On the axes of memorability

There is a problem in User Experience design of believing strongly in one idea of Cognition.

Don’t Make Me Think is a fundamental text in the design of graphical information systems that are obvious in their use. The idea also underlies a lot of the desire for frictionless user journeys. The design of experiences that are clear and directly purposeful.

The problem with this ideal is it ignores other states of memorability. Some experiences need to be hard and need to be full of friction. They need to be remembered.

This contrast in memorability is visible in museum design. There needs to be two key types of signage: wayfinding and interpretation.

(This was written with Danger Text app as an experiment in fast writing – a 5 minute timed exercise)