Within the last few months a form of UI development has been growing on me, it is called Inductive User Interfaces. 

Here is a link to some guidelines Microsoft wrote up on them:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwui/html/iuiguidelines.asp

It appears Microsoft is moving their consumer products in the direction of adopting a hybrid of IUI and a task based metaphor.  What strikes me as pretty neat about this model is you are trying to convey to the user/consumer a list of choices and what the expected outcome those choices will have with regard to the task they are trying to perform.  Instead of just providing a textbox and giving a brief ‘username/password’ = identifier in front of it, you describe where you can get that information, how it was suppose to come into your possession.  Maybe even a couple examples of acceptable looking input.

What do you all think? Is it a good idea or bad idea?

Various versions of Microsoft Money seem to have noticed reduced support calls and overall improved customer satisfaction after switching over to the model.

----- Rom