From the course: Interaction Design for the Web

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Control versus being lead

Control versus being lead

From the course: Interaction Design for the Web

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Control versus being lead

- There are times when we want to have total control over what we do and times where we happy to let someone else guide us through a task. For instance, one day you might want to get your exercise by going for a bike ride where you decide what route to take and how long to ride for. Another day, you might want to get your exercise by going to a yoga session where the instructor sets the pace and tells you what to do. It's the same in software. There are times when we want to be in control and times where we want to be led through the process. We tend to want to be led when the task is one we don't do very often and to be in control when it's a regular task. Think of some frequent tasks like email or word processing. Being in control makes a lot of sense. We use the software often enough to know how it works, maybe even a couple of keyboard shortcuts, so we aren't looking for the software to hold our hand. On the other hand, think about filing your taxes. At least in the USA, this is a…

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