

Simple rule of thumb for measuring the perceived complexity of a user interface - nickb
http://daringfireball.net/2007/03/deal_with_it

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sketerpot
Sounds like therbligs are back. After 90 years, and without the ridiculous
name.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therblig>

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lecha
Sure you could view the UI as a set of "motions", but the argument of this
article is about how you could simplify such analysis: just _count_ the number
of concepts or elements presented to the user. The smaller the count, the
easier the UI would feel.

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lysium
Bad UIs is the reason I stick with my Palm PDA, even though synchronizing with
a Linux box is not easy.

Actually, it's ridiculous how difficult it is to make a simple appointement
with any calendar tool, compared to a physical calendar. I tried KDE's,
Evolution, Lighthning from Thunderbird, jpilot, Google Calendar. All very
complicated, a lot of <Tab>, mouse pointing, and options to get lost in.

Backpack's UI looks like an improvement, though.

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danw
Reminds me of GOMS KLM analysis:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KLM_(human_computer_interaction...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KLM_\(human_computer_interaction\))

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ewiethoff
The number of tab hits is a better indicator of how many elements are in the
interface. Using a mouse, you can often skip past several steps or options.
Once you're familiar with the interface, you don't notice how much you're
skipping past. Nevertheless, when first confronted with an interface, your
eyeballs and brain have to read and process the whole mess. Sticking with
Jakob Nielsen-like conventions reduces the user's feeling of needing to
examine every interface element. That's nice, but the elements are still all
there, and you must "deal with" (author's term) each one when tabbing.

The author says: "There's nothing complex or confusing about iCal's event
entry UI. And with specific fields for each item of data, it is more obvious
than Backpack's--but only for a first-time user, which is the wrong case to
optimize for. But to me iCal's date entry UI is clearly worse, much worse, and
the reason why can be expressed by the fact that it forces you to deal with
about 10 user interface elements, versus just 2 for Backpack."

In summary, an interface with many elements which follow conventions might be
fine for first-time users and those who use prefer a mouse to keyboard
navigation. But the author wants an interface with fewer elements--even if
their meaning is not obvious--because he likes to hit the tab key, not click a
mouse.

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trevorturk
Good job digging this back up. In my opinion, this is one of the best blog
posts ever made. The concept is still extremely relevant.

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known
Usability is inversely proportional to number of mouse-clicks.

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nihilocrat
I always thought this was the cornerstone of UI design, something everyone
knows, so it's a little sad that someone has to blog about it.

