The Psychology of User-friendliness: The Use of Information Technology as a Reflective Learning Medium

The Psychology of User-friendliness: The Use of Information Technology as a Reflective Learning Medium

Since the advent of Information Technology (IT) software systems over the last 20 years or so, the term 'user-friendly' has become widely used and is generally associated with well-designed IT solutions that the user can easily interact with. Indeed, user-friendly software implies that the human computer interface (HCI) and interactability of the IT system have been designed in such a way so as to allow immediate and meaningful participation. This article attempts to provide a psychological conceptual model that explains the idea of user-friendliness in terms of IT systems operating as an easy-to-access reflective learning tool. Further, that the quality of critical thinking interaction via IT software depends on both humanistic and instructional technology design considerations which affect the system's ability to operate as an efficient reflective learning interface with a person. IT software learning systems that enable the user to transfer ideas and experiences into new conceptual knowledge is proposed by the author to be a knowledge elicitation system (KES). The critical and creative thinking design rationale and generic criteria of a KES will be shared with readers, in order that any IT learning system can be readily evaluated in terms of its user-friendly 'learnability' and reflective learning capability. Many of the core pedagogic concepts and innovative theories in this article have been summarized into an information table (see Table 1), which provides a synthesis of the relationships between what is meant by a reflective learning interface and a KES.