In this talk, Claudio discusses how our human abilities, not technology, should define our digital experiences. He reveals how one should address the human-motor system, human vision, and cognitive abilities when designing those experiences.

Human-motor system

• Neck flexion and neck extension: Head can move 30º backward and 45º forward comfortably. Similarly,

• Wrist flexion and wrist extension: 51º upward and 46º downwards

• Lateral backbend: 21º sideway

• Lateral neck bend: can move head sideway by 25º 

• Ulnar and radial deviation: can move your palm sideways by 15º towards your thumb and 25º on the other side

• Shoulder abduction is 25º towards your body and 60º away from the body

• The above shows that no matter how fascinating the sci-fi movies showcase the futuristic User Interfaces, it's outside the human comfort zone to control everything with full and dramatic gestures

• Focus on increasing efficiency and accuracy of what we can do within a comfortable range

• Designers should not become personal trainers and train their customers

• For instance, Instagram only adheres to human-computer interaction guidelines for a minimum tappable area in navigation but not in inline comments, etc.

• How we can use this info at work

• Consider the direction and ranges that are more comfortable for repeated motion.

• Design for inaccuracy - make the system forgiving since humans will make mistakes.

• Use all information available to identify intent. Mix signals received and craft experiences accordingly.

Human vision-related abilities

• Humans recognize images in 1/200th of a second

• We have 120º binocular vision

• We have central vision 2º which is where we see things most clearly

• 900º angular speed which is responsible for content-aware fill

• Stereoscopic vision 120º: good at recognizing patterns

• 30º to recognize icons/ symbols

• Far peripheral vision - just survival skills/ motion identification, etc.

• How to use it in real life

• Know when to break the rules

• Focus the attention on the content

• Orchestrate your compositions, so the eyes know where to go using your central vision and peripheral skills to complement each other.

Human cognitive abilities:

• About 8 seconds of transient attention

• 20 seconds sustained attention

• 10-15 seconds working memory

• Humans can hold 5 - 9 discrete items at once

• Cognitive load is the total amount of mental effort being used by our working memory as we complete tasks or learn new things.

• Cognitive load is both an enhancing element of learning and an inhibitor for it.

• Intrinsic: how difficult something is

• Germane: the work put into creating a permanent store of knowledge

• Extraneous - how it is presented

• Leveraging relevant past knowledge stored in long-term memory facilitates our learning. For instance, a doctor who has performed the same operation hundreds of times can leverage to identify new insights.

• There are no limits to our learning capacity, but there is a progression to it.

• How to use this at work:

• Leverage user's previous knowledge to minimize content overload and ambiguity.

• Consider progressive disclosure and learning goals when using unique user interface paradigms.

Closing notes:

• Nothing is impossible

• Everything can be learned

• Abilities change over time