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I'm curious about the reasoning behind reverting my examples [1]. I know they weren't great, but the article needed more examples (as has been pointed out on this page), and I hoped they could at least be refined (cut down in length, made more to the point, more coherent, etc.) rather than deleted entirely. If there were severe factual inaccuracies or misunderstandings then could someone please tell me where I went wrong or suggest ways to improve my understanding of the topic? Also, the edit reason included the term "fmt", which I can't find any meaning for. Is it some kind of wikipedia-specific shorthand? EDIT: forgot to sign in. Psudomorph ( talk) 18:22, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
Almost every single reference I have seen to this principle calls it the "Principle of Least Surprise". In particular, Ruby internals developers, ESR, and the Pragmatic Programmers spring to mind as examples of relatively well known examples of people who know what they're talking about that use the POLS variation. So -- is there some specific reason that this article is the "Principle of Least Astonishment", rather than the "Principle of Least Surprise"? If there is an original formulation that uses that name, thus making it the more formally "correct" term, I'd like to know it.
Perhaps the article should make mention of why POLA is the preferred term in Wikipedia, as opposed to POLS, despite what appears to be a greater frequency of use for POLS.
additional edit: Sorry, I forgot to sign this when I first wrote it. -- Apotheon 06:24, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
30 years in Computer Science and I've always heard it called POLA, not POLS. I believe my first exposure to it came from the Unix "fortune" program which I'd say is pretty authoritative :-). For a somewhat objective measure, Google gives over twice as many hits for POLA as it does for POLS (both phrases quoted) -- 74900 vs 35600, respectively -- so POLA clearly seems like a better choice for the master article. All that aside, the biggest point in my mind is that this is supposed to be a funny statement of principle (though the current article unfortunately drains the humor from it) -- and POLA is a hell of a lot funnier. 71.139.4.118 ( talk) 18:09, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
I thought POLA most commonly referred to the Principle of Least Authority. [1] [2] Here is a reference from the fortune program. [3] % Rule of Least Surprise: In interface design, always do the least surprising thing. (aka Principle of Least Astonishment) --esr, The Art of Unix Programming % — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.59.105.150 ( talk) 16:56, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
Well, I too though it was traditionally called the principle of least surprise, and was concerned that the name of this article might have confused people into using the wrong phrase, but thanks to the Google Books ngram viewer we can see that principle of least astonishment has always been the more popular wording: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=principle+of+least+surprise%2Cprinciple+of+least+astonishment&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1960&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3
However, we might want to actually use the phrase "principle of least surprise" in the first sentence of the article, as it's by far the most popular redirect for the article (about 6 times the popularity of the next redirect, "Principle of Least Astonishment"): https://tools.wmflabs.org/redirectviews?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&start=2018-01-01&end=2018-12-31&page=Principle_of_least_astonishment&sort=views&direction=1&view=list&page=Principle_of_least_astonishment
Slight digression: If 2,042 views seems tiny compared to the 71,204 at the direct URL, note that the article's actual URL is the first hit for both terms, and also that the usual way of linking to wikipedia from other sites is to first look at the article (to make sure it's the one you want to link to), then copy and paste the URL from the address bar into the link, which necessarily resolves redirects. In other words, the direct URL has a huge leg-up over the others here, so it's much more interesting to compare redirects to redirects.
— SamB ( talk) 19:57, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
References
Removing this note from the article:
TODO: It would be really helpful if there were multiple examples. I'd add, but I don't know any more (which is why I'm asking for them...) MikeSchinkel 04:34, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Because it clearly belongs here rather than in the article. It doesnt make him less right, though.
As far as I can tell, the statement that this is "also known as the principle of maximum boredom", is false. No one calls it that.
The phrase seemed odd, so I googled it, and got zero links outside of wikipedia and its clones. [ google search]. Tracing the page histories, it seems to come from the Modified Newtonian Dynamics. The earliest edit on that page (17:20, 20 Nov 2001 Gareth Owen (DON'T use an abbreviation without definition ...)) includes the phrase, although the comment indicates there was probably an earlier version.
Was this an attempt by someone to popularize their pet name for the theory? Is the phrase "Principle of Maximum Boredom" a wikipedia coinage? -- Key45 21:55, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I removed "George Polya - How to Solve it - a great wonderful book on heuristics" for being Point-of-View, and also having no link whatsoever for people to see for themselves if it's great and wonderful or not at all ;) -- Hooloovoo 02:26, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I am removing this paragraph:
This article .. well the example given in it made me laugh out loud..
