Elaine Chen's Notes on User Interface Articles

Introduction/My basic impressions:
The articles seemed basically to state the obvious:

If interfaces are confusing, they will confuse users
Use readable fonts, etc.
Not very different from what an author of a book/textbook would have to keep in mind.
"What is intuitive?"
This is a hard question.
What were your impressions of the articles?

Questions to consider:

Old ones:
- who is your audience?
- what do they know?
- what are you trying to teach them?
- what/how will capture their interest?
New ones:
- Everyone here has a different audience. Some groups are catering to _drastically_ different types of people.
- What interfaces have you chosen and why?
- What makes that most effective?
- What is the purpose behind choosing game interfaces?
- Why is that so popular?
- Do you think most educational software will be in the game-format?
- What captures people's interest?
- What about people of different ages?
  - smaller kids attracted to objects, movement, observation
  - looking for a sense of accomplishment
  - older kinds attrated to challenges? a goal?
  - looking for a purpose, distinction
  - adults want convenience and clarity
  - looking for a tool, something fast and easy to use
- If one piece of software is supposed to be available to people of different ages and background, what role does the interface have to play?
- Is this distinct from "teaching style" or do they do hand in hand? I think they are very closely related. Just like a teacher's own style.

Real life examples:

Icons: relatively universal
good choices - disk --> save
bad choices - owl --> means smart in US, means death in Germany
buttons: relatively intuitive --> PUSH THEM.
most applications are presented in "Windows".
do you think this is "intuitive" or a construct that users should just learn like the way that you "just learn" to navigate society, such as things like etiquette or rules