A good interface has been designed around the user; or user-centered designed.
As a part of this, the dialogue in user interfaces should be expressed in words, phrases, and concepts that are familiar to the user. System-oriented terms should not be used. Wording should be clear, concise and consistent throughout the system. However, when the user population has its own specialized terminology suited for the task, these terms should be used instead of the more commonly used, but less precise, everyday language.
In order to 'Speak the user's language', interactions should also be viewed from the user's perspective. For example, a security transaction statement should read: "You have bought 100 shares of XYZ Corp." and not "We have sold you 100 shares of XYZ Corp."
The system should not force naming conventions or restrictions on objects named by the user. For example, users should be allowed to use as long names as they want, even though the system may not always be able to show very long names without scrolling.
A good mapping between computer displayed information and the user's conceptual model of this information helps to establish a user-oriented system. As before the first step needed to discover such mappings is a task analysis. This helps to understand the users and their domain. Interface metaphors, such as a trash can for deleting files, provide a method of establish a mapping. Unfortunately, metaphors can be misleading or limit the user's understanding of the computer to those aspects that can be inferred by the metaphor. Care should be taken to present the metaphor as a simplified model of a more detailed conceptual model of the system and not as a direct representation of the system.