Don’t Hide the Tech
Too much artifice is a symptom of something wrong
I don’t like nice interfaces. I never have. I always found technologies easier to use when they don’t try to humanize themselves for me. Worse, when they do try to make themselves softer and squishier and “easier” for humans, I get concerned about losing touch with what they’re really doing for us and to us.
Computers aren’t the only technologies for which this is true, but they’re an easy example. Back in the 1980’s, to use a computer was to program a computer. Everyone knew the “command line,” which was how you got the computer to do anything. Even word processing programs appeared as simple text with no visible formatting. Everything was a typed command, and documents looked a bit like html code.
While that may have taken some getting used to, it also made the things going on behind the screen very accessible. We users had access to pretty much everything a computer programmer did. There were even little files called “autoexec.bat” that listed all the ways you would want to customize the way your computer would startup for you.
Problem is, command lines and autoexec.bat files are considered “counter-intuitive.” They take a few hours, or sometimes even a couple of days to learn. So while they’re extremely efficient, ultra-simple, and open to our…
