August 8, 2008

User Interaction 101

Andy Matuschak has written a blog post on user interaction with a few basic guidelines for designing user interaction.

First and foremost is the principle of least astonishment. Essentially, actions shouldn’t surprise the user. They should work consistently across applications, they should be undoable, and what works elsewhere should work everywhere.

If you require a short url to link to this article, please use http://ignco.de/49

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If you liked this, you'll love my book. It's called Designed for Use: Create Usable Interfaces for Applications and the Web. In it, I cover the whole design process, from user research and sketching to usability tests and A/B testing. But I don't just explain techniques, I also talk about concepts like discoverability, when and how to use animations, what we can learn from video games, and much more.

You can find out more about it (and order it directly, printed or as a DRM-free ebook) on the Pragmatic Programmers website.