Section 2 summary

In Section 2, we have introduced the general goals and principles that apply to the design of any interactive product. In particular:

• We have discussed more objective usability goals, such as effectiveness, efficiency, safety, utility, learnability and memorability; as well as more subjective user experience goals.
• We have introduced design principles, such as perceivability, consistency, affordance, constraints and feedback. We have made a connection between these principles and other aspects of our interaction with the world, as in, for example, the relation between Leonardo’s observations on landscape painting and the greying out of menu items. Such connections help us understand where design principles come from, how they are relevant to our interaction with things around us, and why they are so important in interaction design.
• We have seen how both interaction design goals and principles need to be taken into account for good interaction design.