Programmer in the example is actually put to the question: I can program this macro recording in a way that is desired or a way that is undesired and result in a macro not being recorded... hmmmm which one will astonish the user the least?.....stupid..Is there not a more relavant example ?-- Alex 11:43, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
The article does not explain the origin of this phrase or idea. A bit of Googling does not come up with any real explanation. Does anyone know the real story about this? Polpo 17:17, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
So am I the only one who thinks this is an entirely bogus "principle"? What surprises one person is often perfectly expected to another one. In the second example, I'd be quite surprised if I issued a shutdown and the system stayed up (because someone else issued a shutdown concurrently to me and then later canceled it). In this situation there is no behaviour that will not surprise one of the two users.
I'd go so far as to assert that every single example of a true violation of this "principle" (i.e. a situation in which it can be unambiguously established which of two different behaviours is more or less surprising) is simply a bug in the underlying program.
Can anybody name any such situation where we're NOT just talking about a bug? Iron Condor 01:55, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
In the POP system we use at work, you are required to change the status of an order to "issued" before it is paid. There are no clues in the user interface as to how to do this. I've just discovered that you do it by emailing the order to yourself. ...Well, I was damn well astonished. 78.148.107.138 ( talk) 11:30, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
You can't just say that one of two actions is more likely to surprise the user. It depends on what it actually is the user wants to do. Also think of the consequences if you (as a programmer) chooses the other alternative.
In the example with recording the Ctrl-Q keystroke in a macro, you could just as well have a user who wants to quit the program while they are halfways through recording a macro (something requires them to close down whatever they are doing). They would then be surprised when they pressed Ctrl-Q (like they are used to) and nothing happens.
In my opinion there is another and way better reason for selecting to record the closedown instead of actually doing a closedown, and that is that the alternative would be cumbersome for the user. It would require anyone who wants to record a closedown action in a macro to enter some editor after having recorded the macro, and then type in whatever command causes the program to close down. With the other alternative both options are available without any additional knowledge. Personally I would always select to record the closedown because of this. I would never even look at which option surprises more users, because to me this is simply the right way of doing it.
[Reply to the above unsigned poster begins here:]
Yes, an interesting paradox... As a technical writer (and thus a professional idiot), here's what I'd suggest:
1. The user, recording a macro, presses Ctrl+Q.
2. A dialog box appears: "You just pressed Ctrl+Q, which usually exits [app name]. What do you want to do?:"
[option buttons:]
[o] Add Ctrl+Q to the macro. (When you run your macro, it will cause [app name] to exit.)
[o] Ignore Ctrl+Q and continue recording.
[o] Cancel recording and exit [app name].
[button:] OK
The first option is selected by default. If the user chooses it, the dialog box appears which prompts the user to save the macro (as the macro can't contain further instructions).
If the user chooses the third option, the app prompts the user to save any unsaved content (as it normally would) before exiting.
And yes, I realize we may be transgressing the scope of this article, but it does concern one of the two examples it cites. Perhaps a more cut-and-dried example would be better? SomeAvailableName ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:11, 17 July 2011 (UTC).
You are arguing that this principle is not an absolute. That may be true. However, the phrase is used to express a point of view, even though it may be subject to perspective. In software design this phrase is very common and used to mean 'your design is not simple or does not seem obvious to the uninitiated'. -- RobertGary1 ( talk) 20:39, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
This article could benefit from a list of noteworthy usages/mentions of the principle of least astonishment. Please add to the list below:
I'm removing this from Examples.
A website could have an input field that focuses automatically after the page loads, [1] such as a search field (e.g. Google Custom Search), or the username field of a login form.
The cited Mozilla page is still there but it no longer mentions autofocus.
It would be more accurate to say autofocus
is what not to do for "least surprise" in many contexts. The current
Mozilla Developer Network page on autofocus
says this:
Automatically focusing a form control can confuse visually-impaired people using screen-reading technology and people with cognitive impairments. When autofocus is assigned, screen-readers "teleport" their user to the form control without warning them beforehand.
