Comment by chrischen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chrischen | Hacker News Reader

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> There are two kinds of people. Those who like to fiddle around with technology per se, and those who use it as a means to an end. Just because most of your friends are in the former category doesn't mean most young people are. I'm not even talking about all my friends. (I'm not even a CS major.) I'm talking about pretty much all the people in my high school. And all the kids which the media portrays as technically savvier than their parents. So unless my high school was somehow unusually technically capable, I don't think I've been a victim to selection.

But I do understand what you're saying. Obviously there will be people who will be more technically savvy than others, but the overall trend will be towards more new technology in our lives. What seems new and complicated now will just be pencils and erasers to the next generation. So while I do believe that technology will become more transparent (more natural), I don't think it should/will become dumbed down.

> This is a classic geek fallacy. This is the reason smart phones were so godawfully unusable before the iPhone came out. Ask any designer—removing things can dramatically improve a user experience because it decreases the cognitive load.

Yea I'm well aware of that. I don't think good design and power are mutually exclusive. But I was specifically referring to the general idea that simplifying things naturally results in less power. The trick is to simplify it without sacrificing power, in which you'll result with what we call design. But I think it's important to realize that simplifying without sacrificing any power is probably impossible. You'll undoubtedly lose some degree of power. Closing the app platform results in a simplified experience, but we can all agree it takes some power away from developers too. I probably shouldn't have used the word "experience." I meant experience to describe the capabilities of the system.

Your argument is too complex to be sound.

Sorry I have a tendency to complicate my communications.

Not sure exactly which part you thought was complicated, but I'll take a stab and reexplain this:

good design is about fitting as much power into as intuitive an interface as possible. Simply removing things does not necessarily mean better design.

It's like getting a car with raw power or good mileage. The trick is in getting as much of both as you can, but sometimes you may prefer one over the other.

I was trying to put down your argument against simplicity by poiting your argument's complexity. Hence the smart-ass downmod, I accept it.

But I still disagree with you, there isn't a simple equilibrium between power and simplicity. And this is my interpretation of the Apple philosophy, I would bet I share it with many Mac users, and it's odd to me, not with you.

The simplicity in the experience greatly determines the pleasure you take from it, and this determines the context where the "power exchange" happens. Your "power", or the value you get from a product/service is all determined in this context. Albeit being a techie, and having a special interface with these machines I can no longer stand more hurdles since I discovered that it hasn't to be like that.

And it's such a nice discovery to make.

let me first define simplicity. I do not mean it in the sense of lack of unecessary complexity. That is always a good thing. I mean it in the sense of removing complexity (any type of complexity).

My argument's not that simplicity is bad. I'm saying that you can't just strip away things or a single button would always be the best product in the world.

I'm not saying there's an equilibrium between power and simplicity. I'm saying the trick is in getting as much of both as pasible.

I think it's not ludicrous to say that os x has a simpler user interface but you have just as much power as windows. The complexity is still there. It's just well hidden under intuitiveness. But the important thing is that os x didn't get there simply by having less features. Stripping away things doesn't always help make it better. Consider a video encoding tool. You could make the software easier to use by making it a file picker and a encode button. But this easier is relative to the user. You're definitely sacrifing some power. But if you hide advanced controls you can simplify th ui but removing often unused controls while keeping power features like codec selection available. But it's not just about simplifying by removing any and all features that a single group finds unecessary. It depends in your users. Ideally, all the power with all the simplicity.

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