Efficient user interfaces

Question

Speed and learnability do not directly fight each other, but it seems easy enough to design such a GUI that lacks either (or both) of them. GUI designers seem to prefer \'easy t

Answer 1

Beyond avoiding an angry fruit salad, just try to make it as intuitive as possible. Typically, programs with a very frustrating UI share one common problem, the developers didn't define a clear scope of what the program would actually do prior to marrying a UI design.

Its not so much a question of 'easy' , some people jump right into the UI and begin writing stuff to back the interface, rather than writing the core of a planned program and then planning an interface to use it.

This goes for web apps, desktop apps .. or even command line programs. A good design means writing the user interface after (and only after) you are sure that 'scope creep' is no longer a possibility.

Sure, you need some interface to test your program, but be prepared to trash it and do something better prior to releasing the program. Otherwise, there's a good chance that the UI is only going to make sense to you.