Principles of User Interface Design are intended to improve the quality of user interface design. According to Larry Constantine and Lucy Lockwood in their usage-centered design, these principles are:[1]
- The structure principle: Design should organize the user interface purposefully, in meaningful and useful ways based on clear, consistent models that are apparent and recognizable to users, putting related things together and separating unrelated things, differentiating dissimilar things and making similar things resemble one another. The structure principle is concerned with overall user interface architecture.
- The simplicity principle: The design should make simple, common tasks easy, communicating clearly and simply in the user's own language, and providing good shortcuts that are meaningfully related to longer procedures.
- The visibility principle: The design should make all needed options and materials for a given task visible without distracting the user with extraneous or redundant information. Good designs don't overwhelm users with alternatives or confuse with unneeded information.
- The feedback principle: The design should keep users informed of actions or interpretations, changes of state or condition, and errors or exceptions that are relevant and of interest to the user through clear, concise, and unambiguous language familiar to users.
- The tolerance principle: The design should be flexible and tolerant, reducing the cost of mistakes and misuse by allowing undoing and redoing, while also preventing errors wherever possible by tolerating varied inputs and sequences and by interpreting all reasonable actions.
- The reuse principle: The design should reuse internal and external components and behaviors, maintaining consistency with purpose rather than merely arbitrary consistency, thus reducing the need for users to rethink and remember.
According to Jef Raskin in his book The Humane Interface, there are two laws of user interface design, based on the fictional laws of robotics created byIsaac Asimov:[2]
| First Law | A computer shall not harm your work or, through inactivity, allow your work to come to harm. |
| Second Law | A computer shall not waste your time or require you to do more work than is strictly necessary |
用户界面设计的原则 是为了提高设计质量的用户界面。据 拉里康斯坦丁 为中心的设计和露西洛克伍德在他们的使用，这些原则是：[1]
- 结构原理 ：设计要组织有针对性的用户界面，并识别用户显然是有意义的和有用的方法的基础上明确，一致的模式，把相关的东西在一起，分离无关的事情，区别不同情况，使类似的事情彼此相似。该结构原理是有关用户界面的整体架构。
- 简单性原则 ：设计要简单，容易的共同任务，清晰的交流和简单的用户自己的语言，并提供良好的程序快捷方式不再是有意义的相关性。
- 能见度原则 ：设计要与无关或冗余的信息和材料的选择都需要一个给定的任务，可见，且不会分散用户的。良好的设计不压倒可以替代或混淆不需要的信息。
- 反馈原则 ：设计应保持状态或通知用户的行动或状态的解释，变化和错误或异常的相关性和用户的利益熟悉的用户通过清晰，简洁，明确的语言。
- 公差原则 ：设计应灵活，宽容，允许犯错误，减少滥用撤消和重做的成本，同时也防止一切合理的行动的错误尽可能容忍不同的投入和序列，并通过解释。
- 该重用的原则 ：设计要重用的内部和外部组件和行为，保持连贯性与一致性，而不是目的，只是随意，从而减少了用户需要重新思考和记忆。
根据 热夫拉斯金 在他的著作 的人文接口 ，有两个法律的用户界面设计，虚构的基础上， 对机器人的法律 所创建的 艾萨克阿西莫夫:[2]
| 第一定律 | 一台计算机，不得损害您的工作或闲置，让您的工作来伤害。 |
| 第二定律 | 一台计算机不得浪费你的时间或要求你做更多的工作比是绝对必要的 |
