According to Wikipedia, the lag effect means that: “learning is greater when studying is spread out over time”
Have you ever tried to cook in someone elses kitchen? It’s quite an exhausting experience because nothing feels ‘intuitive’. You have to search for all the stuff that you normally just pull out of the closet. Do it just once and you’ll forget most of the things that you’ve learned that afternoon. But do it every week and before you know it, you’ll use the kitchen as if it were your own.
Most people will say that this is obvious: repetition will do that for you. So why don’t designers use what’s obvious more often? And why do designers change the interface all the time? We are product designers, not artists.
So give the user a break, don’t try to be inventive and original all the time
- Try boring and familiar for tasks that the user has already learned elsewhere.
- And if you are really designing something unique (website or tool, wizard, app, really anything), then give the user the satisfaction of quick results and some space to learn what’s less obvious.