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by II2II 1458 days ago
The author missed the point: it is a less straightforward UX if it doesn't meet the user's needs. When I choose a trail while riding, the first thing I look at is a map. It answers a tonne of questions, ranging from how am I going to get there. to how much time am I going to enjoy on the trails, to what I can expect to see on the trails. Lists mean that I am wading through walls of text to find the same information, which is a less straightforward UX for the task at hand.
1 comments

> The author missed the point: it is a less straightforward UX if it doesn't meet the user's needs.

That was the entirety of the author’s point. That was what the whole article was about. That’s why they wrote it, so that you the reader would understand the very concept you believe they missed.

If that was the author's point, then they totally failed to convey it. The title is "users prefer less straightforward ux", and the transition point in the article is the author coming to the startling conclusion that users like a "puzzle".

This is their current understanding of what happened:

> So, despite it taking objectively longer for users to get their answers, they loved it.

What they completely fail to understand is that it doesn't take longer for users to get their answers. The map is faster, objectively faster, at solving the problem that the user actually has. The designer here missed that point.

> If that was the author's point, then they totally failed to convey it.

No, they conveyed it fine—because you understood it. You just thought the author didn't.

That's... a really weird take. If I listen to someone rave about a conspiracy theory and I can see the flaws in their reasoning, does that mean that they meant all along for me to come to the opposite conclusion of what they said?