When users use the term “intuitive” to mean “familiar” or “less acquisition cost,” an intuitive UI that offers a significant performance improvement over the competition can only do so if the competition’s UI has major flaws.
manabuueno “The belief that interfaces can be made intuitive and natural is often a detrimental idea when it comes to improving interface design. I often get consultant requests to design “better” product interfaces. When I design an interface in terms of learning time, ultimate speed of operation (productivity), error reduction rate, and ease of implementation, it is usually better than the client’s existing product or a competitor’s product. However, even when my proposals yield significant improvements, they are often rejected because they are counter-intuitive. The client wants something significantly better than the competition, but the better product will inevitably be different. (In most cases, the greater the progress, the greater the difference.) Therefore, it cannot be intuitive, that is, familiar. … the client’s desire is to make a major improvement with an interface that is at best insignificant compared to the current interface (inevitably Microsoft Windows). This can only be accomplished if the original interface has major flaws that can be remedied by small modifications.” —Jeff Raskin.
This page is auto-translated from /nishio/直感的UI using DeepL. If you looks something interesting but the auto-translated English is not good enough to understand it, feel free to let me know at @nishio_en. I’m very happy to spread my thought to non-Japanese readers.