Mrevan ( talk) 16:06, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
References
I suspect there's a pun involved in "For recipes on how to cook your catch", but I don't understand it. Am I missing something? Marnanel ( talk) 13:59, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Principle of least astonishment article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
![]() | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
I'm curious about the reasoning behind reverting my examples [1]. I know they weren't great, but the article needed more examples (as has been pointed out on this page), and I hoped they could at least be refined (cut down in length, made more to the point, more coherent, etc.) rather than deleted entirely. If there were severe factual inaccuracies or misunderstandings then could someone please tell me where I went wrong or suggest ways to improve my understanding of the topic? Also, the edit reason included the term "fmt", which I can't find any meaning for. Is it some kind of wikipedia-specific shorthand? EDIT: forgot to sign in. Psudomorph ( talk) 18:22, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
Almost every single reference I have seen to this principle calls it the "Principle of Least Surprise". In particular, Ruby internals developers, ESR, and the Pragmatic Programmers spring to mind as examples of relatively well known examples of people who know what they're talking about that use the POLS variation. So -- is there some specific reason that this article is the "Principle of Least Astonishment", rather than the "Principle of Least Surprise"? If there is an original formulation that uses that name, thus making it the more formally "correct" term, I'd like to know it.
Perhaps the article should make mention of why POLA is the preferred term in Wikipedia, as opposed to POLS, despite what appears to be a greater frequency of use for POLS.
additional edit: Sorry, I forgot to sign this when I first wrote it. -- Apotheon 06:24, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
30 years in Computer Science and I've always heard it called POLA, not POLS. I believe my first exposure to it came from the Unix "fortune" program which I'd say is pretty authoritative :-). For a somewhat objective measure, Google gives over twice as many hits for POLA as it does for POLS (both phrases quoted) -- 74900 vs 35600, respectively -- so POLA clearly seems like a better choice for the master article. All that aside, the biggest point in my mind is that this is supposed to be a funny statement of principle (though the current article unfortunately drains the humor from it) -- and POLA is a hell of a lot funnier. 71.139.4.118 ( talk) 18:09, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
I thought POLA most commonly referred to the Principle of Least Authority. [1] [2] Here is a reference from the fortune program. [3] % Rule of Least Surprise: In interface design, always do the least surprising thing. (aka Principle of Least Astonishment) --esr, The Art of Unix Programming % — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.59.105.150 ( talk) 16:56, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
Well, I too though it was traditionally called the principle of least surprise, and was concerned that the name of this article might have confused people into using the wrong phrase, but thanks to the Google Books ngram viewer we can see that principle of least astonishment has always been the more popular wording: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=principle+of+least+surprise%2Cprinciple+of+least+astonishment&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1960&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3
However, we might want to actually use the phrase "principle of least surprise" in the first sentence of the article, as it's by far the most popular redirect for the article (about 6 times the popularity of the next redirect, "Principle of Least Astonishment"): https://tools.wmflabs.org/redirectviews?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&start=2018-01-01&end=2018-12-31&page=Principle_of_least_astonishment&sort=views&direction=1&view=list&page=Principle_of_least_astonishment
Slight digression: If 2,042 views seems tiny compared to the 71,204 at the direct URL, note that the article's actual URL is the first hit for both terms, and also that the usual way of linking to wikipedia from other sites is to first look at the article (to make sure it's the one you want to link to), then copy and paste the URL from the address bar into the link, which necessarily resolves redirects. In other words, the direct URL has a huge leg-up over the others here, so it's much more interesting to compare redirects to redirects.
— SamB ( talk) 19:57, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
References
Removing this note from the article:
TODO: It would be really helpful if there were multiple examples. I'd add, but I don't know any more (which is why I'm asking for them...) MikeSchinkel 04:34, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Because it clearly belongs here rather than in the article. It doesnt make him less right, though.
As far as I can tell, the statement that this is "also known as the principle of maximum boredom", is false. No one calls it that.
The phrase seemed odd, so I googled it, and got zero links outside of wikipedia and its clones. [ google search]. Tracing the page histories, it seems to come from the Modified Newtonian Dynamics. The earliest edit on that page (17:20, 20 Nov 2001 Gareth Owen (DON'T use an abbreviation without definition ...)) includes the phrase, although the comment indicates there was probably an earlier version.
Was this an attempt by someone to popularize their pet name for the theory? Is the phrase "Principle of Maximum Boredom" a wikipedia coinage? -- Key45 21:55, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I removed "George Polya - How to Solve it - a great wonderful book on heuristics" for being Point-of-View, and also having no link whatsoever for people to see for themselves if it's great and wonderful or not at all ;) -- Hooloovoo 02:26, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I am removing this paragraph:
This article .. well the example given in it made me laugh out loud..
