Name of the concept of designing an interface to allow expert users to become more efficient?
I'm searching for sources and further information on a particular concept in user experience design. It's 开发者_Go百科not a particularly complicated concept, just that when designing user interfaces, you should both make it intuitive and simple for new users, but also provide way for users to become more efficient as they become more familiar with the application.
An example could be including a prominent button for a common action for new users, but also providing a keyboard shortcut / mnemonic for expert users. However, that's just an example, another example could be providing full functionality through a GUI, but allow expert users to script the same actions. The point is it's more difficult to learn, but it makes them more efficient.
I'm pretty sure there's a name for that which I can't recall, and I'm having trouble searching for sources and references on it.
Name of the concept of designing an interface to allow expert users to become more efficient?
Accelerators?
Flexibility and efficiency of use: Accelerators -- unseen by the novice user -- may often speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions.
(source: Ten Usability Heuristics by Jakob Nielsen)
Well, reading only your question "Name of the concept of designing an interface to allow expert users to become more efficient?" I'm inclined to point you toward The Humane Interface: New Directions for Designing Interactive Systems by Jef Raskin, in which there is the concept of habituation:
2-3-1 Formation of Habits
When you perform a task repeatedly, it tends to become easier to do. Juggling, table tennis, and playing piano are everyday examples in my life; they all seemed impossible when I first attempted them. Walking is a more widely practiced example. With repetition, or practice, your competence becomes habitual, and you can do the task without having to think about it. ...
...
... The ideal humane interface would reduce the interface component of a user's work to benign habituation. Many of the problems that make products difficult and unpleasant to use are caused by human-machine design that fails to take into account the helpful and injurious properties of habit formation. One notable example is the tendency to provide many ways of accomplishing the same task. Having multiple options can shift your locus of attention from the task to the choice of method...
But is contrary to what you describe in your question, as evidenced by the last 2 sentences. In fact in that book there is also a sub-chapter dedicated to dispel the myth of beginner-expert dichotomy:
3-6 Myth of the Beginner-Expert Dichotomy
... This dichotomy is invalid. As a user of a complex system, you are neither a beginner nor an expert, and you cannot be placed on a single continuum between these two poles. You independently know or do not know each feature or each related set of features that work similarly to one another. You may know how to use many commands and features of a software package; you may even work with the package professionally, and people may seek your advice on using it. Yet you may not know how to use or even know about the existence of certain other commands or even whole categories of commands in that same package. ...
So, perhaps is not such a good term/concept that you are looking for.
Update: were you looking for the term Adaptive User Interfaces, perhaps? Well, I think that, as usually understood and implemented, it is not such a great idea (for example, disappearing menu items in Microsoft products). But my impression is that researchers use the term for something quite different.
Update: but Adaptive User Interfaces does not cover scripting.
The answer is in your question: Efficiency. It's a fundamental component of usability that Jakob Nielsen long ago defined as "Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks." A UI with expert-supporting elements like accelerators, context menus, and double-click-for-defaults is an efficient UI.
It is also correct to simply say that making things fast for experienced users is part of usability -just as usability also includes making it easy for users to accomplish basic tasks on the first encounter, and making it satisfying, and tolerating errors.
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