Ordinary screen user: who is he?

Everyone who is developing a screen interface, certainly wonders about its user-friendliness towards the end user (usability). And for sure you assume that your product will be popular not only with your familiar programmers, who understand the meanings of stereotyped icons, but also quite ordinary people, who have computing technology on YOU. And if product localization is affected in the post-Soviet space, problems begin to grow like a snowball. So, according to the author, a good acceptable interface = a tested interface, it follows that tests cannot be done. Of course, convening consultations, creating focus groups and giving friends and colleagues a try is simply wonderful, but not always possible for one reason or another. Behind this, we will try to create a model of an ordinary user of the screen interface. Screen User Interface (hereinafter PEI.)

The author has repeatedly encountered judgments of the type:

In-ter-no, it is somewhere, you, in Moscow. In computers.

But it can also play into your hands - it's easier to implement from scratch.

It is no secret that you will not please everyone, but no one forbids trying. Although Dale Carnegie's theory of the win-win strategy is not welcome, but a good friendly, understandable, even slightly acceptable interface will not work without a compromise. And we will look for a compromise in the properties of the average end-user of a software product with a screen (the future, I know, you're already near, but we are used to the TV) interface.

It is clear that the probability of using the server control panel by the saleswoman of the fish department in Vorkuta is infinitely small. But somehow it would be nice if she understood how to navigate through the tabs. And do not forget that people used to run away from the audience when the Lumiere brothers first showed an oncoming train on the screen.
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So, following in the footsteps of Kant, we will try to explore the cognitive ability of the mind, in isolation from the knowledge gained by the empirical, that is, by experience, but with the principles of understanding previously laid. Present the end user as an information processing device. To print the text of this article, the author uses the usual input device for corpus linguistics of Cyrillic content, Arabic numerals and a glossary of punctuation icons - a qwerty keyboard. But on the fact that I have a color, with or without an anatomical layout, plastic or metal, the usability of the text of the article does not depend on usability . Make your interface a convenient keyboard for entering information into the PEI head.


The usual multi-level information system for the average user is a book. More often in books there are only two levels - tables of contents and chapters. But for example in the Bible there are three of them - writing, chapter and verse. So an acceptable amount of levels according to the author is better to limit to three.

Mind and knowledge are different things. Let's hope that our user is smart (oh we hope) but has no special knowledge for perception. Wikipedia states that:

This perception is a complex process of receiving and transforming information obtained through the senses, which form the subjective holistic image of an object that acts on the analyzers through a set of sensations initiated by this object.

The human eye, as it were, is the plug of connecting your interface to the consciousness of the end user of the screen interface.


About the study of the human eye and its properties, humanity knows not enough. We will not go into the details of building compositions and discussing the method of lateral eye movement - for the author is not a designer or a physiologist. Links to interesting, in the opinion of the author, work on this topic can be found at the end of the list of references. Let me just say that the properties of the user's eyes of the on-screen interface are the main protocol for connecting your product with its consciousness. The convenience of the interface depends on how stable the connection with the user's mind is.

Convenient does not mean simply and vice versa. Simplicity is worse than stealing - popular wisdom.

Trying to simplify your interface, do not go to the extreme. People are no stranger to aesthetics. For us, the usual simplicity of ordinary things hides scrupulous accuracy and aesthetics of their performance. The old Steve Jobs knew about it firsthand and used it all the time, which is probably one of the reasons why in our time “the phone can buy Latvia”.

So: Who is he - an ordinary user of the screen interface

- PEI can read in the language it speaks.
- PEI knows how to use the mouse and / or touchscreen.
- PEI does not know the Microsoft glossary.
- PEI does not distinguish standard icons stereotyped icons.
- PEI does not use a permanent computer (tablet, digital phone, etc.).
- PEI is able to use simple technology (calculator, lamp TV, radio).
- PEI esthete.
- PEI is not inquisitive.
- PEI distinguishes colors.
- PEI solves problems with a maximum of three actions.
- PEI clever is not stupid.

Try to put yourself in the ordinary PEI from this model, and testing your product will be faster, and in many cases more precisely, the focus group.
Using such a model of ordinary PEI, the author often finds simple answers to frequently asked questions when working with both programmers and designers. Which I hope will help you.

Do not think, dear habrochiteli, that the author considers all PEI as people separated from progress. Some of the PEI know what OOP is, every day they use sophisticated technology and for some of them hip-hop uni code is not just two sonorous words.

Bibliography:
- “The Dilemma of the Innovator” by Clayton M. Christensen
- "Criticism of pure reason" Immanuel Kant
-"Web design. Analysis of the ease of use of websites on the eye movement "Jacob Nielsen
- “User interface design. The art of washing an elephant "Vlad Golovach
- Eye movement (Wikipedia Statia)

The author is happy to discuss, criticize and supplement (correct) the model of an ordinary PEI and does not pretend to the identity of the article, but considers it necessary as a thought to think.

The author promises to develop on the topic and refine the material over time.