No. 37 “Is it discoverable?”

will anyone ever find it?

A feature people can’t find might as well not exist. Tucked in a mystery menu, it’s basically gone.

Give it a visible label & people actually use it.

Can a newcomer find it in 5 seconds?

In 1988, psychologist Don Norman published The Psychology of Everyday Things, later renamed The Design of Everyday Things. His advice: make things visible.

In the 2013 revised edition, he named discoverability one of the two most important traits of good design: can you even tell what’s possible?

• Don Norman, The Psychology of Everyday Things (1988)
• Don Norman, The Design of Everyday Things, revised ed. (2013), ch. 1

Save this for the next time someone says “it’s in the menu.”