Gulf of evaluation
Encyclopedia
In computer science
, the gulf of evaluation is the degree to which the system
/artifact
provides representations
that can be directly perceived and interpreted in terms of the expectations and intentions of the user
. Or put differently, the gulf of evaluation is the difficulty of assessing the state of the system and how well the artifact supports the discovery and interpretation of that state. According to Donald Norman's The Design of Everyday Things
"The gulf is small when the system provides information about its state in a form that is easy to get, is easy to interpret, and matches the way the person thinks of the system".
In human-computer interaction, the term of gulf of evaluation stands for the psychological gap that must be crossed to interpret a user interface display, following the steps interface -> perception -> interpretation -> evaluation.
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
, the gulf of evaluation is the degree to which the system
System
System is a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole....
/artifact
Artifact (software development)
An artifact is one of many kinds of tangible by-product produced during the development of software. Some artifacts help describe the function, architecture, and design of software...
provides representations
Group representation
In the mathematical field of representation theory, group representations describe abstract groups in terms of linear transformations of vector spaces; in particular, they can be used to represent group elements as matrices so that the group operation can be represented by matrix multiplication...
that can be directly perceived and interpreted in terms of the expectations and intentions of the user
User (computing)
A user is an agent, either a human agent or software agent, who uses a computer or network service. A user often has a user account and is identified by a username , screen name , nickname , or handle, which is derived from the identical Citizen's Band radio term.Users are...
. Or put differently, the gulf of evaluation is the difficulty of assessing the state of the system and how well the artifact supports the discovery and interpretation of that state. According to Donald Norman's The Design of Everyday Things
The Design of Everyday Things
The Design of Everyday Things is a best-selling book by cognitive scientist and usability engineer Donald Norman about the design of simple objects, and why some objects please their users while others frustrate them....
"The gulf is small when the system provides information about its state in a form that is easy to get, is easy to interpret, and matches the way the person thinks of the system".
In human-computer interaction, the term of gulf of evaluation stands for the psychological gap that must be crossed to interpret a user interface display, following the steps interface -> perception -> interpretation -> evaluation.