Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  What Makes a Design Seem 'Intuitive'? (10 Jan 2005) To those who police the English language, interfaces can’t be intuitive, since they are the behavior side of programs and programs can’t intuit anything. When someone is asking for an intuitive interface, what they are really asking for is an interface that they, themselves, can intuit easily. They are really saying, “I want something I find intuitive.” But, I believe that English is an adaptable medium, so it’s ok with me if we call a design intuitive. Yet, what does it mean, from a design standpoint, when someone desires a design to be intuitive? To answer that question, we first have to look at how people understand the design in the first place. To do that, we need to look at the design’s knowledge space. Article URL: http://www.uie.com/articles/design_intuitive/ Read 88 more articles from User Interface Engineering sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: Where Emotional Design Fails     This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy