I actually find the arguments to be stronger for the opposite lesson. Some examples of successful designs from the physical world that are also successful in pu

I actually find the arguments to be stronger for the opposite lesson. Some examples of successful designs from the physical world that are also successful in purely digital interfaces: How smart watches display the time, VST instruments (e.g, https://mixedinkey.com/captain-plugins/wiki/best-vst-instruments-2020/ https://mixedinkey.com/captain-plugins/wiki/best-vst-instrum...), ebook "pages", on-screen keyboards, visual-coding environments that use a "cables" metaphor (e.g., https://twitter.com/robenkleene/status/1280182525013475330 https://twitter.com/robenkleene/status/1280182525013475330). I actually think the lesson here is that if you can take a metaphor from the physical world, and can incorporate it's essence into your digital design, it'll probably improve your design. And I don't think the reason is because we're leaning on our familiarity with the physical world (too many purely digital designs have proved successful for that to be the case). I think the reason is simple: Our brains are evolved for the physical world, and we've had thousands of years to master building things with physical materials, so the human race has created truly fantastic interfaces in the physical world. If we can bring the essence of those designs into the digital world, we should.