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Thats why it bugs me to see e.g. linux desktop inanely adopting mainstream interfaces instead of focusing on steeper learning curves that come with high reward

Thats why it bugs me to see e.g. linux desktop inanely adopting mainstream interfaces instead of focusing on steeper learning curves that come with high rewards. Dumbing down technology also leads to dumbed down users , and now we have already a generation that is struggling to use any tool that is not a touchscreen. Thankfully some technologists are starting to wake up to the fact that dumber isnt better (or maybe they ve milked the dumbdown cow to the end) and that we need more capable tools even if they re hard to use (e.g. this interview of Palmer luckey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epy8UVZilmA&t=990s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epy8UVZilmA&t=990s)

rgoulter 5y ago
> Dumbing down technology also leads to dumbed down users It seems more likely to me in general that 'making technology more accessible increases the number of people who will be able to access that technology' than 'simpler interfaces make people dumber'.
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  OTOH i think dumbing down is an active process that leaves end users untrained to complex interfaces. I can compare young students who struggle with a complex interface like blender , yet i remember my uncle (a lawyer) who had learned sql just to use DbaseIV in the '80s
  - yarcob 5y ago
    The difference being that SQL is a standard that's used across many products, has a very flat learning curve, and will be familiar to anyone who uses databases. Whereas Blenders UI is unlike anything else and has a very steep learning curve even for people familiar with other 3D modelling tools.
  - II2II 5y ago
    Your uncle was special, even for the 1980's. While many people did take the time to learn how to use those more complex interfaces, many people avoided computers altogether. Contrast that to today. People are expected to use various forms of computers, even if there is no compelling reason to do so. The thing that I find bothersome is the expectation of simplified interfaces and feature sets outside of professional domains. It is an approach that works well if the software does exactly what you want of it, yet fails miserably the moment a user's expectations deviates from the developer's expectations. There is little room for creative thought or problem solving since the software tries to do everything for the user rather than providing a set of tools to them.
cs2733 5y ago
Also relevant [edit:2015] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/298572334_School_will_never_end_On_infantilization_in_digital_environments_-_amplifying_empowerment_or_propagating_stupidity https://www.researchgate.net/publication/298572334_School_wi... Bunz's conclusion: "The difference between empowering the user and manipulating her or him is minimal, but decisive: it makes a difference whether the interface is empowering you, or patronizing you while hiding it in bright, friendly colours and the technique of infantilization. In a conversation about this contemporary problem of interface designs, Robert Ochshorn (2014) pointed out that there is, indeed, a fine line between ‘designing to empower a skilled user’ and ‘designing to prevent a user from feeling stupid’. This means that the difference between the interface assuming you are intelligent and teaching you to outgrow it, and patronizing the user by eliminating the possibility of making mistakes while effectively controlling her or him, is difficult to spot. Following Wendy Chun, who addresses the new media of today as a habit, one can say that habits ‘are both inflexible and creative’ (Chun 10.1057/9781137437204 - Postdigital Aesthetics, Edited by David M. Berry and Michael Dieter200 Infantilization in Digital Environments forthcoming 2015; Chun 2015, this volume), while Tiziana Terranova (2004, 83) has pointed out that online spaces cannot be conceived as ‘purely functional’. As I have pointed out elsewhere (Bunz 2014, 50), this is a tendency we find often when looking at the being of technology: technology is haunted by an ambivalence – in this case, its potential to manipulate and its potential to empower people. Despite infantilization looking friendly and innocent, it might follow other interests, and, at a time in which computers are becoming ubiquitous, we need to be aware of this. Soon, infantilization might leave our screens to be found on the things around us – Google has recently launched a car with a smiling face. Being addressed as a child is ambivalent, and this ambivalence is typical of our time: technology companies want people to feel comfortable and play with their technology. At the same time, people also need to take technology into their own hands, as learning how to use it not only empowers them, but also shapes what technology becomes: school will never end." [Edit: Seems obvious companies try their best to make products that get people consuming more instead of producing more. Removing complexity from digital interfaces is a recurrent theme.] About TFA, I believe everything has its place - open source shouldn't try to "win" and just do its thing. At the same time megacorporations devote greater and greater resources to bigger projects like the linux kernel. This is not an indictement though... software is getting more complex and i.e. it's unthinkable now for anything but a very large company to make their own browser. I don't know where we go from here.
