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There have been systematic studies of this. UI productivity for people that have had time to learn the software peaked in the mid 1980’s. So, the industry tra

by hedora 3y ago

There have been systematic studies of this. UI productivity for people that have had time to learn the software peaked in the mid 1980’s. So, the industry traded being able to walk up and use a thing in the first 30 seconds for having it be painfully bad after the first 30 minutes. People like to say, “oh, but power users are rare”. That’s only true if you count users that bounce after 29 minutes the same as users that use the software more than once.

grotorea 3y ago
Is it just 30 minutes? Isn't this just like the "bows are better than arquebuses" thing where the advantage of easy training and replaceability beats individual quality?
- Ma8ee 3y ago
  When someone uses a tool for several hours every day for years, you can afford quite a bit of training. When you need to make a bunch peasants into soldiers on short notice, the equation is different.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> People like to say, “oh, but power users are rare” Huh, didn’t consider that power users being rare meant the software makes becoming a power user difficult.
Analemma_ 3y ago
You're zeroing in on the actual answer to "why did we replace these awesome high-speed text interfaces with slow GUIs?" Businesses aren't stupid or irrational: they switched because they moved to an employment model based on a disposable labor force, where workers wouldn't be expected to stick around long enough for training to be worth it, so it was more important to make an interface that was good enough for the endless revolving door of untrained users.
- Tcepsa 3y ago
  Yes and: then that approach got cargo culted into places where it doesn't work because e.g. the domain is too gnarly, because management heard that glanceable interfaces with high discoverability were the new industry best practice...
hyperthesis 3y ago
commoditizing skill
RGamma 3y ago
AI UIs can fix this. If you know what you want, you could just say it without learning anything about the doing part. But it needs to be rock-solid or it'll become a glorified unreliable voice control.

by hedora 3y ago

grotorea 3y ago

Is it just 30 minutes? Isn't this just like the "bows are better than arquebuses" thing where the advantage of easy training and replaceability beats individual quality?

Ma8ee 3y ago
When someone uses a tool for several hours every day for years, you can afford quite a bit of training. When you need to make a bunch peasants into soldiers on short notice, the equation is different.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> People like to say, “oh, but power users are rare” Huh, didn’t consider that power users being rare meant the software makes becoming a power user difficult.

Analemma_ 3y ago

You're zeroing in on the actual answer to "why did we replace these awesome high-speed text interfaces with slow GUIs?" Businesses aren't stupid or irrational: they switched because they moved to an employment model based on a disposable labor force, where workers wouldn't be expected to stick around long enough for training to be worth it, so it was more important to make an interface that was good enough for the endless revolving door of untrained users.

Tcepsa 3y ago
Yes and: then that approach got cargo culted into places where it doesn't work because e.g. the domain is too gnarly, because management heard that glanceable interfaces with high discoverability were the new industry best practice...

hyperthesis 3y ago

commoditizing skill

RGamma 3y ago

AI UIs can fix this. If you know what you want, you could just say it without learning anything about the doing part. But it needs to be rock-solid or it'll become a glorified unreliable voice control.