In the ever evolving world of interactive design, delivering solutions that are relevant, engaging and visually pleasing comes second to delivering something that is usable. In order to do this you have to consider the task that is being asked of the user, and say “what is the most intuitive way I can answer this question?”.
You can appeal to the two ways a user answers a problem, understanding through “Nature” and “Nurture”. Nature: what is natural for us to do without thinking, and Nurture: what we have learnt and expect to do, based on our experiences.
Defining a process through a creative journey can be done in many different ways, many prefer to take the “Nurture” root as this is in effect looking at what has been done previously to answer the same question, and adapting that, often even taking the same creative base style, you will see many re-worked versions of Microsoft products as people believe due to their market penetration they must be doing it right, but are they?
The Nature approach is more for the fearless and brave hearted designer. Take a question, and design the answer how you believe it should work, don’t ask what the user want as they have a preconceived idea based on their experiences… which may not be the right answer, just the one they know. If the design is truly intuitive the answer will be found through natural investigation, and who knows your answer my start to set people’s expectations.
Both methods are valid in their own right, but the outcome should be the same… “this is really easy to use”.
usability•design/ creative
