Empirical investigations into intuitive interaction: a summary

Abstract

Intuition is a type of cognitive processing that is often non-conscious and utilises stored experiential knowledge. Intuitive interaction involves the use of knowledge gained from other products and/or experiences. We have developed novel approaches and techniques for studying intuitive use of interfaces, and shown that intuitive inter-action is based on past experience with similar things (Blackler, Popovic, and Mahar, 2003a, b, 2004a, b, 2005). Two initial experimental studies revealed that prior expo-sure to products employing similar features helped participants to complete set tasks more quickly and intuitively, and that familiar features were intuitively used more often than unfamiliar ones. A third experiment revealed that appearance of features seems to be the variable that most affects time spent on a task and intuitive uses. Ba-sed on our empirical work, we have developed principles and tools for designers to assist them in making interfaces more intuitive.