Shneiderman’s “Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design”
After reading Shneiderman’s eight rules about what makes up a good or effective user interface, I am drawn to the rule on consistency and how it makes the users’ lives so much simpler. If your primary goal in creating your interface is to have it be easy to use and to have it get used by many people, then consistency is key. Actions are faster, recurring visits or loyalty to your site are all higher, while the learning curve to use your site or program is much lower. This concept also links up well with issues of standard vocabulary and metadata in terms of consistency. Craigslist is a great example of a less-than-wonderful interface with consistency issues and a shocking lack of standardized vocabulary. People posting on Craigslist have full autonomy in the title of their item, its location, and the format of its price. This leads to unfruitful searches, wherein a search for “dresser” will not provide you with items such as “chest” or “bureau,” and the price is often misrepresented as very low when in fact it is a starting point for negotiation. This lack of consistency spills over into a not always user friendly interface as the post screens are often incredibly disparate in form as well.
- Kirschenbaum, Matthew G. “‘So the Colors Cover the Wires’: Interface, Aesthetics, and Usability,” in A Companion to Digital Humanities, edited by Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, and John Unsworth, 523–42. (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004).
- http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Karnak/
The Kirschenbaum piece, especially towards the end when he discusses the future of user interfaces and even of screens themselves, made me think of the Digital Karnak project. He believes that the future of screens are outside of the 13 inch box of today’s average laptop screen, and that this fact alone will drastically effect the way interfaces are designed and interacted with but their users. In much the same way, the Digital Karnak project has great potential for operation outside of the laptop screen. At Brown University, there is a small visualization lab (basically a tiny IMAX dome) where for instance planetary geology students were taken to experience a Google Earth-esque trip to Mars and Olympus Mons. This kind of technological resource would be incredible in both educational and museum settings to provide people with a phenomenological, literal walk-through of archaeological sites such as Karnak. In this situation, not only is the interface an entire space rather than a screen, but it is an interface with physical human experience as well.