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Personally I can't bear software that contorts itself to conform to an incorrect mental model. I find it alien and unusable. I don't want the inaccurate mental

Personally I can't bear software that contorts itself to conform to an incorrect mental model. I find it alien and unusable. I don't want the inaccurate mental model and cannot force myself to accept it, but the contortions and don't-look-behind-the-curtain prevent me from forming an accurate one. That doesn't mean I don't want abstractions. It means I think what constitutes a good abstraction is determined as much by how true it is as by how intuitively appealing it is. An abstraction that corresponds to a naive user's expectations but that doesn't accurately reflect (the essential/relevant aspects of) what is actually happening is not an abstraction, it's a lie. Edit: And the tragedy of it is that users are, by and large, extremely good at figuring out the reality behind the lies that well meaning developers make their software tell. When our software breaks and misbehaves, its internal realities are surfaced and users have to navigate them, and more often than not they do, successfully. Internet forums are full of people reasoning, experimenting and fiddling their way to success with faulty lying software. Apple Community is perhaps the purest example of a huge population of users navigating the broken terrain behind the abstractions they weren't supposed to think about, with absolutely no help whatsoever from the company that built them. We should have more respect for users. If they were as dumb as developers assume they are almost none of the software we write would ever be successfully used.

ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
> We should have more respect for users Agreed. In my case, I write software for a lot of really non-technical users, and have found great utility in reinforcing inaccurate, but useful, user narratives. So "respect" doesn't just mean assuming users are smart. It's also making house calls. Meet them where they live, and do a really, really good job of it, even if I think it's silly.
- NotMichaelBay 2y ago
  Just curious, could you give a specific example where you've found it's better to reinforce an inaccurate mental model of the software? And how do you go about it?
  - ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
    I did it a ton, in my day job (image processing/camera control). I won’t directly link to that (personal policy), but we were in a constant war with the hardware people, who wanted, basically, skeuomorphic representation. We found that users often found these to be overcomplex, and that software often allowed us to abstract a lot of the complexity. Many camera controls are where they are, because, at one time, we needed to have a physical connection between the actuator and the device. Nowadays, the buttons no longer need to be there, but remain so, because that is where users expect them to be. Almost every car control is like that. Touch interfaces are falling flat, these days. Many manufacturers are going back to analog. I am currently developing an app to allow folks to find on-line gatherings. It’s not an area that I have much experience in, personally, so I’m doing a lot of “run it up the flagpole, and see who salutes” kind of stuff. I just had to do a “start over from scratch” rewrite, a week ago, because the UX I presented was too complex for users. The app I just released in January, had several pivots, due to the UX being incompatible to our users. We worked on that for about three years, and had to abandon several blind alleys. Not all the delay was for that, but one thing I did, was have a delicious feast of corvid, and bring in a professional designer, who informed me that all the TLC I had put into “my baby” was for naught. The app is doing well, but we’re finding some things that users aren’t discovering, because our affordances aren’t working. You can tell, because they ask us to add features that are already there. Often, I will be asked to add a specific feature. I usually have to ask the user what their goal is, and then work towards that goal, maybe in a different manner than what they suggested, but sometimes, their request opens my eyes to a mental model that I hadn't considered, and that gives me a good place to start. I’m really, really hesitant to post examples here, as the very last thing that we need, are thousands of curious geeks, piling onto our apps.
    - NotMichaelBay 2y ago
      Thanks for the info, so you're talking about adjusting or replacing the UX based on user feedback. It makes sense now, but I guess I was imagining something different when you mentioned reinforcing inaccurate mental models.
      - 2y ago
ukuina 2y ago
Apple Community is a perfect example of users assuming the underlying software is always correct, for every possible use-case, and that the user is at fault for going against the grain or, in many cases, *using the software as advertised*.

ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago

> We should have more respect for users Agreed. In my case, I write software for a lot of really non-technical users, and have found great utility in reinforcing inaccurate, but useful, user narratives. So "respect" doesn't just mean assuming users are smart. It's also making house calls. Meet them where they live, and do a really, really good job of it, even if I think it's silly.

NotMichaelBay 2y ago
Just curious, could you give a specific example where you've found it's better to reinforce an inaccurate mental model of the software? And how do you go about it?
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
  I did it a ton, in my day job (image processing/camera control). I won’t directly link to that (personal policy), but we were in a constant war with the hardware people, who wanted, basically, skeuomorphic representation. We found that users often found these to be overcomplex, and that software often allowed us to abstract a lot of the complexity. Many camera controls are where they are, because, at one time, we needed to have a physical connection between the actuator and the device. Nowadays, the buttons no longer need to be there, but remain so, because that is where users expect them to be. Almost every car control is like that. Touch interfaces are falling flat, these days. Many manufacturers are going back to analog. I am currently developing an app to allow folks to find on-line gatherings. It’s not an area that I have much experience in, personally, so I’m doing a lot of “run it up the flagpole, and see who salutes” kind of stuff. I just had to do a “start over from scratch” rewrite, a week ago, because the UX I presented was too complex for users. The app I just released in January, had several pivots, due to the UX being incompatible to our users. We worked on that for about three years, and had to abandon several blind alleys. Not all the delay was for that, but one thing I did, was have a delicious feast of corvid, and bring in a professional designer, who informed me that all the TLC I had put into “my baby” was for naught. The app is doing well, but we’re finding some things that users aren’t discovering, because our affordances aren’t working. You can tell, because they ask us to add features that are already there. Often, I will be asked to add a specific feature. I usually have to ask the user what their goal is, and then work towards that goal, maybe in a different manner than what they suggested, but sometimes, their request opens my eyes to a mental model that I hadn't considered, and that gives me a good place to start. I’m really, really hesitant to post examples here, as the very last thing that we need, are thousands of curious geeks, piling onto our apps.
  - NotMichaelBay 2y ago
    Thanks for the info, so you're talking about adjusting or replacing the UX based on user feedback. It makes sense now, but I guess I was imagining something different when you mentioned reinforcing inaccurate mental models.
    - 2y ago

ukuina 2y ago

Apple Community is a perfect example of users assuming the underlying software is always correct, for every possible use-case, and that the user is at fault for going against the grain or, in many cases, *using the software as advertised*.