Re: 'Intuitive' software applications
I do not like the term intuitive, and I would avoid using it in doc or as a trainer. Some users cringe when they hear intuitive because it's like shouting, "Hey dummy, everyone else understands. What's your problem?"
That's a good point, in the context of training, help, or user manuals. Of course when you are marketing software to executives who will never have to use it, telling them that the interface is intutitive is a good thing.
Intuitive means that you're relying on the user's intuition. Intuitive does not mean logical, coherent, unified, etc.
There is nothing wrong with relying on the user's intuition if you are confident the user possesses that intuition.
Intuition comes in two flavors. There is the true biologic intuition. Just as the frog's visual cortex is hard-wired to track a fly moving across the visual field, so, too, heterosexual men's eyes are almost invariably drawn to images of women's breasts (so porn "applications" can certainly rely on intuition).
Then there is the more casual meaning that describes culturally bound expectations. This is the sort of intuition that, like chance, favors the prepared mind. We assume that everyone who is likely to encounter our software is familiar with a telephone keypad, a wall calendar, a traffic light, lined notebook paper, etc., and will know how to interact with a visual representation of such an iconic object. That level of basic knowledge--which by no means applies to 100% of the human species but probably applies to 100% of the users of some particular piece of software--is loosely called intuition and we can usually rely on it.
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Re: 'Intuitive' software applications: From: bcliver
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