Programmer in the example is actually put to the question: I can program this macro recording in a way that is desired or a way that is undesired and result in a macro not being recorded... hmmmm which one will astonish the user the least?.....stupid..Is there not a more relavant example ?-- Alex 11:43, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
The article does not explain the origin of this phrase or idea. A bit of Googling does not come up with any real explanation. Does anyone know the real story about this? Polpo 17:17, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
So am I the only one who thinks this is an entirely bogus "principle"? What surprises one person is often perfectly expected to another one. In the second example, I'd be quite surprised if I issued a shutdown and the system stayed up (because someone else issued a shutdown concurrently to me and then later canceled it). In this situation there is no behaviour that will not surprise one of the two users.
I'd go so far as to assert that every single example of a true violation of this "principle" (i.e. a situation in which it can be unambiguously established which of two different behaviours is more or less surprising) is simply a bug in the underlying program.
Can anybody name any such situation where we're NOT just talking about a bug? Iron Condor 01:55, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
In the POP system we use at work, you are required to change the status of an order to "issued" before it is paid. There are no clues in the user interface as to how to do this. I've just discovered that you do it by emailing the order to yourself. ...Well, I was damn well astonished. 78.148.107.138 ( talk) 11:30, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
You can't just say that one of two actions is more likely to surprise the user. It depends on what it actually is the user wants to do. Also think of the consequences if you (as a programmer) chooses the other alternative.
In the example with recording the Ctrl-Q keystroke in a macro, you could just as well have a user who wants to quit the program while they are halfways through recording a macro (something requires them to close down whatever they are doing). They would then be surprised when they pressed Ctrl-Q (like they are used to) and nothing happens.
In my opinion there is another and way better reason for selecting to record the closedown instead of actually doing a closedown, and that is that the alternative would be cumbersome for the user. It would require anyone who wants to record a closedown action in a macro to enter some editor after having recorded the macro, and then type in whatever command causes the program to close down. With the other alternative both options are available without any additional knowledge. Personally I would always select to record the closedown because of this. I would never even look at which option surprises more users, because to me this is simply the right way of doing it.
[Reply to the above unsigned poster begins here:]
Yes, an interesting paradox... As a technical writer (and thus a professional idiot), here's what I'd suggest:
1. The user, recording a macro, presses Ctrl+Q.
2. A dialog box appears: "You just pressed Ctrl+Q, which usually exits [app name]. What do you want to do?:"
[option buttons:]
[o] Add Ctrl+Q to the macro. (When you run your macro, it will cause [app name] to exit.)
[o] Ignore Ctrl+Q and continue recording.
[o] Cancel recording and exit [app name].
[button:] OK
The first option is selected by default. If the user chooses it, the dialog box appears which prompts the user to save the macro (as the macro can't contain further instructions).
If the user chooses the third option, the app prompts the user to save any unsaved content (as it normally would) before exiting.
And yes, I realize we may be transgressing the scope of this article, but it does concern one of the two examples it cites. Perhaps a more cut-and-dried example would be better? SomeAvailableName ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:11, 17 July 2011 (UTC).
You are arguing that this principle is not an absolute. That may be true. However, the phrase is used to express a point of view, even though it may be subject to perspective. In software design this phrase is very common and used to mean 'your design is not simple or does not seem obvious to the uninitiated'. -- RobertGary1 ( talk) 20:39, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
This article could benefit from a list of noteworthy usages/mentions of the principle of least astonishment. Please add to the list below:
I'm removing this from Examples.
A website could have an input field that focuses automatically after the page loads, [1] such as a search field (e.g. Google Custom Search), or the username field of a login form.
The cited Mozilla page is still there but it no longer mentions autofocus.
It would be more accurate to say autofocus
is what not to do for "least surprise" in many contexts. The current
Mozilla Developer Network page on autofocus
says this:
Automatically focusing a form control can confuse visually-impaired people using screen-reading technology and people with cognitive impairments. When autofocus is assigned, screen-readers "teleport" their user to the form control without warning them beforehand.
Mrevan ( talk) 16:06, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
References
I suspect there's a pun involved in "For recipes on how to cook your catch", but I don't understand it. Am I missing something? Marnanel ( talk) 13:59, 12 June 2022 (UTC)