In “Design of Everyday Things”, the author introduced concepts such as “conceptual models”, “forcing function”, “gulf of execution and gulf of evaluation”, etc. The design that he mentioned more than once as an example of a good design? The Bang & Olufsen remote control panel. (pg.175, fig. 6.9: this book is wirtten 20 years ago). It follows a few rules:
- keep things visible. (bridges the gulf of execution: users can see what to do).
- natural mapping : one control for one function.
- But now there are too many buttons and it seems too confusing. So, now make the often-used buttons visible, group similar buttons together, and hide the infrequently used ones behind a cover.
- On-screen feedbacks (e.g. display the current volume when you adjust volume) will bridge the gulf of evaluation.
