Re: [Usability]Discontinuities

[Maciej Stachowiak <mjs noisehavoc org>]

On 08Sep2002 03:41PM (-0700), Chris Altmann wrote:
> I thought this article
> http://scriptingnews.userland.com/stories/storyReader$1744#discontinuiti
> es  might be interesting reading amongst all the talk of new UI
> metaphors and removal of beloved UI features. 

The article is about changing programming interfaces, not changing UI,
which is in a lot of ways more disruptive.

Changing the UI arbitrarily is, of course, confusing to users and
therefore bad. But if you never remove features, and never rethink the
overall design when adding features, you end up with a mess.

So the take-home lesson for UI shouldn't be to never change it, but to
make sure your changes are purposeful and well thought out. Never
removing features would be just as silly as never adding features.

Regards,

Maciej