Gulf of Evaluation

The gulf of evaluation is the gap between what happened in the system and what the user can understand from the interface.

Design Problem

The user asks: “What happened?”

If the interface does not give clear feedback, the user cannot evaluate whether their action worked.

Reduce the Gap With

  • clear status messages
  • visible progress
  • confirmation after actions
  • error messages that explain the problem
  • UI states that show what changed