There are words that we stumble over more than others, perhaps because the different definitions aren't made clear by context. "Art," "design," and "modern" come to mind. Separate domains make it easy to guess if the word "bit" means a small piece, an eighth of a dollar, or one digit in binary, (not to mention the tool part that is spun by a drill motor or the past tense of sinking one's teeth into something.)
One reason for the confusion of "art," etc. is that the various definitions overlap in ways that let us mistake one for the other. Another is that each definition functions well in the same conversations as the other definitions function in.
The two senses of the word "intuitive" that Don points out do a bit of the same thing that "design" and such do. The notion of "instinctive" includes inherited instincts and learned instincts--sometimes in mixtures that make it unclear which is which and often in ways that are quite separate. Don is clearly right in pointing out that much of what is assumed to be inherited instinct is, in fact, learned instinct, especially in interface design.
One thing that causes confusion but might contain some interesting answers is the word "unconscious." We tend to treat the unconscious as singular and in opposition to "conscious." (By the way, Don and others on this list have actual expertise about this and I should declare here that I do not.)
Much of what we assume to be conscious reasoning is actually not-completely-critical conscious review of unconscious decisions. (There are lots of good sources about this but Daniel Kahneman's -Thinking, Fast and Slow- contains a nice overview.) Much of our conscious logic is, in fact, unconscious and not logical in the sense we believe. Kahneman and others have done work to uncover some fairly consistent patterns in some of that illogic. (This undercut the claims of classical economists, thus his Nobel in economics.)
We designers often make things that are simple and logical and then think of them as intuitive. When we mean intuitive in the sense of inherited or untrained instinct, we may find that some less logical and even less simple things fit the bill better.
This, by the way, is not a declaration that an "intuitive" (in the sense of the word that Don decries) interface for a complex system is plausible. It's just a thought that even our naïve notion of intuition may be impoverished.
Gunnar
Gunnar Swanson
East Carolina University
graphic design program
http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cfac/soad/graphic/index.cfm
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On May 18, 2014, at 12:17 AM, Don Norman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> the one built
> into my Apple Macintosh computer, fits my definition:
>
> using or based on what one feels to be true even without conscious
> reasoning; instinctive:* I had an intuitive conviction that there was
> something unsound in him*.
>
>
> And how does something get known "without conscious reasoning"? By years of
> training and practice. (Psychologists say it is "automated." Some call it
> "compiled."
>
> In other words, things that are intuitive have taken years of practice.
>
> Most people want to use the term to mean immediately obvious at first
> usage. Nope.
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