The development of interactive systems depends a lot on the reaction of the user to sensory stimulations. Further, developers must be careful enough to develop applications that elicit certain set patterns of sensory reaction from users because if a majority of users behave in a manner that is not expected by the developer then the product will fail in the market.

The "mastery ideology" as explained by Jakob Nielsen speaks, in a way, about forced education of a different kind. Most people are often overwhelmed when they visit a web site either because the navigation is too confusing or because the web site seems to hijack the initiative from the user. Many sites fill their interface with advertising and distracting content that users often lose track of what they wanted to do in the first place. This unlike popular business beliefs, intimidates the user and ensures that they do not return to the site. Jakob Nielsen’s mastery ideology emphasizes that users must be allowed to search or navigate a site as they wish, not as the site developer wants them to. This is a very important concept because no user would like to be directed, particularly in a medium that is as liberal and free as the Internet. Hence, site elements must be as unobtrusive as possible so that users will be able to concentrate more on their work and business rather than being overly concerned about the site and its design.

Learning can be influenced by a variety of factors all of which are essentially influenced by the internal factors of the learner than being conditioned by external factors. This means that the capacity to learn and understand resides within the individual and will depend on the motivation that one receives to learn something. Of course de-motivating factors can make the learner reject a subject but the decision to reject or accept a subject as worthy of study is decided by one’s personality and interest. Hence, it may be held true that the urge to learn is under the influence of the self as explained by APA. Interactive systems must exploit this feature of self-learning by generating interest and motivating the person to learn. Interactive systems that can sufficiently elicit curiosity and instill motivation in learners can automatically create learners who will explore more and learn more. A good interactive system must build on the knowledge that learners have and must be able to develop parallel thinking that enables them to think comprehensively.

When we consider Tognazzini's ideas and the 14 principles of APA, we see that the following points are similar in their approach towards learning. We see that there is common idea and similarity of purpose in the following points:

• Anticipation : Construction of knowledge.
• Autonomy : Strategic thinking.
• Consistency : Thinking about thinking.
• Defaults: Explorable Interfaces
• Fitts's Law: Goals of the learning process
• Latency reduction: Motivational and emotional influences on learning.
• Learnability: Intrinsic motivation to learn
• Readability: Standards and assessment

Keywords : Term Paper, Psychology, Interactive Systems - Jakob Nielsen’s Mastery Ideology

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