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Often the principle of visibility is ignored to make the interface disappear in order to make the product look nicer. Sometimes it really adds a bit of aesthetics but for the price of easy use and learning. So don't do so. What can be invisible are accelerator mechanisms like shortsćuts as long as the functions they trigger are accessible in an other, visible way. | Often the principle of visibility is ignored to make the interface disappear in order to make the product look nicer. Sometimes it really adds a bit of aesthetics but for the price of easy use and learning. So don't do so. What can be invisible are accelerator mechanisms like shortsćuts as long as the functions they trigger are accessible in an other, visible way. | ||
==Feedback== | ==Feedback== | ||
While visibility ensures that users easily know what you can be done, offering feedback ensures that users know which results their actions have. | |||
Feedback is a well known real world experience. When you cut bread you know see the knife moving and feel the change resistance. When you play an instrument you experience that a movement of you hand immediately changes the sound. | |||
Imagine you would not have feedback in the above examples: Having no resistance and visibility of the knife while cutting bread would cause you carrying on with slicing the table after the bread is done. If you would need to play guitar without hearing the sound you would need to check afterwards if you got it right. | |||
Ideally feedback is immediate and and directly visible. Feedback seems to be such an basic experience that everybody is confused if there is no feedback within a few moments. Without feedback people often start pushing buttons many times or they assume that the system has crashed, though it may just be busy doing what the user wants. To prevent this confusion an widget called "progessbar" is very useful. It is often seen when copying bigger amounts of data from one place to another. The movement of the progressbar shows that the computer works. | |||
Not offering feedback will confuse and frustrate users - immediate and well designed feedback will make them feel good as they feel in control of the system. | |||
==Modeless Design== | ==Modeless Design== | ||