| This leads to a classic debate. Not counting telepathy, the author has found the design that works best… for themselves. This could work well for many other people too, but that remains to be seen. Switching to first person now: The real question is, “What design works best for the target audience of my product?” If my target audience is only me and others like me, then the author’s suggested design is the best. But if we’re designing for a wider audience, we need to figure out if this works for them or not. For that we need to define the target audience, and then we need to figure out where we need to compromise. We can design for the middle of the bell curve, much to the chagrin of the power users at the edges. Or we can aim squarely for the power users and be too overwhelming for the mainstream. Or we could keep simple features for mainstream users front and centre, and progressively disclose advanced power user features only for those who signal intent. There are many ways. Design is often about compromise. Often, when I see people proclaiming design as “good” or “bad”, I don’t take it seriously until they have investigated the reasoning behind the decisions. It’s always easy to second guess from an armchair and the internet has made it even easier. |
“Don’t make be go to my desktop computer to do this” may be a better design.