Designing with the Mind in Mind

Description

User interface (UI) design rules and guidelines, developed by early HCI gurus and recognized throughout the field, were based on cognitive psychology (study of mental processes such as problem solving, memory, and language), and early practitioners were well informed of its tenets. But today practitioners with backgrounds in cognitive psychology are a minority, as user interface designers and developers enter the field from a wide array of disciplines. HCI practitioners today have enough experience in UI design that they have been exposed to UI design rules, but it is essential that they understand the psychological basis behind the rules in order to effectively apply them. In Designing with the Mind in Mind, best-selling author Jeff Johnson provides designers with just enough background in perceptual and cognitive psychology that UI design guidelines make intuitive sense rather than being just a list of rules to follow.

Provides an essential source for user interface design rules and how, when, and why to apply them
Arms designers with the science behind each design rule, allowing them to make informed decisions in projects, and to explain those decisions to others
Equips readers with the knowledge to make educated tradeoffs between competing rules, project deadlines, and budget pressures
Completely updated and revised, including additional coverage in such areas as persuasion, cognitive economics and decision making, emotions, trust, habit formation, and speech UIs

Front Cover 2
Designing with the Mind in Mind: Simple Guide to Understanding User Interface Design Guidelines 3
Designing with the Mind in Mind: Simple Guide to Understanding User Interface Design Guidelines 5
Copyright 6
Contents 7
Foreword 9
Acknowledgments 11
Introduction 13
1 - Our Perception is Biased 17
- PERCEPTION BIASED BY EXPERIENCE 17
- PERCEPTION BIASED BY CURRENT CONTEXT 21
- PERCEPTION BIASED BY GOALS 24
- TAKING BIASED PERCEPTION INTO ACCOUNT WHEN DESIGNING 27
- IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS 28
2 - Our Vision is Optimized to See Structure 31

