Don't make me think

In the interview linked below, usability expert Tim Altom provides a heuristic for usability testing. When testing he invokes the simple philosophy he picked up from Steve Krug's bestselling book on usability, Don't Make Me Think.

"If anything in the interface will make a user pause and have to think, it should be flagged for possible change," Tim said. "Contrary to popular belief, nobody really wants to think while working with a tool. Thinking is hard work in itself, and should reserved for the job, not for the tools."

More in this interview/article on usability testing.