tags: #publish links: [[User Experience and User Interface (UX, UI)]], [[Psychology]] created: 2021-07-17 Sat --- # Principal of Least Astonishment (Least Surprise) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishment https://homepage.cs.uri.edu/~thenry/resources/unix_art/ch11s01.html **Do the least surprising thing**. Don't make the user guess. ## As a principle of user interface or software design > Redesign the feature if it has a high level of astonishment An example: [[xkcd - Things Everyone Knows - 10,000 people each day hear about it for the first time|this]] link has a high level of astonishment, because when clicking, *you don't know where it's going to take you*. A better redesign would be to invite people to consider [[xkcd - Things Everyone Knows - 10,000 people each day hear about it for the first time|this cartoon about the number of people surprised by obvious things every day]], so that they can decide whether they wish to click... ## In reverse [[Principle of Least Astonishment applied in reverse to simplify communication]]