Conclusion

User interfaces are everywhere. When you encounter a new product, pay special attention to its design. If you like it and can figure out how to use it immediately, try to understand specifically why the design works well. If you dislike it or find it difficult to use, try to understand why and determine what you could do to fix the problem.

Although there are many roads to poor design, my bet is that most poor designs you find boil down to some form of ineffective human communication. The product was hard to use—not because you made mistakes as a user but because the product’s designers failed to understand what you were doing with the product and how to communicate those tasks to you effectively. Instead, the designers probably thought that solving the problem mechanically was good enough and that you wouldn’t mind investing the time and effort required to figure out how it works.

Over time, you will learn how to design intuitive, user-centered interfaces by focusing on effective communication. UI is communication!