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The law of poka-yoke
Poka-yoke is a Japanese word meaning "mistake prevention" and refers to a mechanism designed to prevent mistakes in a product or process. The concept was first introduced in the 1960s by Japanese engineer Shigeo Shingo.
In UX design, the poka-yoke effect is used to prevent user errors and provide a more intuitive and error-free user experience. Poka-yoke can be applied to UX in the following ways:
Constraint: Restricts the user to interact with the interface in only the ways allowed, for example, not allowing a form to be submitted without filling out required fields.
Guidance: Provide visual and audio cues to guide users to the right behavior. For example, display a strength meter in a password field to encourage them to create stronger passwords.
Feedback: Provide immediate and clear feedback on user actions so that they can be notified of and correct incorrect behavior. For example, display a red warning message if the user enters an incorrect email format.
Confirmation: Ask the user for confirmation before performing important actions to prevent negative consequences due to mistakes. For example, display a confirmation dialog before deleting a file.
Default: Set the safest and most common option as the default so that the user doesn't have to explicitly select it. For example, select the most common country as the default on a form.
Applying the Poka-Yoke principle to UX design can help minimize user errors, increase user satisfaction, and improve the overall user experience. This is especially useful for interfaces that involve important tasks or complex processes.
This is a rule added based on a report from @Jeong Hoon-gu.