Comment by _akhe | Hacker News Reader

Comment by _akhe | Hacker News Reader

Kind of a tough read, felt a bit like dancing around a point or not quite getting to one. It seems like the author learned how to use a power drill recently then quizzed a random chat on how they work (something he didn't know 5 mins before), then concluded that the UX is not good based on those results. Might be just the wrong audience, both the author and those in the chatroom might not be the target customer of the power drill, and whoever the target customer is might prefer clear numbers on a dial like that - probably because of paradigms set forth in power tools.

I consider it similar to an audio engineer staring at a complex screen of panels, dials, scales - to a random person it wouldn't be intuitive at all, but to the target customer that's exactly how they are surfacing the important parts of their work to a control space.

By the way - the author ultimately did figure out how to use the drill, can't help but wonder if anyone in the chat had to use a drill for some reason, they would simply watch the same video and easily figure it out too - or more likely just turn it, see the difference and be like "Ah ok" without even understanding what torque is.

Article could use an ending or something definitive - this piece wants to be more insightful. Maybe a few more visuals to keep the reader close to the author's train of thought.

For me the main point is: *There’s a toxic individualism to all this that requires people to fend for themselves and shames them if they don’t so a perfect job at it.*

There are complex things that need to be complex no matter what. Important thing is not to call people stupid and blame them if they don’t get right away something that is obvious for you.

Annoying part or the other part of the problem is that there are people who disregard the complexity and would like to be an “audio engineer” and they believe that if only you explain them what buttons do, they can do your job.

There is a wall of knowledge one has to pass through to become an audio engineer or software engineer or else, it is not just clicking the right buttons or typing something on the keyboard.

One nowadays can get all the materials and have to learn on their own - but bashing newcomers should not be tolerated.

> By the way - the author ultimately did figure out how to use the drill, can't help but wonder if anyone in the chat had to use a drill for some reason, they would simply watch the same video and easily figure it out too

I expect most people that buy something like this would read the single-page manual that tells you what each control does. But they can't see the difference, because it's not visible.

Setting the poor drill example aside, as someone versed in video and audio editing software, I would point out that none of it is intuitive before you learn it.

All you know is that it evolved from what was intuitive to professionals at introduction. New trainees today never touch a roll of film or align clips, but they have to decipher it without the context.

And yeah article backed out of actually saying anything pointed. Which is a shame because one could really get into it about how pro software UI is a completely different ballgame from other types of UI. Priorities, aesthetic choices, expectations, user habits.

I actually had the opportunity and pleasure to participate in designing UI for a complex device, and some of the current web trends really clashed with the UI that our CAD engineers were pushing for. Our discovery process would regularly prove them wrong about what actually worked for users.

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