About ‘Intuitive’ and ‘natural’ user interfaces
I’ve recently tried to explain to several people why I think we shouldn’t talk about “natural user interfaces”. Doing so, I mentioned Jef Raskin’s book “The humane interface: new directions for designing interactive systems”. Here’s what Raskin said about the words intuitive and natural (page 150):
Many interface requirements specify that the resulting product be intuitive, or natural. However, there is no human faculty of intuition, as the word is ordinarily meant; that is, knowledge acquired without prior exposure to the concept, without having to go through a learning process, and without having to use rational thought. When an expert uses what we commonly call his intuition to make a judgement, with a speed and accuracy that most people would find beyond them, we find that he has based his judgement on his experience and knowledge. Often, experts have learned to use methods and techniques that nonexperts do not know. Task experts often use cues of which others are not aware or that they do not understand. Expertise, unlike intuition, is real.
When users say that an interface is intuitive, they mean that it operates just like some other software or method with which they are familiar. Sometimes, the word is used to mean habitual, as in “The editing tools become increasingly intuitive over time.” Or, it can mean already learned, as was said of a new aircraft navigation device: “Like anything, it can be learned, but it would take a lot of experience to do it intuitively” (Collins 1994).
Another word that I try to avoid in discussing interfaces is natural. Like intuitive, it is usually not defined. An interface feature is natural, in common parlance, if it operates in such a way that a human needs no instruction. This typically means that there is some common human activity that is similar to the way the feature works. However, it is difficult to pin down what is meant by similar. Similarities or analogies can occur in many ways. Certainly, that the cursor moves left when a mouse is pushed to the left and right when the mouse is pushed to the right is natural. Here, the term natural equates to very easily learned. Although it may be impossible to quantify naturalness, it is not too difficult to quantify the learning time.
Update : check this other post as well
