> Many consumer applications, particularly modern ones, keep their users on rails. Predefined UX paths that execute pre-defined algorithms on data provided by t

> Many consumer applications, particularly modern ones, keep their users on rails. Predefined UX paths that execute pre-defined algorithms on data provided by the user. The user is typically hopeless to solve any problem not explicitly anticipated by the creators. I like to describe this is the difference between “tools” and “solutions”, in the sense of a company saying they “build solutions”. Most of these solutions are frontends to a database with views hard coded based on requirements during acquisition. In my place of work, it’s common to copy the data from the “solution” into excel so you can manipulate it in newly required ways. Excel is a tool. I don’t think companies build short sighted solutions for lock-in reasons primarily. I think they and the acquisitions team think little of the office workers’ problem solving abilities. So they make “solutions” that try to let the office workers pile in data and pull out answers without thinking. I think the answer is more Excel-like tools. Just about any office worker could learn to query a database if that became mainstream (and there was an intuitive interface.) I bet you could design an everyman API interface, too, that a non-programmer could get proficient at. (I haven’t used Apple Shortcuts but it sounds like that’s what they’re trying the design.) If I ever get into a position in a company where I could test these ideas, I’ll probably try to pilot new tools for normies and see if they take off.