danybittel 5y ago
If one of the most influential books in UX is "don't make me think".. you don't have to wonder that you get user that do not think.
- obedm 5y ago
  I don't want to think when I want to call my wife, play a movie, get information, or 99% of the things I do on my life. I think enough during my workday. And when explaining things to my daughter or reading a book. You probably never read the book, because the author never tells you to "dumb things down" but to make them so intuitive you don't have to think about them. Same way you don't have to think how to open a tab or a door. Have you ever been in front of a door and wondered if you had to push, pull, approach, slide? That's bad design.
- CountSessine 5y ago
  I don’t want to waste mental capacity on someone’s dumpster-fire interface. I reserve that mental capacity for the task that I’m trying to accomplish with the tool.
nsgi 5y ago
Why shouldn't mainstream Linux desktops adopt mainstream interfaces and then people who want a steeper learning curve can use a less mainstream desktop?
fho 5y ago
> a generation that is struggling to use any tool that is not a touchscreen This is exactly what I (and some colleagues) observe in academia, we now have first semesters that have grown up with smartphones and tablets but have never used "a computer" before. That leads to some awkward conversations: - "can you send me your file?" student: "but I only have that in word?" - "yes ... can you send it to me?" ... " student: "but I only have that in word!" - "... ?" My prediction / fear is that this will only get worse over time as we have not hit the first generations that have been born after widespread touchscreen adoption yet.
- dariusj18 5y ago
  This is not new. It is the same for any computer illiterate person even before this supposed dumbing down.
- kfajdsl 5y ago
  You can already see this in younger kids who haven't touched a proper computer but use a tablet or phone every day. Though, I think most will be fine as they grow older, with PC gaming and school at least. Speaking of school, I'm in the age group you mention, and I'm baffled how those people have managed to get to University without knowing the concept of a file. Almost every paper I've written since the beginning of high school has been turned in as a PDF in Turnitin or Google Classroom.
derangedHorse 5y ago
I don’t see any logical sense in this. I think what you’re implying by “dumbed down” technology is technology that is made easy to use. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, more complex than needed interfaces is always dumb design. If a majority of the users use a tool for a couple use cases, the tool should be designed to make doing those tasks as simple as possible. More obscure tasks will be found by the people who need them when necessary, even if their is a steeper learning curve for doing so. I’d never want my hammer to be harder to use than necessary nor would I want a textbook to teach inefficiently because someone thinks the complexity of presentation will make me learn better (while those 2 things may have a spurious correlation, it is possible to get a better outcome while not making the material more complex). My main point is that the people who have trouble with the complexities of a tool will have a more likely chance of abandoning the tool or switching to a different tool than learning. The people who can navigate the interface probably aren’t getting dumber for using the simpler interface either.
- lacksconfidence 5y ago
  > I think what you’re implying by “dumbed down” technology is technology that is made easy to use. Specifically regarding this, I think what the poster is implying is that all of the options within a piece of software have been removed. The interface has been dumbed down until you can only do the exact couple tasks the team has designed it to do to, and nothing more. The options that allow us to fine tune the software operation to our needs, to flexibly use the tool have been removed to the point where all you get is a button to do the task, and if it fails you get a cute cartoon that says "omg, sorry!". When using technology that hasn't been dumbed down, the development team can often be surprised at what users are doing with it, because they are doing all kinds of things we never thought of. Once the software has been dumbed down enough thats not possible, because the software wont let you do anything the development team didn't think of.

