February 9, 2001
Summary: This article describes a new user interface model called inductive user interface (IUI). Also called inductive navigation, the IUI model suggests how to make software applications simpler by breaking features into screens or pages that are easy to explain and understand. This IUI model is emerging in various Microsoft projects, most notably Money 2000. This article provides an introduction to IUI, rather than a firm, comprehensive set of guidelines. (25 printed pages)
Contents
How to Use this Document What Is the Inductive User Interface? IUI in Action: Solving a Common Design Problem Steps for Creating an Inductive User Interface Additional Guidelines User Assistance Appendix: Designing and Testing Microsoft Money 2000
How to Use this Document This document describes general principles of inductive user interface and demonstrates the principles using examples. Most of the examples are drawn from Microsoft Money 2000 because it makes the most thorough use of inductive user interface to date.
Various expressions of inductive user interface The principles described in this document do not require or imply any particular rigid sets of designs, controls, or visual elements. Like graphical user interfaces in general, the principles in this document leave a lot of room for flexibility and creativity in design.
What Is the Inductive User Interface? The IUI is a new user interface model that suggests how to make software applications simpler by breaking features into screens or pages that are easy to explain and understand. Microsoft has implemented this model in Microsoft Money 2000, a large commercial software application, with positive results. Informal tests suggest that users can perform tasks as quickly in this model as in traditional interfaces, and may find things more easily.
Many commercial software applications include user interfaces in which a screen presents a set of controls, but leaves it to the user to deduce the page's purpose and how to use the controls to accomplish that purpose.
Important: The overall concept of IUI is in its infancy. Designers employing these techniques are learning and discovering more about it as they use it for their software. The information in this document will evolve over time as research and knowledge in this area increases. This article provides an introduction to IUI, rather than a firm, comprehensive set of guidelines.
IUI in Action: Solving a Common Design Problem This section discusses a common design problem with today's software products and introduces IUI as a technique for overcoming the problem.
The problem: software is hard to use Most software is too hard to use. This conclusion is drawn from usability testing, anecdotal evidence, and personal experiences of software designers. The concept of IUI was created by conducting research, making educated guesses as to what makes current software hard to use, and then proposing solutions. Designers of software that uses IUI, like all designers, should rely on customer satisfaction to determine the ultimate success of the design.
Most current software products are hard to use for the following general reasons:
Users don't seem to construct an adequate mental model of the product. The interface design for most current software products assumes that users will understand a conceptual model that the designers carefully crafted. Unfortunately, most users don't seem to ever acquire a mental model that is thorough and accurate enough to guide their navigation. These users aren't dumb — they are just very busy and overloaded with information. They do not have the time, energy, or desire to wonder about a conceptual model for their software. Even many long-time users never master common procedures. Designers know that new users may have trouble at first, but expect these problems to vanish as users learn common tasks. Usability data indicates this often doesn't happen. In one study, researchers set up automated equipment to videotape users at home. The tapes showed that users focusing on the task at hand do not necessarily notice the procedure they are following and do not learn from the experience. The next time users perform the same operation, they may stumble through it in exactly the same way. Users must work hard to figure out each feature or screen. Most software products are designed for (the few) users who understand its conceptual model and have mastered common procedures. For the majority of customers, each feature or procedure is a frustrating, unwanted puzzle. Users might assume these puzzles are an unavoidable cost of using computers, but they would certainly be happier without this burden.
The best solution to these problems is to find a general strategy for making the features of software products more self-evident and self-explanatory. Users must be able to find a feature every time they need it, and must be able to use that feature every time they want to use it.
Deductive user interface Most elements in software today require the user to study them and deduce their behavior. For example, look at the dialog in Figure 1.
Figure 1. What do I do? How do I know when I'm done?
Experienced computer users, including software designers, quickly recognize that this dialog allows them to manage a list of things. They understand the buttons below the list can add, remove, and provide information about list items. However, notice that none of this behavior is explicitly stated in the dialog itself.
Now take another look at the dialog from a casual user's point of view. Many users, when faced with this dialog, will ask, "What am I supposed to do with this?" When the dialog appears, the user must stop and figure out what to do next. First, the user must deduce the fact that the large white rectangle is an empty list box to be filled with items. The box's small text label, "Things," offers a vague hint. Some users would try to type in the list box, because it looks like an edit text box.
Next, the user must deduce that the buttons below the list affect its contents. Some of the buttons are initially disabled, another potential source of user confusion. The user must experiment with the controls to learn how the dialog works.
The user might also wonder about higher-level questions: "How many items should I put in the list? Should I enter items in a specific order? Why did I get this dialog in the first place? What is it for?"
Users are distracted from their goals whenever they must figure out the purpose of a screen and how to use it. This ultimately represents a cost in time and user satisfaction. What's worse, users pay this cost over and over again as they puzzle over the interface each time they use a feature.
Why can't a screen just include a title that tells its purpose? When designers create a screen, they rarely require it to have a clearly expressible purpose. Instead, it may simply be part of a larger conceptual model that the user must deduce.
Studies show that many users are confused even by basic operations in software. They have difficulty understanding what the product can do for them, where to go to perform an operation, and how to perform that operation once they have found it. Simplifying software by making fundamental changes is a powerful way to more fully satisfy existing customers and attract new users.
A solution: inductive user interface As a new way of designing software, IUI's goal is to reduce the amount of extraneous thinking users must do to successfully move between parts of a product and use its features. The word inductive comes from the verb induce, which means to lead or move by influence or persuasion.
IUI is an extension of the common Web-style interface. In the Web environment, pages have to be simple and task-based because each piece of information has to be sent to a server over a relatively slow connection. The server then responds with the next step, and so on. Good Web design means focusing on a single task per page and providing navigation forward and backward through pages. Similarly, inductive navigation starts with focusing the activity on each page to a single, primary task.
A well-designed inductive interface helps users answer two fundamental questions they face when looking at a screen:
What am I supposed to do now? Where do I go from here to accomplish my next task?
