Alan Cooper

to minimize mouse movement

Strict adherence to metaphors ties interfaces unnecessarily tightly to the workings of the physical world.

implementation-centric interfaces are based on understanding how things actual

ly work under the hood—a difficult proposition. Metaphoric interfaces are based on intuiting how things work—a risky method. Idiomatic interfaces, however, are based on learning how to accomplish things—a natural, human process.

Implementation-centric user interfaces are still widespread, especially in enterprise, medical, and scientific software. Implementation-centric software shows us, without any hint of shame, precisely how it is built.

The side effect of this is that we must first learn how the software works internally to successfully understand and use the interface. Following the implementation-centric paradigm means user-interface design that is based exclusively on the implementation model.

Most people would rather be successful than

Usually there is no coordinated design between intracorporate fiefdoms in these situations. Similar to the implementation-centric product interface, an org-chart-centric website requires users to understand how a corporation is structured so that they can find the information they are interested in, and that information is often unavailable to those same users.

Metaphoric interfaces rely on the real-world connections users make between the visual cues in an interface and its function.

When we talk about a metaphor in the context of user interface and interaction design, we really mean a visual metaphor that signals a function: a picture used to represent the purpose or attributes of a thing. Users recognize the metaphor’s imagery. By extension, it is presumed that they can understand the purpose of the thing.