Design Principles For Creating New Interfaces

I wanted to share a paper I came across while researching a piece on Human Factors Engineering for a Multitouch Interfaces.

In the paper, Richard E. Mayer and Roxana Moreno of UCSB lay out five key principals for designing new multimedia interfaces:

Multiple Representation Principle:
Its is better to present an explanation in words and pictures than solely in words.

Contiguity Principle:
When giving a multimedia explanation, present corresponding words and pictures contiguously rather than separately.

Split-Attention Principle:
When giving a multimedia explanation, present words as auditory narration rather than as visual on-screen text.

Individual Differences Principle:
The foregoing principles are more important for lowknowledge
than high-knowledge learners, and for high-spatial rather than low-spatial learners.

Coherence Principle:
When giving a multimedia explanation, use few rather than many extraneous words and pictures.