Exploring Design Criteria for Intuitive Use

"Intuitive Use" is increasingly mentioned as being a requirement for product design. However, it has not been established as a scientific term in the HCI community so far. Even though this disparity exists, practitioners need to know how intuitive use can be defined, how it can be measured, and how it can be designed. In usability engineering, several design criteria are discussed. But, to what extent are these principles used when designing for intuitive use and how effective are they when implemented? Are there design principles that have not been discussed yet but need to be? With the participants of the present workshop we aim to develop answers to these questions and explore possible design principles for intuitive use. 1 Background and Aim of the Workshop Intuitive Use is often stated as a requirement for designing products. To make it a design goal, it has to be defined what intuitive use exactly means, how it can be measured, and finally how it can be influenced by designers. Based on literature research on the terms intuition and intuitive (cf. eg. [Ra94], [Sp05], [Bl06]) as well as empirical analyses of the usage of these terms by developers, users, and usability experts, the following definition of intuitive use has been established: “A technical system is intuitively usable when leading to effective interaction by using previous knowledge unconsciously.” [Mo06]. From this definition, approaches to the measurement can be derived: intuitive use should come along with effectiveness and low mental effort regarding the use of the system. But how can intuitive use of user interfaces be influenced from a design perspective? Regarding those questions, usability engineering experts usually consider gestalt principles, affordances, consistency, compatibility, population stereotypes, the user interface metaphor, etc. However, are these principles actually used for designing usable systems, and, if so, how effective are they? Are there design principles that have not 73 73 In: Kain, S., Struve, D. & Wandke, H. (Hrsg.), Workshop-Proceedings der Tagung Mensch & Computer 2009. Berlin : Logos Verlag. ISBN 978-3-8325-2181-3. S. 73-75