Permissive user interfaces

✍ Scribed by HAROLD THIMBLEBY

• Book ID: 102572054
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2001
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 320 KB
• Volume: 54
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1071-5819
• DOI: 10.1006/ijhc.2000.0442

✦ Synopsis

User interfaces often only support one way to do a task when the physical interface or the requirements of the task would permit other ways. In contrast, a user interface that supports multiple approaches is permissive. This paper argues that permissive user interfaces are easier to use*and even when they are not applicable for particular applications, considering permissiveness is a productive design heuristic.

Many user interfaces are di$cult to use yet very easily demonstrated or explained by experts*with the results that users become frustrated because hindsight makes usability problems look like the user's own fault. The lack of permissiveness in such user interfaces explains this paradox.

2001 Academic Press