Characteristics Of Successful User Interfaces

Ben Shneiderman's "Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design"<p><a href="http://faculty.washington.edu/jtenenbg/courses/360/f04/sessions/schneidermanGoldenRules.html" rel="nofollow">http://faculty.washington.edu/jtenenbg/courses/360/f04/sessi...</a>

I wonder if these rules are worse than useless.<p>Everyone agrees that "clear" is better than "not-clear", "concise" is better than not concise, etc.<p>But not only does this blog not give a <i>clear</i>, <i>concise</i> description of how to implement these qualities. It is doesn't even give a clear, unambiguous way to determine whether a given interface has these qualities.<p>He could have been more concise and just as clear if he'd said "make it rock, dude!"

Anyone who cites any part of Office 2007 as in any way an example of good or effective design has lost my vote of confidence.<p>I am forced to use it at work, have been using it for nearly two years, and it still takes me 10 or 20 times as long (no exaggeration) to get something done in that as it did in Office 2003 or 2000.<p>Amazingly bad UI.