For May's Refresh Boston meeting, Jared Spool of UIE will discuss What Makes a Design Seem Intuitive?

Everyone wants an "intuitive" interface: the users, the designers, and the content publishers. But building them is hard. User Interface Engineering's recent research has given insight into why it's hard and how to get past major obstacles.

To build an "intuitive" interface, a designer has to do two things: (1) Take complete advantage of what the user already knows, so what they see is completely familiar to them and (2) make the act of learning anything new completely imperceptible to the user. It turns out, if the interface requires the user to realize they are learning something, the "intuitive" label disappears instantly.

In this talk, Jared will show:

* How users need both tool knowledge and domain knowledge to complete their tasks
* How simple problems with designs can cause big problems for users
* What successful teams are doing to create experiences that delight

Jared will show examples from Microsoft Word, MSN, Google Talk, Flickr, Avis, and many more.

Jared has been working in the field of usability long before it was ever associated with computers and is deeply involved with research teams at User Interface Engineering (http://uie.com), which helps clients solve all sorts of design problems.

Jared's presentation will start just after 7PM in order to have time for questions and discussion afterwards, but we'll be opening the doors at 6:30PM this time around. If you can't get to Kendall Square until 7, you shouldn't miss anything.

The meeting space and drinks are provided by Microsoft Startup Labs, and food for attendees will be provided thanks to the generous contributions from Matthew Oliphant (http://xhipi.com), Slim Kiwi (http://slimkiwi.com) and Boston Web Studio (http://bostonwebstudio.com). We'll also do a raffle for books thanks to O'Reilly and a license for the guerrilla usability testing app Silverback (http://silverbackapp.com) after Jared's presentation.

Microsoft Startup Labs is located in Cambridge, a few blocks from the Kendall Square T stop, on the 10th & 11th floors of One Memorial Drive. For more on the New England Research & Development Center in Cambridge, visit their new website:

http://microsoftcambridge.com

NOTE: To make the sign-in process easier, please update your Upcoming user profile with your full name so we can use it to print out a guest list (it'll make things easier for you at the front desk).

To get to the meeting space, you'll have to register at the 1st floor desk as a guest of Microsoft, and then check in on the 11th floor. Parking is available in the garage for $10 and at 1 Broadway for $7. There's also street parking around the building on Memorial Drive and elsewhere.

Keep an eye on the Refresh Boston website and feel free to follow us on Twitter for more:

http://twitter.com/refreshboston

UPDATE: If you have a minute (really, it shouldn't take much longer than that), fill out our very short feedback form and tell us how we can make Refresh Boston even better in the future: http://bit.ly/Flolv

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