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==Standards and Consistency== | ==Standards and Consistency== | ||
In contrast to metaphors, Standards have been learned at some point. You learned that you can move a window dragging it on its title-bar, that clicking on a button triggers an action an that you find "save" and "open" in the file menu. | |||
Like metaphors standards ease learning because you can build on something the user already knows. | Like metaphors standards ease learning because you can build on something the user already knows - as it is a standard you can assume that applications the user used before taught him how to interact. | ||
'''Some Examples:''' | |||
* There is just a very rough connection of Application windows to windows in the real world, but we learned what a it is. | |||
* A right-click triggers a context menu | |||
* Files are organized in Folders | |||
The last example illustrates as well, that many standards are metaphors we agree on. We could do many things differently but if we would e.g. rename "folders" to "boxes" we would break the standard, and users would need to relearn what "boxes" are. Standards are crucial - if each application would invent their own ways of doing things users need to relearn all the time. There are styleguides for applications made by the people who create the operating system or desktop to help programmers and designers to use the standards the most people agree on. | |||
What should never be done though is making standard-looking widgets (Elements of the Interface) behave in a non-standard way. E.g if you use something that looks like a menu it should behave like a menu and not else. | |||
Often designers break standards thinking they have a better solution. Sometimes there are reasons to come up with non-standard methods but it is rarely the case. You should only break standards and do things in way that is not known to the users in case... | |||
* you really need a way that is superior to the standard-way | |||
* you carefully crafted such a way | |||
* And you tested it to ensure that it works like intended. | |||
This is often done for a good reason in applications like 3D Modelling Environments. These applications are very powerful, complex and deal with something (3D) that is not common in the most applications (mostly concerned with 2D stuff | |||
==Visibility== | ==Visibility== | ||