Review of The humane interface

The concept of a Humane Interface refers to human-computer interactions designed to address nuances of the human mind. As a book, The Humane Interface walks the reader through fundamentals in the study of cognetics and builds a design philosophy on that foundation. Like most other interface design books, The Humane Interface starts with an example of bad design (in Raskin’s parlance, inhumane design). Raskin describes an airplane from hell that includes lush seating, five-star cuisine, as much inflight entertainment as your senses can handle, and not a lick of aeronautical engineering. Raskin’s introduction to The Humane Interface likens such an aircraft to current trends in design: it all looks so pretty, but we users would sacrifice it all for software that works effectively. Beyond the bad design horror story, Raskin’s introduction caveats the reader that despite industry-wide enthusiasm for emerging collaborative technologies, “the design of single-user interfaces is not a solved problem” (p. xix). To solve the problem, Raskin asks us to look at underlying engineering fundamentals. In the book’s first chapter “Background,” Raskin first defines interface as “the way you accomplish tasks with a product” (p. 2). “An interface is humane,” he says shortly thereafter, “if it is responsive to human needs and considerate of human frailties” (p. 6). Raskin recognizes that a successful interface must first take into account the limitations of the human mind and build on its strengths before it can address the needs of particular tasks. The design of an interface must start with an understanding of humans in general, before it can be served by an understanding of users in particular. This first chapter contains three laws of interface design, which capture the three basic ways in which users do not have control over the way they accomplish tasks. • A computer shall not harm your work or, through inaction, allow your work to come to harm: In some cases, the product’s interface prevents the user from accomplishing tasks by prioritizing its own processes over protecting the work. Raskin refers to the endless backup procedures employed by computer users. • A computer shall not waste your time or require you to do more work than is strictly necessary. In some cases, the product’s interface introduces obstacles to accomplishing a task. • Users should set the pace of interaction. Pointing most particularly to start-up times, Raskin suggests that interfaces should neither slow the user nor hurry the user in accomplishing tasks. With the basics of humane design in place, Raskin builds his argument over the remaining seven chapters. Chapters two, three, and four, “Cognetics and the Locus of Attention,” “Meanings, Modes, Monotony, and Myths,” and “Quantification,” each establish a different vocabulary for talking about interfaces. These useful tools provide a framework for the discussion of the second half of the book, which addresses common interface problems. In Chapter 2, Raskin introduces us to the study of cognetics, which he defines as “ergonomics of the mind.” Raskin says that most interfaces are designed as if we “have cognitive abilities that experiment shows we do not possess” (p. 10). Habit-forming, as Raskin points out, is one cognitive ability that we do possess. He believes that designers do not take habit-forming into account when they create interfaces. On one hand, features that are meant to protect our work (“Are you sure you want to delete this file?”) become meaningless as users click “yes” without thought. On the other hand, interfaces that offer several ways to accomplish the same task are not designed to encourage habit forming. Perhaps the most important concept from cognetics is the locus of attention. Whatever occupies our locus of attention is whatever we are paying attention to at any given moment in time. Often, our locus of attention is beyond our control. For instance, Raskin mentions the buzzing of fluorescent lights and suddenly it is noticed because his stating it has brought the sound to the locus of attention. The sound has been there all along, but until he mentioned it, it went unnoticed, outside the locus of attention. The more a person is absorbed with the locus of his attention, the less likely he is to notice distractions. Absorption increases with stress and the importance of the task. Raskin concludes: “if the computer behaves unexpectedly while you are using an interface, you become less likely to see hints, help messages, or other user aids as you become increasingly agitated about the problem” (p. 27).