Someone’s expecting

Joel Spolsky wrote a great article on usability back in March of last year. The article is titled Usability in One Easy Step (First Draft). In the article, Joel examines the differences in what Mac users and Windows users consider good usability. Windows users find Windows more useable because it behaves as they expect it to. And Mac users think the Mac is more usable because it behaves as they expect it to. He concludes,

“Something is usable if it behaves exactly as expected.” -Joel Spolsky

So, usability is about expectations. But not all expectations vary from user to user. You and I may have different expectations on how windows should be handled within an operating system’s GUI, but we both agree that, at least in the United States, cars drive on the right side of the road. We’d probably also agree that a mouse pointer should look like an arrow.

Certain things are just universally expected. Green means go. Red means stop. A skull and crossbones means poison. Clicking the logo in the top section of a website takes you to the home page.

If good usability means that the interface behaves as the user expects it to, then don’t mess with universal expectations. And whenever possible, draw on them. If you’re designing a remote control for a television, make sure the button to shut the TV off is red. And if your designing a dialog box for a software application, the order of the buttons, from left to right is, Yes, No, Cancel.