A shot post on usability. Something that must be said. In user interfaces, every click counts.
That means, whenever I ever clicked on anything, the application must try everything to apply the semantics of this click forever.
The application must exploit and persist every decision a user has made -- until she expresses the contrary.
There should never be the need to run the same sequence of user interface commands again and again.
Practically, if I do spell-checking, the UI could remember my choice and apply the same spell-checking again, when I re-run spell-checking. Or even better: Highlight my choice so that I can press just enter. Or ask me, if this choice should be applied forever.
What exactly lead you to this conclusion?
ReplyDeleteDo you propose that user interface should always be "learning"?
How could a user interface distinguish repeated actions from non-repeated? This seems to me very difficult to do even for a human.
Computer are able to store things. THerefore the human operator should not have to tell the computer a second time exactly the same thing.
ReplyDeleteIt's not only learning. A simple checkbox next to each button would be enough: "[x] Remember this choice (forever, for today, for 10 times)".
Or maybe adding keystroke recorders everywhere.
There must be more that one can exploit.