Since the arrival of Pope Benedict XIV at the Twitter scene, I’ve been wondering how many people who don’t know how to use the Internet are still out there in the Western world. But an even more intriguing question is this: how come so many people are proficient at using it? Have they been taught web browsing at school? Did they have to read “Internet For Beginners”? Have they taken any special courses?

The answer of course is that they learnt things on the fly. website laten maken den haag Our cognitive abilities allow us to instinctively absorb new information, recognize new patterns and adapt to new environments and routines. We don’t need special instructions or conscious decision-making regarding the best approach to knowledge accumulation. We want to do something and we try to do it. We “muddle through”.

I borrow here the language of the web usability guru Steve Krug, and in particular his “Don’t Make me Think” book, considered by many the “bible” of user experience. Muddling through is Krug’s third “fact of life” of real-world Web use, just after scanning and “satisficing”. Below I’m going to prove that muddling through is not just an effective and time-saving approach to information discovery that humans simply opt for but rather it’s the way we live in general. Our minds are conditioned to muddle through. Better web designs are impossible without proper recognition of this fundamental human nature.

How Do We Really Use Websites?

So how many of you read the user guide booklet that came with your new iPhone? What about the “Convention Used in This Book” page in your latest educational book? Mu guess is: not many. The same is true for the way we use websites. Everyone’s busy, everyone’s just trying to figure out how to get to a particular place and doing anything else seems like a waste of time. Now the funny thing is that everyone’s got their own way of doing things. Even when it comes to a standard process such as navigating a website, some people will follow the links in the main navigation, while others will use the search button or start scanning paragraphs for clues.

One important implication of this tendency to muddle through is that people will often use websites in unexpected ways. Designers sometime envisage a perfect way of completing a particular process, e.g. you click on this link, you fill the form, you browse the available options and choose one as indicated in the instructions displayed to you left, you click the big “submit” button, etc. But in practice there are many ways to browse a website, use a web application, or even fill a contact form (“should I put my phone in the specially designated field or attach it in the body of the message like I always do?”). As a result, when offered a detailed record of how websites are actually used, some designers might think “who on Earth would let those monkeys anywhere near a computer?” Such attitude ignores of course that web users are not trying to figure out what the brilliant designer had in mind when creating the interface. They just want to get what they came for. If they have muddled through something and it worked, why shouldn’t they try the same approach next time?

Psychology of Muddling Through – the Doing Mode

In the field of Psychology, the process of muddling through is recognized as part of the “Doing mode”. Doing mode is the function of the mind that allows rational critical thinking. Doing mode is what allows us to build bridges, send men to space, or write our thesis. It also governs the process of learning from repetition, a crucial ingredient to the success of the muddling through approach.

According to Prof. Mark Williams from Oxford University, Doing mode usually begins with recognition of a gap between our perceived current state and some alternative state that we would prefer to be in. In the context of the Web, this could be as simple as “I sit here bored to death; I would rather be watching a video of a skateboarder hurting himself”. This perceived gap triggers an automatic pattern of mind activity, which sole aim to bring us closer the desired state.

 

Intuitive Web Design

Doing mode is not something designers need to fight against (although see “Conclusion” below for a brief mention of an alternative mode). Instead, designers need to try capture this somewhat primitive mind activity by allowing it to freely channel towards a positive outcome (finding information, buying products online, leaving a feedback, etc.).

If we compare web design to building a house, it is often too tempting for an architect to assume the house being used by a perfect gentlemen, who will always politely knock on the door, wipe his shoes on the “Welcome” mat, take of his hat and put it on the designated coat rack, and head to the dining room, never stepping outside the corridor carpet. The real user of the house, however, turns out to be a caveman who breaks the kitchen window with his club to get in, and rummages through the garbage bin in search for food.

The role of the architect is not to discriminate between the gentleman and the caveman and label one as “right” and the other as “wrong” or “crazy”. The architect should instead recognize the nature of the house’s users. If putting a gate in the kitchen will benefit the users, then that’s what needs to be done. Decorating the dining room is not the priority.