4 ms·

Subjectively speaking, while software I use these days has a lot less settings, I also tend to need to change settings a lot less than back in the day, defaults

Subjectively speaking, while software I use these days has a lot less settings, I also tend to need to change settings a lot less than back in the day, defaults tend to be just right a lot more often. So at least for me it seems to be working, at least somewhat.

JadeNB 4y ago
> Subjectively speaking, while software I use these days has a lot less settings, I also tend to need to change settings a lot less than back in the day, defaults tend to be just right a lot more often. So at least for me it seems to be working, at least somewhat. But there's a trade-off there—as, ideally speaking, most software has become easier for most people to use mostly satisfactorily right out of the box, it becomes all the harder to adapt if you're one of the people for whom it doesn't work mostly satisfactorily, since there's no real culture of design around the idea that a user might want to use software in the way that they, rather than the designer, intended. Even if it's fair to write off those niche users, there are still the most users for whom the software works mostly satisfactorily, but can't be modified to be perfect, again because the culture of user customisability just isn't there.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  Right. There used to be a design philosophy of making the defaults fit the majority of users, but to expose plenty of settings so that more advanced users, including those who have grown into the software, can still do what they need to do, and can work around design decisions that are bad for them. That seemed to be a reasonable compromise to me.
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    In fact, it's something the US Air Force figured out after spending substantial time and resources. That is to say: There is no such thing as the Average Man. Make something that will generally fit most people, but then also add enough customization features so each man can tune it to his liking. There is a reason car seats and steering columns are adjustable.
- dividedbyzero 4y ago
  The dichotomy isn't between telemetry and no options vs. no telemetry and all options. Somehow a decision needs to be made what to include because everything has at least an opportunity cost, and historically that has usually been made by "common sense", i.e. what whoever is in charge feels like is the right set of options. That can work out great if you're very much like that person or able to influence them (and they want to listen), but if you aren't, too bad, and the vast majority of people out there is not in either position. Late 90s/2000s me was probably a huge lot less like those people than many here on HN, and I guess that explains some of the difference in experiences. I generally seem to be quite a lot like "most people", which makes an approach that targets the middle of the bell curve work well for me. I'm not a big fan of embedding surveillance technology in apps, but I'd say the people who do are on to something and what's missing may just be a more transparent and privacy-preserving way of doing it.
JohnFen 4y ago
My subjective experience has been the opposite. Modern software tends to be inflexible and limited, and those limitations absolutely adversely affect me. There isn't a day that goes by where this sort of thing doesn't interfere with what I'm trying to accomplish.
hedora 4y ago
If you only care about users for which your software works, then most users spend almost all of their time as “power users” (= ones that have used the software for more than a few days) Focusing purely on out of the box experience looks good for quarterly metrics (subscriber growth with low initial churn) but you end up with a population of users that are desperate to switch away. At that point, you are one viable competitor away from being screwed. Worse, as users defect, telemetry will tell you that usage of the features associated with switching is declining, so you’ll double down on stripping out the functionality that you should be investing in if you want to defend your market share. See also: Firefox.

JadeNB 4y ago

> Subjectively speaking, while software I use these days has a lot less settings, I also tend to need to change settings a lot less than back in the day, defaults tend to be just right a lot more often. So at least for me it seems to be working, at least somewhat. But there's a trade-off there—as, ideally speaking, most software has become easier for most people to use mostly satisfactorily right out of the box, it becomes all the harder to adapt if you're one of the people for whom it doesn't work mostly satisfactorily, since there's no real culture of design around the idea that a user might want to use software in the way that they, rather than the designer, intended. Even if it's fair to write off those niche users, there are still the most users for whom the software works mostly satisfactorily, but can't be modified to be perfect, again because the culture of user customisability just isn't there.

JohnFen 4y ago
Right. There used to be a design philosophy of making the defaults fit the majority of users, but to expose plenty of settings so that more advanced users, including those who have grown into the software, can still do what they need to do, and can work around design decisions that are bad for them. That seemed to be a reasonable compromise to me.
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  In fact, it's something the US Air Force figured out after spending substantial time and resources. That is to say: There is no such thing as the Average Man. Make something that will generally fit most people, but then also add enough customization features so each man can tune it to his liking. There is a reason car seats and steering columns are adjustable.
dividedbyzero 4y ago
The dichotomy isn't between telemetry and no options vs. no telemetry and all options. Somehow a decision needs to be made what to include because everything has at least an opportunity cost, and historically that has usually been made by "common sense", i.e. what whoever is in charge feels like is the right set of options. That can work out great if you're very much like that person or able to influence them (and they want to listen), but if you aren't, too bad, and the vast majority of people out there is not in either position. Late 90s/2000s me was probably a huge lot less like those people than many here on HN, and I guess that explains some of the difference in experiences. I generally seem to be quite a lot like "most people", which makes an approach that targets the middle of the bell curve work well for me. I'm not a big fan of embedding surveillance technology in apps, but I'd say the people who do are on to something and what's missing may just be a more transparent and privacy-preserving way of doing it.

JohnFen 4y ago

My subjective experience has been the opposite. Modern software tends to be inflexible and limited, and those limitations absolutely adversely affect me. There isn't a day that goes by where this sort of thing doesn't interfere with what I'm trying to accomplish.

hedora 4y ago

If you only care about users for which your software works, then most users spend almost all of their time as “power users” (= ones that have used the software for more than a few days) Focusing purely on out of the box experience looks good for quarterly metrics (subscriber growth with low initial churn) but you end up with a population of users that are desperate to switch away. At that point, you are one viable competitor away from being screwed. Worse, as users defect, telemetry will tell you that usage of the features associated with switching is declining, so you’ll double down on stripping out the functionality that you should be investing in if you want to defend your market share. See also: Firefox.