3 ms·

really? why?

• potatolicious 17y ago
  The more "higher level" thought processes required just to operate the basics of your device (e.g., basic navigation, app launching, scrolling, etc) the more mental effort (and thus, frustration and cognitive load) it takes from the user. As an extension to this, the less brain power you have to devote to basic, fundamental interactions with the machine, the more bandwidth you have to dedicate towards other things (e.g., if the calculator is hard to use, you're spending more effort wrangling the calculator instead of solving math problems).
  • _delirium 17y ago
    I'm not sure that always applies. I find myself much more productive on an RPN calculator, once I learned to use it, than on standard calculators, even though the learning curve was higher. I also find that with window managers, tiling WMs were harder to learn, but are a lot better now that I know how to use them.
  • thomasreggi 17y ago
    I really like the calculator example. Imagine a buttonless calculator that just took dictation in plain english and gave the result for really complex equations.
    • viraptor 17y ago
      Not sure I would want one. ".... over two plus three. No move the plus three out of the fraction. The other one. Don't put the fraction plus three in parentheses. Ah... just let me use the keyboard!" Non-trivial math expressions are very hard to dictate.
• thomasreggi 17y ago
  thing is we tend to complicate things unnecessarily when things are simplified down to an instinctual intuitive process the experience becomes more enjoyable.