[HIG] REVIEW: 7+/-2

[Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>]

Okay, a little late for reviews, but I've only just read this bit
properly:

"There is a rule, frequently referred to in interface design, called the
7+/-2 rule. It states that humans can only hold between 5 and 9 items of
information in their minds at a time. One of the implications of this in
interface design is that long lists of choices should, where possible,
be broken down into smaller groups of choices."

Unless I've misunderstood what we're getting at here, this is a bit of a
popular design misconception that we'd do well not to propagate--
Miller's "7+/-2" findings only apply to short-term memory.  Selection
from an on-screen menu/list doesn't involve any recall from short term
memory, it's a scanning and recognition task.  That in itself is an
equally good reason to keep the lists short, it's just not the reason
we're citing here  :o)

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson ireland sun com    Desktop Engineering Group
http://www.sun.ie                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems