<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@mcc" class="u-url mention">@<span>mcc</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.transneptune.net/@owen" class="u-url mention">@<span>owen</span></a></span> I actually quite vividly remember learning desktop computing as a child (Win95) and I found the metaphors being used borderline incomprehensible. I learned them as something that is a given and only years later I figured out why people made it this way</p><p>so I don&#39;t really buy this line of argument, personally</p>

<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@whitequark" class="u-url mention">@<span>whitequark</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.transneptune.net/@owen" class="u-url mention">@<span>owen</span></a></span> my ideology remains that of the 1991 macintosh, that there are some things that can be intuitive to a true newbie. there used to be a Theory of this.</p><p>part of this is the &quot;visual metaphor&quot; i.e. draw a connection to a real-world thing. post-2010 design rejects this because making reference to real-world objects can mean referencing things that either lack universality or have themselves been obsoleted by computers. but i think post-2010 design is worse, so something there worked</p>

<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@mcc" class="u-url mention">@<span>mcc</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.transneptune.net/@owen" class="u-url mention">@<span>owen</span></a></span> i came here to say what Owen just did. any use of a new tool at all, even if it comes down to &quot;intuition&quot;, requires learning; and &quot;intuition&quot; is just learning you&#39;ve done at some earlier point anyway</p>

<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.transneptune.net/@owen" class="u-url mention">@<span>owen</span></a></span> oh i mean. i think there are some kinds of software that work like the thing i&#39;m describing in this thread (&quot;i shouldn&#39;t have to think, it should just conform to my intuition&quot;) and sometimes it works like you&#39;re describing (&quot;models are powerful, the user should learn the model&quot;). Maybe there&#39;s a synthesis where the software is &quot;self-teaching&quot;, the user adopts a mental model without knowing it. Maybe that&#39;s what you were trying to say. I am spitballing here not attempting to produce Theory</p>

<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@mcc" class="u-url mention">@<span>mcc</span></a></span> How would you characterize the two types?</p>

<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.transneptune.net/@owen" class="u-url mention">@<span>owen</span></a></span> I think you touched on a larger idea here. I think what I&#39;d say is fundamentally there are two different types of software and sometimes a piece of software misunderstands which one it is</p>

<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@mcc" class="u-url mention">@<span>mcc</span></a></span> I disagree only in detail; I agree in the large.</p><p>All software is the realization of someone else&#39;s mental model. Since it&#39;s never your own (even if you wrote it, it was you last week or last month or last year), operating under that model requires learning it. However, software should embrace and facilitate that learning, rather than treating it like a chore to be avoided.</p>

<p>Often I complain about things in software and get baffled replies like, okay, but you can fix this arcane problem with [arcane solution], you know that right? And possibly I did know it but complain anyway because *I shouldn&#39;t have had to know it*. Your software shouldn&#39;t have needed a Theory of Operation. Your software shouldn&#39;t have required *learning*. Let me reserve my executive function for performing Useful Tasks and not like, configuring interface minutae. For a moment, let me be an idiot</p>

<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@mcc" class="u-url mention">@<span>mcc</span></a></span> this is also true about science</p><p>my advisor once described himself as &quot;not very smart&quot; in exactly the sense you&#39;re giving here, it stuck with me</p>