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by justamus 2882 days ago
I absolutely agree that aesthetics shouldn't come at the expense of efficiency, but I don't think it's practical to expect every user to be a power user. There are some products and programs, like the Adobe Suite and a bunch of terminal programs, that are marketed for and should be designed with power users in mind. But I'd say the majority of programs we use every day aren't designed with professionals in mind - they're designed for a standard computer user. And having something that "just works" rather than something that is tailored for a power user is absolutely valuable to the billions of people out there that aren't going to be power users.

Slack, like I'm thinking a lot of applications, falls in a middle ground where lots of users are power users, but many use it just a couple times a day, or less. It should be fast for those users, but those users shouldn't have to climb a steep learning curve to get value out of the product. An ideal interface would be easy for a newcomer and powerful for an experienced user, but that's a difficult challenge for a designer, and tradeoffs need to be made.

2 comments

Yes, I agree here and you would not be losing much with the added effort. power users are already more likely to dig into most software/s and tweak settings so it is a win-win
In an ideal world everyone would get a UX specifically tailored to their expertise level. Software must be a LOT cheaper to build for this to ever happen though.