Gulf of Execution and Evaluation
The Gulf of Execution : well, I'm supposed to kick or something, but where and how? How fast? Or do I kick or just wave my foot? And the Gulf of Evaluation : well, I did it, and nothing happened. Now what am I supposed to do? Really good example of bad design. Two sources of difficulty when using a product are due to the lack of discoverability and feedback: knowing what to do, then wondering what happened. These two difficulties result from the huge Gulf between a person's goal and the means of achieving them. This is called the Gulf of Execution. There's also the Gulf between assessing the state of the world and trying to determine if that state matches the initial goal. And this is called the Gulf of Evaluation. Figuring out what actions are possible during the Gulf of Execution is all about discoverability, and knowing what just happened during the Gulf of Evaluation is about feedback. Ever buy a new product and then not know how to work it? Well, likely because it lac