Chapter 3: Beginner's, Experts, and Intermediates

One of the eternal conundrums of interation design is deciding how to address the needs of both beginning users and expert users with a single interface.

Most users are intermediates. Beginners will strive to become perceptual intermediates, or drop their efforts altogether.

Programmers create for experts, marketers demand interactions suitable only for beginners...majority of real users are ignored = Optimize for intermediates. Goal to get beginners into intermediacy; to avoid putting obstacles in the way of those intermediates who want to become experts;

Imagine users as very intelligent but very busy.

Beginning users remember relationships between objects and actions first. Must reflect mental model. Overview information in the form of a guided tour is better than standard online help.