subject: Learn How (not) To Design Unintuitive Graphical User Interfaces [print this page] Does anyone on your IT staff know how to design unintuitive graphical user interfaces?
In case you were wondering, an unintuitive graphical user interface, or GUI, is one that is so complex and difficult to understand that only a hard-core geek who spends his/her entire existence buried in code, working with compliers and coming up with the most creative methods for making software virtually unusable. After English, this person's second language is most likely Java or C++ - and s/he's a real scholar of dead languages that hardly anyone even understands anymore, s/he's probably fluent in FORTRAN as well.
To be sure, extensive GUI training is required in order to construct such software. And, while unintuitive GUIs may be useful to individuals such as those described above, they are hardly the thing to attract Web visitors not to mention winning customers and influencing buying behaviors.
On the other hand, if you and your business is interested in serious, user-friendly graphical user interfaces that visitors to your web site enjoy utilizing and keeps them coming back you'll want professional GUI consulting or GUI mentoring services.
About Intuitive GUIs
Remember the old Chinese philosophy of how one picture is worth a thousand words? Educators have long known this; while some people can learn effectively from the written words, images are much more powerful and tend to stay in the mind. This concept is the basis of the graphical user interface; the the use of icons and images, the user learns how to use applications step-by-step in a manner that is easy and natural. The closest real-world analogue is a map, which uses images and symbols to tell the reader how to get from point A to point B.
In essence, if you understand the basic principles of cartography, you are a good candidate for GUI training.
Nuts and Bolts
Of course, you'll still have to understand a few things about code and how computers and related devices (such as iPhones and Palm Pilots) think. At the same time, you have to think like an educator; after all, an intuitive GUI isn't about you, the designer it's about the end-user and enabling this person to make best use of a website, a rich internet application or desktop software. If you have doubts, check into GUI mentoring, or consider hiring GUI consulting services. An investment in such an education for yourself or your IT staff is an investment that will repay itself many times over.
by: Wayne Hemrick
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