Fundamental Thinking

I've been hearing it time and time again and it never seems to escape me - probably because it's my profession that draws out such magmatic words.

"Intuitive. It's needs to be more intuitive!"

Of course, I am referring to interface design. Almost every usability test ponders upon the idea of intuitive design or how much intuitiveness is inherent in the design. But really, how much of this "intuition" do we really use?

I read the article by UIE and it gives a great visual as how much intuition we really use. Based on this article, in fact, we do not use our intuition, but more so upon our knowledge. Take it further and we actually base all our reactions on experiences. Our conscious and cognitive ability is as follows:

1. See the situation (without interpretation);
2. Recall and relate to past experiences (with some interpretation);
3. Base a decision (with full interpretation);
4. Act on the decision.

When this is considered into the Fundamental Thinking Process, can we honestly say then, there is something in the design that needs to be more intuitive? Perhaps in this context, intuitive only means a gathering of our past experiences with applications and programs that we have already used. Which, in this case, provided that we all have the same experiences - most likely not, then to achieve such intuitiveness in our designs is a complete fallacy.

So really, there is no such thing as intuitive design.