Designed for Use, 2nd Edition

How to Make Things Discoverable

So far, we’ve considered the importance of the things in your product, and we’ve thought about when they are important. Now, let’s take a look at what you can do to make these things discoverable.

Spatial Properties

You can use properties such as size, position, form, and color to make individual elements of your application more (or less) discoverable. The bigger something is, the more easily discoverable it is. By putting things at the top or down the left side of a screen or window, you make them more discoverable.^[91] Certain colors (most notably red) make things appear more important. Conversely, you can use these properties to de-emphasize things you consider to be less important but still need to put somewhere ...