Seven, plus or minus two, is too much to bear: three (or fewer) is the real magic number

摘要

Miller's 7+-2 is an oft-cited but misleading heuristic in user interface design. Miller extracted this rule of thumb by examining data on memory span, among other things. However, memory span procedures measure short-term memory at its upper limits and thereby greatly overestimate humans' ability to easily hold in mind unrelated, linguistic material. Justifications for using a maximum of 3 items as a design heuristic are presented.