Meaning of "intuitive"

Meaning of intuitive in the area of User Experience:

When you check the work "intuitive" on the internet, you can find synonyms such as emotional, subconscious or spontaneous. All these words describe something form inside a person. Just like we can´t describe an emotional, subconscious or spontaneous reaction, all these reactions are based on things we already learned from our environment. For the area of interaction design, this means, that orientation and  navigation structures have to be expected. For example, an familiar navigation or orientation structure or a suitable metaphor form the real world  (see also the post "How to deal with a fullness of information?").

Is it possible to break with an intuitive navigation or orientation structure?

According to Stapelkamp (2007, p.144) it is possible to break with a intuitive navigation or orientation structure depending on the aim. If the aim is to confuse, such as in adventure games, it is possible to offer an unexpected navigation or orientation structure.


Stapelkamp, T., 2007. Screen- und Interfacedesign: Gestaltung und Usability für Hard- und Software. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. 

Good information design

According to MA interaction design at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh (2011) “interaction designers define product behaviour, mediating relationships between people and people and people and products”. Therefore it is very important to think about your user and to try to understand your user. For this reason personas, which is a stereotypes of a special user group, are developed [see blog: Persona] and usability tests for iPhone and iPad concept were conducted [see blog: iPhone - quick usability test with a paper prototype, iPad - quick usability test with a paper prototype]. The most surprising result of the usability test for the iPad is that the users did not expect a drag and drop gesture to take an item for the wardrobe and dress the doll. An explanation could be that the users would only expect a drag and drop gestures, when the end position of the item is unclear. However in the concept for the iPad application the end position is clear: Tops and shirts are above the body and trousers and shirts are below the body.
Another issue for good information design is to think about orientation. Related to Strapelkamp (2007, p.151) when someone tries to orientate, the person will use knowledge from a similar environment. Therefore one way to create intuitive information design is to work with visual metaphors [see blog: Meaning of "intuitive"]. This fact also supported the designing guidelines from Apple (2010, p.6-42) “When possible, model your application’s objects and actions on objects and actions in the real world. This technique especially helps novice users quickly grasp how your application works … or … add a realistic, physical dimension to your application. Contacts depicts a realistic address book that behaves as people expect”. The developed applications are using on the one site very obvious metaphors such as the clothes rail or the wardrobe to give a user a clue how to scroll through the items of clothes and the costume doll metaphor. On the other site less obvious metaphors such as the car showroom metaphor from chapter 1.2 the App concepts and design differences. [See blog: How to deal with a fullness of information?, iPhone - To keep in mind, Video - final high fidelity prototypes]

Finally it is important to design an application as a part of the whole user experience. Because of this it is necessary to check the other applications on the device and the interaction design. For example: The iPhone and the iPad are using special interaction elements for example: alert, picker, action sheet, modal view [see blog: iPhone – Elements, iPhone - Interaction Design Pattern, iPad - Interaction Design Pattern]. However there are not only interaction elements but also special interaction gestures such as tap, drag or swipe, which have to be considered [see blog: Interaction with multi touchscreen and motion sensor]. In this project you could see an interaction design that has an authentic iPhone and iPad appearance, because it integrates the above-described elements. 
Apple, 2010. iPhone Human Interface Guidelines. Apple (online). Available at: http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/userexperience/conceptual/mobilehig/MobileHIG.pdf [Accessed 2 November 2010].
MA interaction design at the Carnegie Mellon University: Interaction Design. http://www.design.cmu.edu/show_program.php?s=2&t=3 [Accessed 3 July].
Stapelkamp, T., 2007. Screen- und Interfacedesign: Gestaltung und Usability für Hard- und Software. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. 

Gestures

According to the “iPad Human Interface Guidelines” multifinger gestures are desirable for the interaction with the iPad. Some gestures are already selected by Apple for zooming, scrolling or to edit text (see post “Interaction with multi touchscreen and motion sensor“). The users have to learn these gestures. How is the situation, when somebody designs new gestures? What does the person have to keep in mind?
A German usability agency named “User Interface Design GmbH” conducted together with 11 other usability agencies around the world a study with the title “Mulit touch products: cultural differences and similarities of gestures”. One outcome was that the users use symbols to activate functions for example: help, save, to confirm, delete and print.

Help – “?”, save and confirm – “check mark”, delete – “X” and print “P” (User Interface Design 2009, p.25).

Prototype to conduct the study (User Interface Design, p.14):

I think the fact that people use symbol gestures to activate a function is really interesting and, what could this mean?

For me it could mean that users could learn intuitive new symbol gestures to activate functions. For example they could learn to use “C” to copy or a smile for fun in a chat situation. Maybe it is also possible to make two demission gestures and trace them by a camera like the example of imaginary interface from the Hasso Plattner Institut. The main idea is that a camera trace gestures in an imaginary interface. See imaginary interface from Hasso Plattner Institut: http://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/baudisch/projects/imaginary_interfaces.html (see Baudisch 2010):

When it would be possible that a user can communicate with a device by using two dimensional symbolic gestures maybe he could use a form of sign language (Manataka American Indian Council 2010):

Baudisch, P., 2010: Imaginary Interfaces. Hasso Plattner Institut (online). Available at: http://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/baudisch/projects/imaginary_interfaces.html [Accessed 23 November 2010].
Manataka American Indian Council, 2010: French and German Equivalents are shown with each Illustration. Manataka (online) http://www.manataka.org/page319.html [Accessed 23 November 2010]
Hansson, T. 2009: Multi-Touch-Produkte: Kulturelle Unterschiede und Gemeinsamkeiten bei der Nutzung von Gesten. User Interface Design. Available at: http://worldusabilityday.de/groups/mannheim/Multi-Touch_Produkte.pdf [Accessed 23 November 2010].