Reading Reflection: The Rules of Interface Design

For me, Raymond and Landley’s rule of distractions and rule of flow are the most interesting because they are apparently contradictory statements. According to the article, the rule of distractions leads the users to be inattentive. On the other hand, the rule of flow leads the users to be attentive.

-Rule of distractions
I have never thought about doing multiple tasks. However, multitasking is happening every time and everywhere. I check a navigation application while driving my car. When we design Designers are designing things in the incubator. The rule of distractions helped me to think about the importance of the context where the user encounter. I need more research on how I can design things ambiently for the multitasking situation.

-Rule of flow
When designing something, I have only thought about how to call the users’ attention successfully. However, the intensity of attention should be considered and applied in each situation because excessive elements could distract the user’s concentration.

-Reduce short-term memory load
I do not like remembering things. Even though, I signed in a lot of websites. I do not need to recall any passwords because of the auto-filling feature of Chrome. The principle is easily achieved in a desktop environment. However, it becomes hard in real life situation. I think the modern technology impair human being’s memory because the computer does the job for them.

• The Rules of Usability, from Raymond and Landley’s The Art of Unix Usability http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taouu/html/ch01s03.html
• The Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design by Ben Shneidermanhttp://www.cs.umd.edu/~ben/goldenrules.html