Cita: Cuando intuitivo realmente debería significar familiar

Given this insight, the measure of intuitiveness used by the magazine usability labs is logical. The percentage of tasks completed increases with increasing intuitiveness since it simply means that the user is already at least partially trained with respect to the feature or set of features under test. Training tends to decrease the time required for task completion, especially at first. Similarly, the number of times the user has to reference help screens increases with decreasing intuitiveness, that is, decreasing familiarity. If the word «intuitive» is replaced by the more readily understood word «familiar» the criterion the magazines have established with respect to intuitiveness seems obvious.

The term «intuitive» is associated with approval when applied to an interface, but this association and the magazines’ rating systems raise the issue of the tension between improvement and familiarity. As an interface designer I am often asked to design a «better» interface to some product. Usually one can be designed such that, in terms of learning time, eventual speed of operation (productivity), decreased error rates, and ease of implementation it is superior to competing or the client’s own products. Even where my proposals are seen as significant improvements, they are often rejected nonetheless on the grounds that they are not intuitive. It is a classic «catch 22.» The client wants something that is significantly superior to the competition. But if superior, it cannot be the same, so it must be different (typically the greater the improvement, the greater the difference). Therefore it cannot be intuitive, that is, familiar. What the client usually wants is an interface with at most marginal differences that, somehow, makes a major improvement. This can be achieved only on the rare occasions where the original interface has some major flaw that is remedied by a minor fix.

Jef Raskin: Intuitive equals familiar