Design principle: Take things away until the design breaks, then put that last thing back in.
Alan CooperRead
Run for your lives-the computers are invading. Awesomely powerful computers tackling ever more important tasks with awkward, old-fashioned interfaces. As these machines leak into every corner of our lives, they will annoy us, infuriate us, and even kill a few of us. In turn, we will be tempted to kill our computers, but we won't dare because we are already utterly, irreversibly dependent on these hopeful monsters that make modern life possible.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the duality of our dependence on technology and the frustrations it brings us.
Alan Cooper's quote highlights the paradox of modern technology, particularly computers. While he acknowledges their incredible potential and the essential role they play in our daily lives, he also underscores the frustrations and challenges they present, portraying them as 'hopeful monsters.' This tension between dependency and annoyance captures the complex relationship we have with advancing technology and prompts reflection on our reliance on these tools as they infiltrate every aspect of our existence.
Themes
TechnologyComputersDependencyFrustrationModern Life
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the future of technology and its impacts on society.
More from Alan Cooper
All quotes →To our human minds, computers behave less like rocks and trees than they do like humans, so we unconsciously treat them like people.... In other words, humans have special instincts that tell them how to behave around other sentient beings, and as soon as any object exhibits sufficient cognitive function, those instincts kick in and we react as though we were interacting with another sentient human being.
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If we want users to like our software we should design it to behave like a likeable person: respectful, generous and helpful.
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No matter how beautiful, no matter how cool your interface, it would be better if there were less of it.
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