Designing Interfaces, 3rd Edition

Chapter 8. Doing Things: Actions and Commands

This chapter is devoted to the “verbs” in the interface: how people can take an action or use a command. In other words, we’re going to look at the ways people get work done in software. This chapter explores the following:

• Different methods for initiating action or activating commands

• How to make it clear that an item can be acted on with affordances

• Patterns and components that promote controlling and editing

This is in contrast to our discussions of “nouns” in interface design so far. First, we discussed structure and flow and visual layout. We reviewed interface objects such as windows, text, links, and static elements in pages. In subsequent chapters, we will look at complex components such as data visualizations and forms.

We think of the verbs—designing actions and commands—as the methods people can use to perform tasks in your application. Specifically, what we mean by that is how the person using your software can carry out these tasks:

• Start, pause, cancel, or complete an action

• Enter a setting, configuration, or value

• Manipulate an object or component in the interface

• Apply a change or transformation

• Remove or delete something

• Add or create something

Many of the patterns described in this chapter come from hardware interfaces that were developed and standardized long before software interfaces became ubiquitous. Other patterns mimic real-world behaviors and methods directly. It’s true that there is ...