[gavinhoward]

Yes and no.

Yes, flat design is too flat, and AI chat is too devoid of friction.

But mobile and tablets are better at certain things [1], and we shouldn't get rid of that either.

I saw somewhere (Bret Victor?) that tools have two parts: the part that fits the problem, and the part that fits the human. The example was a hammer; the head fit the problem (the nail), and the handle fit the human (the hand).

Notably, the two parts must fit their respective things, but they also have to work together.

That is what we should be doing: creating harmonious tools that fit the problem and the human. What that looks like will be different for every tool.

Our interfaces currently have two problems:

* Because they can have any appearance, appearance gets more attention than being a good tool. Example: flat design (good appearance) overriding skeuomorphic design (human fit).

* No one wants to redesign everything, so we all reuse the same base stuff (Electron, Qt, etc.) even if the result won't fit (one or both ends) or harmonize.

I would love to fix both of those problems, but because people are lazy, it essentially means creating a GUI framework that is flexible enough to fit almost any problem and any human (accessibility included) while making sure that flexibility does not destroy harmony.

While I am working on that, it is a tall order, and I am almost certain I will not succeed.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43350339

[uaas]

Yes, Bret Victor: https://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDes...

[gavinhoward]

Oh my goodness, thank you! I've been looking for that for AGES!

[SoftTalker]

> AI chat is too devoid of friction.

You want an AI that argues with you?

[gavinhoward]

I don't want AI at all, but please read the article to understand what I mean by "friction."

[crazygringo]

> Compare the feeling of doomscrolling to kneading dough, playing an instrument, sketching... these take effort, but they're also deeply satisfying. When you strip away too much friction, meaning and satisfaction go with it.

Kneading dough sucks if you do it a lot. It's monotonous and tiring. That's why frequent bakers use mixers with bread hooks.

Instruments are designed to be as friction-free as possible, given physical constraints. Friction makes expression more difficult. A violin is the most expressive because it has the least "friction" of valves and hammers and buttons getting in the way.

Sketching similarly is low-friction. That's why it's so much easier than oil painting. You can express yourself hundreds of times more easily, which is why oil painters start with tons of preparatory sketches.

I fundamentally disagree with the premise that friction is desirable. It's not.

[gavinhoward]

> I fundamentally disagree with the premise that friction is desirable. It's not.

I agree that too much friction is terrible.

But what I was saying, and the article seems to be implying, is that too little friction is terrible too.

Using Stable Diffusion is lower friction than sketching or painting. But the latter two are better.

The difference is that there is friction that leads to a good outcome, and friction that does not. Mixers with bread hooks are eliminating bad friction, whereas Stable Diffusion is removing good friction.

And in fact, there's actually more friction when using Stable Diffusion if you have an end in mind; trying to get it to output what you want is high in bad friction.

[crazygringo]

> too little friction is terrible too.

I just don't buy it.

> Using Stable Diffusion is lower friction than sketching or painting. But the latter two are better.

No, the latter two aren't "better". All three are totally different tools for achieving different purposes. I'm going to use Stable Diffusion to raise engagement on my blog with a hero image and a relevant thumbnail, I'm going to sketch to explore visual ideas and improve my skill of seeing, and I'm going to oil paint to carefully craft something designed to hopefully hang on someone's wall for a long time. (Well, not me because I don't know how to oil paint, but you get the idea.) I'm certainly not going to oil-paint something to illustrate my blog. Oil painting isn't "better".

And when I use ChatGPT to ask questions about math or physics or history or culture, the last thing I want to do is to make the process more difficult. I already spend enough time typing a prompt the AI can clearly understand. There's no way in which it would be made better with "good friction".

I mean, I literally don't know what you mean by "good friction". I don't think I've ever encountered it in my life. Life in general is challenging enough without having to add more challenge for no reason.

[gavinhoward]

Friction without growth is bad friction.

Friction with growth is good friction, so long as the friction is minimized for the amount of growth.

And by "growth," I mean anything that helps people to "level up," such as learning, gaining a skill, becoming more Christ-like, whatever.

Growth cannot happen without friction. Your use of AI is stunting whatever growth you could have gained from those processes.

"So what?" you may say. However, someone who applies friction to growth consistently in their blog/code/whatever will find that growth compounds like interest, and though they may be less "productive," their productivity will be better in the long run because they will have the skills to go beyond anything you could ever dream of doing.

[gavinhoward]

> A violin is the most expressive because it has the least "friction" of valves and hammers and buttons getting in the way.

A violin is most expressive because it is the one that uses friction (rubbing a bow on strings).

Also, moving the bow just right is harder than slamming keys.

[r_klancer]

Actually that would be kind of awesome.

[readthenotes1]

It'd be slightly more funny if your user name was LLM...