[Wikimedia-l] Who invoked "principle of least surprise" for the image filter?

[phoebe ayers]

On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 1:44 PM, Michael Peel
<michael.peel at wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
> My understanding of this line of argument was that images would be displayed where you would expect them to be displayed (e.g. the article on penis or vagina would naturally include a picture of a penis or vagina), but wouldn't be immediately displayed where you wouldn't expect them (e.g. if you want to find information on necklaces made of pearls).
>
> Whether that is called 'principle of least surprise' or 'principle of least astonishment' or something else is semantics...
>
> Thanks,
> Mike

That's exactly how I understand the idea as well.

As for where it came from -- from my imperfect memory, the idea has
been kicking around in the English Wikipedia style guide and in
Commons for some years (I found it in a style guide history in 2004,
also cf Nathan's research).

In the context of this discussion, however, the "principle of least
astonishment" had I believe been brought up early on; it was
highlighted in the Harris report as a potentially useful concept for
thinking about the whole range of issues around handling controversial
content. This was actually a separate bullet point/idea from the
recommendation to allow readers to hide images. They're not
necessarily connected; overall I haven't heard a lot of complaints
about trying to implement the principle of least astonishment, i.e. by
improving search etc.

The concept itself, as a usability term, has been around for a while;
there's a (not very good) article, which was started in 2002:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishment
 I don't know when it came into use in the world at large.

-- phoebe