一個國王帶了六個人到了一個昏暗的建筑物里。他們什么都看不見。國王對他們說：“我從荒野中將這只動物帶回到東方。他們稱之為大象?！薄笆裁词谴笙?？”六人問。國王說：“你們摸一下這只大象，然后描速給我聽?！泵鹊娜苏f大象就像一個柱子，摸尾巴的說大象就像繩子，摸鼻子的說大象就像三個樹枝，摸耳朵的說大象就像一把扇子，摸肚子的人說大象就像一面墻，摸象牙的人說大象就像一根硬管子?！澳銈兌紝α恕保瑖跽f，“你們每個人只摸到了大象的一部分。”

You may have heard this story about an elephant:

你也許聽說過這篇關于大象的故事：

A king brings six men into a dark building. They cannot see anything. The king says to them, “I have bought this animal from the wild lands to the East. It is called an elephant.” “What is an elephant?” the men ask. The king says, “Feel the elephant and describe it to me.” The man who feels a leg says the elephant is like a pillar, the one who feels the tail says the elephant is like a rope, the one who feels the trunk says the elephant is like a tree branch, the one who feels the ear says the elephant is like a hand fan, the one who feels the belly says the elephant is like a wall, and the one who feels the tusk says the elephant is like a solid pipe. “You are all correct”, says the king, “You are each feeling just a part of the elephant.”

一個國王帶了六個人到了一個昏暗的建筑物里。他們什么都看不見。國王對他們說：“我從荒野中將這只動物帶回到東方。他們稱之為大象。”“什么是大象？”六人問。國王說：“你們摸一下這只大象，然后描速給我聽?！泵鹊娜苏f大象就像一個柱子，摸尾巴的說大象就像繩子，摸鼻子的說大象就像三個樹枝，摸耳朵的說大象就像一把扇子，摸肚子的人說大象就像一面墻，摸象牙的人說大象就像一根硬管子。“你們都對了”，國王說，“你們每個人只摸到了大象的一部分?！?strong>

The story of the elephant reminds me of the different view of design that people of different backgrounds, education, and experience have. A visual designer approaches UX design from one point of view, the interaction designer from another, and the programmer from yet another. It can be helpful to understand and even experience the part of the elephant that others are experiencing.

大象的故事讓我想起了有著不同背景、教育或經(jīng)驗的人對設計的不同的觀點。視覺設計師對用戶體驗設計有著一種觀點，交互設計會有另外的觀點，而程序員也會有不同的觀點。理解甚至體驗別人正在體驗的大象的那一部分將會有一定的幫助。

I’m a psychologist by training and education. So the part of the elephant I experience applies what we know about people and how we apply that to UX design. I take research and knowledge about the brain, the visual system, memory, and motivation and extrapolate UX design principles from that.

我是一個受教育而成的心理學家。所以，我體驗的那部分的大象就是我們對人的了解和我們將我們的了解應用于用戶體驗設計。我對大腦、視覺系統(tǒng)、記憶和動機做了研究和學習，并從中推斷用戶體驗設計的原則。

This article is a snapshot of the psychologist’s view of the elephant.

這篇文章是一個對大象的心理學家觀點的簡單描速。

1. People Don’t Want to Work or Think More Than They Have To

1.除非必要，否則人們不想工作或者思考

* People will do?the least amount of work possible to get a task done.

只要能完成任務，人們能少做就少做。

* It is better to show people a little bit of information and let them choose if they want more details. The fancy term for this is progressive disclosure, which I wrote a blog post about recently.

最好只展示一小點信息，接著讓他們抉擇是否需要查看更多。漸進展開是個不錯的方法。最近我寫了一篇關于“漸進展開”的博文。

* Instead of just describing things, show people an example.

別只是解釋，給個例子吧。

* Pay attention to the?affordance of objects on the screen, page, or device you are designing. If something is clickable make sure it looks like it is clickable.

注意屏幕、頁面或是設備上的對象的啟示(Affordance，啟示，功能可見性)。如果某個東西可點擊，那么就要把它做得像是可點擊的。

* Only provide the features that people really need. Don’t rely on your opinion of what you think they need; do user research to actually find out. Giving people more than they need just clutters up the experience.

只提供人們確實需要的功能。別按你自己的想象認為他們需要什么；做些用戶研究去確切地發(fā)現(xiàn)他們所需。給予他們超過他們的需要的功能只會搞砸體驗。

* Provide defaults. Defaults let people do less work to get the job done.

提供默認。默認讓人們做更少的事就能完成工作。

2. People Have Limitations

2.人有局限性

* People can only look at so much information or read so much text on a screen without losing interest. Only provide the information that’s needed at the moment (see progressive disclosure above).

人們只能在屏幕上看有限的信息或閱讀有限文字而不失興趣。在當下只提供需要的信息（查看上述的“漸進展開”）。

* Make the information easy to scan.

讓信息易于掃描。

* Use headers and short blocks of info or text.

使用標題和小塊信息或文字。

* People can’t multi-task.?The research is very clear on this, so don’t expect them to.

人們不能同時進行多項任務。這份研究很清楚的表明了這個觀點，所以別期望他們能夠做到。

* People prefer short line lengths, but they read better with longer ones! It’s a conundrum, so decide whether preference or performance is more important in your case, but know that people are going to ask for things that actually aren’t best for them.

人們喜歡短小的文案，但是長文案又能讓他們更好地理解！這是個難題，所以要抉擇在你的項目里，是偏好更重要還是性能更重要。但是，要知道人們喊著想要的東西并不是對于他們最好的東西。

3. People Make Mistakes

3.孰能無過

* Assume people will make mistakes. Anticipate what they will be and try to prevent them.

假設人們會犯錯。要預見到他們會犯的錯誤并努力避免發(fā)生。

* If the results of an error are severe then use a confirmation before acting on the user’s action.

如果一個錯誤的結果嚴重，那么在操作之前提供一個確認。

* Make it easy to “undo.”

提供容易使用的“撤銷”。

* Preventing errors from occurring is always better than helping people correct them once they occur. The best error message is no message at all.

防止錯誤發(fā)生往往比發(fā)生錯誤后幫助人們糾正更好。最好的錯誤消息是完全沒有錯誤消息。

* If a task is error-prone, break it up into smaller chunks.

如果一個任務容易出錯，那么把它分散成為細小的組。

來源：http://article.yeeyan.org/view/om19/108766