From the Editor in Chief: Interface Pains

Maximizing the amount of information a system conveys to a user isn’t a good idea. Rather, designers should keep in mind what the user is trying to accomplish and figure out how to minimize the effort (physical and intellectual) that the user has to expend to get that task done. But given that acting in opposition to good interface design is the reality of engineering projects, a discussion of the design of usable systems seems appropriate.