The Curse of Intuitive Navigation
May 6, 2008
I really dislike the phrase, “Intuitive navigation.” Unfortunately, in the world of software and Web experience design, the word intuitive has taken on near mythical proportions. There’s a game people play in corporate settings where during meetings, colleagues keep track of the number of times certain overused buzz words come into play, and sometimes compete to see how many times they themselves can use them. Intuitive is one of those words for me and I frequently find myself rolling my eyes and making hash marks on my notebook whenever someone throws it out there like it’s the gospel of Web design.
How many conversations have you had with customers, clients, co-workers and consumers in which someone has stressed how important it is that the site’s navigation be intuitive? How many RFPs and requirements specs clearly state the priority of intuitive design or navigation. How often do we ask ourselves, “is this intuitive?”
And let’s face it. There’s a certain amount of “DUH” factor here. When you’re trying to articulate the goals and requirements of an experience, nobody ever says, “We want our brand position to be established loud and clear in the design of the site but feel free to let the nav be a hot mess.”
Requirements like “intuitive navigation” are a safety net. What our clients (internal or external) are really saying is “We don’t really know what it means and that’s why we’re paying you.” Which is the really exciting thing about being part of a creative team. Clients are looking to us to ask the right questions and solve the problem. That’s why we’re all here in the first place. Experience puzzles are a rush.
But where “intuitive” stops being an opportunity and starts becoming a barrier is when, as creatives, we forget to ask the question ourselves and just treat intuitive as the foregone conclusion it should really only be for our clients. They come to us expecting it–as well they should. But we can’t just assume IT is going to happen like magic just because we’re all so damn good. We have to ask the question first.
When you ask someone, “But what does it MEAN for a site to be intuitive?” the answer is usually something along the lines of “well, it’s easy to find stuff.”
So, intuitive means easy? Okay, I’ll allow that stretch of the English language (because clearly Merriam-Webster has given up the crusade of preserving it and has lately added an entry under intuitive that specifically references software and internet design, thanks to the preponderance of its use in this way) for purposes of this discussion but I’ll extend the question: “What makes a site’s contents easy to find?”
This is not a new question, nor is it unique to web projects. Retailers have been struggling to answer this question for ages. Faced with an ever increasing glut of product choices for items ranging from chewing gum to consumer electronics, merchandisers are constantly sorting out, “Where does someone expect to find the blenders, in Kitchen or Small Electronics?” So “finadability” online is just same problem, new storefront.
And you don’t just guess, and you don’t just say, well it makes sense to our business units that blenders are small electronics so that’s where they go. You identify your audience and ask them. Chances are, the answer is going to be as varied as a crowd at Sam’s Club on a Sunday. So how do we design intuitive navigation for a site (or a store) when everybody’s definition of “easy to find” is different?
I had a Eureka! moment not long ago while reading Jennifer Tidwell’s book, Designing Interfaces–Patterns for Effective Interaction Design. Right smack in the preface she puts her finger on the thing that’s been bugging me about the suggestion of intuitive design:
Jef Raskin once pointed out that when we say “intuitive” in the context of software, we really mean “familiar.” Computer mice aren’t intuitive to someone who’s never seen one (though a growling grizzly bear would be). There’s nothing innate or instinctive in the human brain to account for it. But once you’ve taken 10 seconds to learn to use a mouse, it’s familiar, and you’ll never forget it. Same for blue underlined text, play/pause buttons, and so on.
Rephrased: “The applications that are easy to use are designed to be familiar.”
This was like a lightening strike of articulation for me; primarily because I was so excited to have an alternative to the paralysis or “duh” factor of intuitive–an alternative that was truly actionable.
Ease of use then, in the context of web design, means that at least some, if not most of the wayfinding mechanisms used in a particular interface are familiar. And ones that may not be entirely familiar have recognizable features. This gives us the opportunity to start with a familiar pattern–a functional baseline–and build up, out, down and around it.
Assuming we at least begin a project with a strategic understanding of our end or target users (and if we’re not, we need to start over), a logical question on the quest for “intuitive” design might be, “What patterns or conventions are familiar to this person(a)? ” Because the answer to that question gives us some insight into what will make it easy for them to find the things they need or want to find.
This does not suggest the death of innovation, nor is it an attempt to subjugate creativity by forcing art directors to color inside the lines. Thinking outside of the box suggests that there’s a box there in the first place. Why not use it as a springboard?