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The Quality Rule basically says, "Don't lie or blatantly mislead." Enough said. The Relevance Rule addresses expectations that are raised by choosing to give certain pieces of information over others. If I mentioned that my printer is out of paper and you said, "There's a supply cabinet around the corner," by the Relevance Rule, I would take you to believe that paper is stored in that cabinet. If I found out that you knew there was no paper in the cabinet, I would figure you were playing a joke on me or just being mean. Finally, the Manner Rule says to be clear, that is, to say things in a way that the other person can understand.
We've taken these ideas and converted them into a set of rules for building cooperative technology:
The Cooperative Principle for Technology
Don't impose (negative politeness)
Respect the user's physical effort
Respect the user's mental effort
Be helpful (positive politeness)
Offer sufficient information early and in context; prevent errors (Quantity)
Solve problems; don't complain or pass the buck (Quantity)
Be predictable (Quality)
Request and offer only relevant information; don't mislead (Relevance)
Explain in plain language (Manner)
We do not offer these rules just for the sake of politeness. The rules are useful because they allow you to forget about the mechanics of the interaction and instead focus on the interesting stuff—the activity you came for. If your technology enables people to rotate complex figures in 3D, you want them thinking about how their object looks from the top, not how to get it to rotate. If you enable people to send messages through a small, handheld device, you want them thinking about the conversation, not how to enter text. If your technology enables people to see where they are on a map, they should be focusing on the destination, not how to get the map to zoom out. By following rules of cooperation, you help people focus on their task.
In the next three chapters, we show how to apply the Cooperative Principle for Technology. We break down the rules into further guidelines, giving positive and negative examples from a broad range of technologies. We hope to help you develop the mindset needed to build cooperative technology, regardless of whether it's traditional PC software or the latest "information appliance." Then we'll move on to show you how to apply that mentality in the day-to-day process of building technology.
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