours plodding along with the husband through simple problems, then spending a few minutes with the wife and having her understand much more complicated situations easier.

So there's nothing about 'in the head' thinking that is necessarily better suited for technical problems. The intelligence of the person in question (i.e., their ability to effectively use whatever type of thinking they have), is the key factor. What you're describing above is an 'in the world' thinker whose resolution is much coarser than a 'in the head' thinker. There's no reason why an 'in the world' thinker would necessarily be unable to differentiate between a mouse click in one context and a mouse click in another. And there's no reason why an 'in the head' thinker would necessarily be able to.