SAP Design Guild — Fighting (with) Hierarchies – Part I: Basics
SAP Design Guild — Fighting (with) Hierarchies – Part II: Presentation
While readign part one, I got a little chill– the article was decribing exactly things I’ve studied, but with different names.
“The distinction between an underlying internal structure and the external structure, which is visible to the users, is an indication of an inherent problem in software design: developers often present the inner workings of software to the users because
- The formal solution is generic and from a formal point of view fits every size (I will come back to that later)
- They believe that users have the same formal education and knowledge they have
- It is just easier for them to implement it that way
- They do not know better or don’t care
Users, however, “think differently” and need a visual presentation which takes human abilities and limitations into account.”mental model vs. system model, anyone?
Anyhow, good article, interesting and cleanly written and I’m off to read part two next.