Front Cover 2
Designing with the Mind in Mind: Simple Guide to Understanding User Interface Design Guidelines 3
Designing with the Mind in Mind: Simple Guide to Understanding User Interface Design Guidelines 5
Copyright 6
Contents 7
Foreword 9
Acknowledgments 11
Introduction 13
1 - Our Perception is Biased 17
- PERCEPTION BIASED BY EXPERIENCE 17
- PERCEPTION BIASED BY CURRENT CONTEXT 21
- PERCEPTION BIASED BY GOALS 24
- TAKING BIASED PERCEPTION INTO ACCOUNT WHEN DESIGNING 27
- IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS 28
2 - Our Vision is Optimized to See Structure 31
- GESTALT PRINCIPLE: PROXIMITY 31
- GESTALT PRINCIPLE: SIMILARITY 34
- GESTALT PRINCIPLE: CONTINUITY 36
- GESTALT PRINCIPLE: CLOSURE 38
- GESTALT PRINCIPLE: SYMMETRY 39
- GESTALT PRINCIPLE: FIGURE/GROUND 40
- GESTALT PRINCIPLE: COMMON FATE 42
- GESTALT PRINCIPLES: COMBINED 43
- IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS 45
3 - We Seek and Use Visual Structure 47
- STRUCTURED INFORMATION IS EASIER TO SCAN 47
- VISUAL HIERARCHY HELPS PEOPLE FIND RELEVANT INFORMATION 50
- BEYOND VISUAL HIERARCHY: INFORMATION HIERARCHY 51
- “CHUNKING” HELPS PEOPLE SCAN AND ENTER DATA 53
- EVEN MORE STRUCTURE FOR INPUT: DATA-SPECIFIC CONTROLS 55
- IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS 56
4 - Our Color Vision is Limited 59
- HOW COLOR VISION WORKS 59
- VISION IS OPTIMIZED FOR DETECTION OF EDGES, NOT BRIGHTNESS 61
- DISCRIMINABILITY OF COLORS DEPENDS ON HOW THEY ARE PRESENTED 62
- COLOR BLINDNESS 65
- EXTERNAL FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE OUR ABILITY TO DISTINGUISH COLORS 67
- GUIDELINES FOR USING COLOR 69
- IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS 71
5 - Our Peripheral Vision is Poor 73
- RESOLUTION OF THE FOVEA COMPARED WITH THE PERIPHERY 73
- IS THE VISUAL PERIPHERY GOOD FOR ANYTHING? 77
- EXAMPLES FROM COMPUTER USER INTERFACES 79
- COMMON METHODS OF MAKING MESSAGES VISIBLE 82
- HEAVY ARTILLERY FOR MAKING USERS NOTICE MESSAGES 84
- VISUAL SEARCH IS LINEAR UNLESS TARGETS “POP” IN THE PERIPHERY 87
- IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS 93
6 - Reading is Unnatural 95
- WE ARE WIRED FOR LANGUAGE BUT NOT FOR READING 95
- IS READING FEATURE-DRIVEN OR CONTEXT-DRIVEN? 99
- SKILLED AND UNSKILLED READING USE DIFFERENT AREAS OF THE BRAIN 102
- POOR INFORMATION DESIGN CAN DISRUPT READING 103
- PEOPLE DON’T READ WHEN USING SOFTWARE AND THE WEB; THEY SCAN 110
- MUCH OF THE TEXT IN APPS AND WEBSITES IS UNNECESSARY 111
- TEST ON REAL USERS 115
- IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS 116
7 - Our Attention is Limited; Our Memory is Imperfect 119
- SHORT- VERSUS LONG-TERM MEMORY 119
- A MODERN VIEW OF MEMORY 120
- CHARACTERISTICS OF ATTENTION AND WORKING MEMORY 124
- IMPLICATIONS OF WORKING-MEMORY CHARACTERISTICS FOR USER-INTERFACE DESIGN 129
- CHARACTERISTICS OF LONG-TERM MEMORY 133
- IMPLICATIONS OF LONG-TERM MEMORY CHARACTERISTICS FOR USER-INTERFACE DESIGN 136
- IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS 139
8 - Limits on Attention Shape Our Thought and Action 141
- WE FOCUS ON OUR GOALS AND PAY LITTLE ATTENTIONTO OUR TOOLS 141
- WE NOTICE THINGS MORE WHEN THEY ARE RELATEDTO OUR GOALS 142
- WE USE EXTERNAL MEMORY AIDS TO KEEP TRACK OF WHAT WEARE DOING 146
- WE FOLLOW INFORMATION “SCENT” TOWARD OUR GOAL 148
- WE PREFER FAMILIAR PATHS 150
- OUR THOUGHT CYCLE: GOAL, EXECUTE, EVALUATE 151
- AFTER WE ACHIEVE A TASK’S PRIMARY GOAL, WE OFTEN FORGET CLEANUP STEPS 156
- IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS 157
9 - Recognition is Easy; Recall is Hard 159
- RECOGNITION IS EASY 159
- RECALL IS HARD 162
- RECOGNITION VERSUS RECALL: IMPLICATIONSFOR USER-INTERFACE DESIGN 163
- IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS 168
10 - Learning From Experience and Performing Learned Actions are Easy; Novel Actions, Problem-Solving, and Calculation are Hard 171
- WE HAVE TWO BRAINS 171
- WE HAVE TWO MINDS 173
- LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE IS (USUALLY) EASY 176
- PERFORMING LEARNED ACTIONS IS EASY 178
- PERFORMING NOVEL ACTIONS IS HARD 179
- PROBLEM-SOLVING AND CALCULATION ARE HARD 181
- IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS: IMPLICATIONS FOR USER-INTERFACE DESIGN 187
- ANSWERS TO PUZZLES 190
11 - Many Factors Affect Learning 193
- WE LEARN FASTER WHEN WE PRACTICE FREQUENTLY, REGULARLY, AND PRECISELY 195
- WE LEARN FASTER WHEN OPERATION IS TASK FOCUSED, SIMPLE, CONSISTENT, AND PREDICTABLE 196
- WE LEARN FASTER WHEN VOCABULARY IS TASK FOCUSED, FAMILIAR, AND CONSISTENT 207
- WHEN RISK IS LOW, WE EXPLORE MORE AND LEARN MORE 214
- PROGRESSIVE DISCLOSURE AND METAPHOR CAN SUPPORT LEARNING 215
- IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS 218
12 - Human Decision-Making is Rarely Rational 219
- PEOPLE ARE OFTEN IRRATIONAL 219
- LOSSES MEAN MORE TO US THAN GAINS 220
- WE ARE BIASED BY HOW CHOICES ARE WORDED 221
- WE ARE BIASED BY OUR VIVID IMAGINATIONS AND MEMORIES 223
- WE ARE BIASED BY OUR (RECENT) PAST BEHAVIOR 224
- EMOTIONS ARE CRUCIAL TO DECISION-MAKING 225
- EXPLOITING STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF HUMAN COGNITION 225
- IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS 238
13 - Our Hand–Eye CoordinationFollows Laws 241
- FITTS’ LAW: POINTING AT DISPLAYED TARGETS 241
- STEERING LAW: MOVING POINTERS ALONG CONSTRAINED PATHS 246
- IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS 249
14 - We Have Time Requirements 251
- RESPONSIVENESS DEFINED 252
- THE MANY TIME CONSTANTS OF THE HUMAN BRAIN 253
- ENGINEERING APPROXIMATIONS OF TIME CONSTANTS: ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 259
- DESIGNING TO MEET REAL-TIME HUMAN-INTERACTION DEADLINES 260
- ADDITIONAL GUIDELINES FOR ACHIEVING RESPONSIVE INTERACTIVE SYSTEMS 264
- CONCLUSION: ACHIEVING RESPONSIVENESS IS IMPORTANT 271
- IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS 272
15 - We Make Errors 275
- MISTAKES VERSUS SLIPS 275
- TYPES OF SLIPS 278
- DESIGN TO HELP PEOPLE AVOID SLIPS 282
- DESIGN TO PREVENT MISTAKES: PROVIDE CLEAR, CORRECT INFORMATION 282
- DESIGN TO HELP PEOPLE RECOVER FROM ERRORS 285
- VOICE-RECOGNITION FAILURE AND MISRECOGNITION ARE NOT USER ERRORS 289
- IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS 289
Bibliography 291
Index 299
- C 299
- A 299
- B 299
- E 300
- D 300
- H 301
- F 301
- G 301
- L 302
- I 302
- M 302
- K 302
- N 303
- O 303
- P 303
- R 304
- W 305
- U 305
- S 305
- V 305
- T 305

Author's affiliation

Jeff Johnson: Ph.D., Founder, UI Wizards, Inc., San Francis

Simple Guide to Understanding User Interface Design Guidelines

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Author's affiliation