Jared Spool of UIE talks about a set of interviews he and his company conducted with users of Netflix.com.

While all these things are what the designers at Netflix work hard on every day, they go unmentioned by their customers. It’s not because these aspects aren’t important. It’s because the designers have done their job really well: they’ve made them invisible.

Unfortunately, this is not good news for those of us who want people to know what we do. If we do our job really well, nobody can see what we’re doing. It’s only when we do it poorly that we have something to show.

The best interfaces are the ones which stay out of peoples way. Well designed interactivity goes unnoticed but with poorly designed interactivity comes a tangible frustration.