rgoulter 5y ago

> Dumbing down technology also leads to dumbed down users It seems more likely to me in general that 'making technology more accessible increases the number of people who will be able to access that technology' than 'simpler interfaces make people dumber'.

cblconfederate 5y ago
OTOH i think dumbing down is an active process that leaves end users untrained to complex interfaces. I can compare young students who struggle with a complex interface like blender , yet i remember my uncle (a lawyer) who had learned sql just to use DbaseIV in the '80s
- yarcob 5y ago
  The difference being that SQL is a standard that's used across many products, has a very flat learning curve, and will be familiar to anyone who uses databases. Whereas Blenders UI is unlike anything else and has a very steep learning curve even for people familiar with other 3D modelling tools.
- II2II 5y ago
  Your uncle was special, even for the 1980's. While many people did take the time to learn how to use those more complex interfaces, many people avoided computers altogether. Contrast that to today. People are expected to use various forms of computers, even if there is no compelling reason to do so. The thing that I find bothersome is the expectation of simplified interfaces and feature sets outside of professional domains. It is an approach that works well if the software does exactly what you want of it, yet fails miserably the moment a user's expectations deviates from the developer's expectations. There is little room for creative thought or problem solving since the software tries to do everything for the user rather than providing a set of tools to them.

cs2733 5y ago

Also relevant [edit:2015] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/298572334_School_will_never_end_On_infantilization_in_digital_environments_-_amplifying_empowerment_or_propagating_stupidity https://www.researchgate.net/publication/298572334_School_wi... Bunz's conclusion: "The difference between empowering the user and manipulating her or him is minimal, but decisive: it makes a difference whether the interface is empowering you, or patronizing you while hiding it in bright, friendly colours and the technique of infantilization. In a conversation about this contemporary problem of interface designs, Robert Ochshorn (2014) pointed out that there is, indeed, a fine line between ‘designing to empower a skilled user’ and ‘designing to prevent a user from feeling stupid’. This means that the difference between the interface assuming you are intelligent and teaching you to outgrow it, and patronizing the user by eliminating the possibility of making mistakes while effectively controlling her or him, is difficult to spot. Following Wendy Chun, who addresses the new media of today as a habit, one can say that habits ‘are both inflexible and creative’ (Chun 10.1057/9781137437204 - Postdigital Aesthetics, Edited by David M. Berry and Michael Dieter200 Infantilization in Digital Environments forthcoming 2015; Chun 2015, this volume), while Tiziana Terranova (2004, 83) has pointed out that online spaces cannot be conceived as ‘purely functional’. As I have pointed out elsewhere (Bunz 2014, 50), this is a tendency we find often when looking at the being of technology: technology is haunted by an ambivalence – in this case, its potential to manipulate and its potential to empower people. Despite infantilization looking friendly and innocent, it might follow other interests, and, at a time in which computers are becoming ubiquitous, we need to be aware of this. Soon, infantilization might leave our screens to be found on the things around us – Google has recently launched a car with a smiling face. Being addressed as a child is ambivalent, and this ambivalence is typical of our time: technology companies want people to feel comfortable and play with their technology. At the same time, people also need to take technology into their own hands, as learning how to use it not only empowers them, but also shapes what technology becomes: school will never end." [Edit: Seems obvious companies try their best to make products that get people consuming more instead of producing more. Removing complexity from digital interfaces is a recurrent theme.] About TFA, I believe everything has its place - open source shouldn't try to "win" and just do its thing. At the same time megacorporations devote greater and greater resources to bigger projects like the linux kernel. This is not an indictement though... software is getting more complex and i.e. it's unthinkable now for anything but a very large company to make their own browser. I don't know where we go from here.

danybittel 5y ago

If one of the most influential books in UX is "don't make me think".. you don't have to wonder that you get user that do not think.

obedm 5y ago
I don't want to think when I want to call my wife, play a movie, get information, or 99% of the things I do on my life. I think enough during my workday. And when explaining things to my daughter or reading a book. You probably never read the book, because the author never tells you to "dumb things down" but to make them so intuitive you don't have to think about them. Same way you don't have to think how to open a tab or a door. Have you ever been in front of a door and wondered if you had to push, pull, approach, slide? That's bad design.
CountSessine 5y ago
I don’t want to waste mental capacity on someone’s dumpster-fire interface. I reserve that mental capacity for the task that I’m trying to accomplish with the tool.

nsgi 5y ago

Why shouldn't mainstream Linux desktops adopt mainstream interfaces and then people who want a steeper learning curve can use a less mainstream desktop?

fho 5y ago

> a generation that is struggling to use any tool that is not a touchscreen This is exactly what I (and some colleagues) observe in academia, we now have first semesters that have grown up with smartphones and tablets but have never used "a computer" before. That leads to some awkward conversations: - "can you send me your file?" student: "but I only have that in word?" - "yes ... can you send it to me?" ... " student: "but I only have that in word!" - "... ?" My prediction / fear is that this will only get worse over time as we have not hit the first generations that have been born after widespread touchscreen adoption yet.

dariusj18 5y ago
This is not new. It is the same for any computer illiterate person even before this supposed dumbing down.
kfajdsl 5y ago
You can already see this in younger kids who haven't touched a proper computer but use a tablet or phone every day. Though, I think most will be fine as they grow older, with PC gaming and school at least. Speaking of school, I'm in the age group you mention, and I'm baffled how those people have managed to get to University without knowing the concept of a file. Almost every paper I've written since the beginning of high school has been turned in as a PDF in Turnitin or Google Classroom.

derangedHorse 5y ago

I don’t see any logical sense in this. I think what you’re implying by “dumbed down” technology is technology that is made easy to use. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, more complex than needed interfaces is always dumb design. If a majority of the users use a tool for a couple use cases, the tool should be designed to make doing those tasks as simple as possible. More obscure tasks will be found by the people who need them when necessary, even if their is a steeper learning curve for doing so. I’d never want my hammer to be harder to use than necessary nor would I want a textbook to teach inefficiently because someone thinks the complexity of presentation will make me learn better (while those 2 things may have a spurious correlation, it is possible to get a better outcome while not making the material more complex). My main point is that the people who have trouble with the complexities of a tool will have a more likely chance of abandoning the tool or switching to a different tool than learning. The people who can navigate the interface probably aren’t getting dumber for using the simpler interface either.

lacksconfidence 5y ago
> I think what you’re implying by “dumbed down” technology is technology that is made easy to use. Specifically regarding this, I think what the poster is implying is that all of the options within a piece of software have been removed. The interface has been dumbed down until you can only do the exact couple tasks the team has designed it to do to, and nothing more. The options that allow us to fine tune the software operation to our needs, to flexibly use the tool have been removed to the point where all you get is a button to do the task, and if it fails you get a cute cartoon that says "omg, sorry!". When using technology that hasn't been dumbed down, the development team can often be surprised at what users are doing with it, because they are doing all kinds of things we never thought of. Once the software has been dumbed down enough thats not possible, because the software wont let you do anything the development team didn't think of.