KICS?

The article “The dark side of usability” suggests that there may be benefits of so-called “internalization” interfaces. That is, interfaces that are sufficiently hard to use that they require active exploration and learning to be of value. Such interfaces, says the article, can be more efficient than their “externalization” counterparts precisely because they require a higher degree of cognitive effort.

In essence, one set of interfaces externalizes information, whereas the other internalizes it, in relation to the user. [T]he user-friendly interface relieves its users from having to commit information to memory, and this information is in turn externalized. When the interface isn’t helpful, information is internalized by the user, meaning they have to think longer about the problem and learn more fully the inner workings of their task.

My gut reaction was to dismiss this idea as irrelevant: I couldn’t see how the benefits of internalization could be realized unless forced upon the user (i.e., “You’re going to use this piece of software whether you like it or not”). Out here in the real world, users have choice. If they can’t understand your interface they’ll simply go use something else.

But then I read “Why are easy decisions so hard” in which the author—Jonah Lehrer of “How we decide” fame—presents evidence that complicated information often is perceived to be more important than the same information presented in a less complicated fashion (e.g., small vs. large text size, tabulated data vs. bar chart). Here’s Lehrer quoting research from Aner Sela and and Jonah Berger:

Our central premise is that people use subjective experiences of difficulty while making a decision as a cue to how much further time and effort to spend. People generally associate important decisions with difficulty. Consequently, if a decision feels unexpectedly difficult, due to even incidental reasons, people may draw the reverse inference that it is also important, and consequently increase the amount of time and effort they expend. Ironically, this process is particularly likely for decisions that initially seemed unimportant because people expect them to be easier.

Now I don’t know what to believe. Can there really be value to unusable and/or overtly complex interface design? I’m not sure. But between you and me, I think I’ll stick with KISS for now. KICS just seems a tad too complicated.