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The term satisficing comes from the work of Herbert Simon. It's a product of the area of bounded rationality; the observation that humans are not completely rational in all areas. Actions are partly based on rationality, but also affected by emotions and other internal factors. Moreover, it's rare to have enough objective information to make a completely rational, informed decision. In most cases it's just not worth the effort to become fully informed, even if that were possible.
We might have a need, desire, or goal, but instead of completely satisfying the need, we come as close as we can within the constraints of our current situation. That's satisficing. If you need a watch, for example, a precision timepiece milled out of solid unobtanium might appeal to you, but an inexpensive model from eBay might be good enough. Good enough is the hallmark of satisficing.
In designing a software user interface we do a good deal of satisficing. Even UI designs from Apple Computer, usually touted as the best, coolest, easiest-to-use interfaces available, are at some level "good enough" rather than "perfect" or "ideal".
The trick, of course, is that as a UI designer you know this but you don't often admit it. You try to make your designs as close to perfect as possible, even when you understand that "perfect" in this arena isn't even a reasonable notion, all things considered.
Comments
You know lately your blog hasn't been about the browser at all, and I would be ranting on about that, but the content you post definitely is interesting so bravo.
For the next iteration of the browser you need to only look at the best features of Opera Mini and Opera for Mobile devices. I use Opera Mini and your browser on a daily basis because both do there own things very well. RSS feeds, Opera. Full screen browsing, you. Fit text to screen width, Opera. File uploading in gmail, you.
It's a shame I can't have the perfect browser, but hey that's why I have 3 installed on my phone right now.
Posted by: Stefan Constantinescu