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From: mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor)
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: rules of thumb
Keywords: Human Factors Heuristics, Rules of Thumb, Usability
Message-ID: <35601@athertn.Atherton.COM>
Date: 28 Jun 91 21:18:45 GMT
References: <113787@sgi.sgi.com> <1991Jun26.092540@axion.bt.co.uk> <35585@athertn.Atherton.COM>
Sender: news@athertn.Atherton.COM
Reply-To: mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor)
Organization: Atherton Technology -- Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 37

In article <113787@sgi.sgi.com>, rpw3@rigden.wpd.sgi.com (Rob Warnock) writes:

> Your article is too long; your rules are too many. Thus, your
> "simple rules" are not themselves very usable.

Thanks for the feedback.  I had a hard time trying to condens e a couple
of decades of design experience into heuristics that I could write down in
a couple of hours, and which could be read in a couple of minutes and
then immediately applied by even our junior staff members who may have
had little or no HCI education.  While I wound up with too many points
(just over 25), I tried to make each one by itself simple--though I
would love suggestions on how to state them in even more consise and
memorable ways. 

One thing that always seems to force lots of rules is that there are at
least 5 key dimensions: augmenting memory, improving communication,
enhancing reasoning, augmenting perception, and enhancing motor skills.
Too frequently people only pay attention to one area, and then instead
of desigining holistically to the users needs, you get things focussed
only on one area:
e.g. database (augmenting memory), e-mail and networking (improving
communication), agents (enhancing reasoning), displays (augmenting
perception), or input devices (enhancing motor skills). 

In any case,I would welcome more suggestions on how to make the same points
more effectively. There are always new people to bring up to speed on this.

> I suggest reading G. A. Miller's classic little paper, "The Magical
> Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for
> Processing Information" (Psychological Review, 1956).

Great suggestion. I should have referenced this influential paper too
(but then again the footnotes were already getting too long as well).

Scott McGregor
Atherton Technology
mcgregor@atherton.com