If we want users to like our software we should design it to behave like a likeable person: respectful, generous and helpful.
Interpretation
Software should be designed to be user-friendly and behave in a manner that is pleasant and supportive.
This quote emphasizes the importance of user-centered design in software development. It suggests that by making software behave in ways that embody traits of a likable person—such as being respectful, generous, and helpful—developers can create a more engaging and enjoyable experience for users, leading to greater overall satisfaction and success.
In practice
During a tech conference presentation about user experience, one might quote this to emphasize the need for empathy in design.
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.
Design principle: Take things away until the design breaks, then put that last thing back in.
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.
No matter how beautiful, no matter how cool your interface, it would be better if there were less of it.
I think the large part of the function of the Internet is it is archival. It's unreliable to the extent that word on the street is unreliable. It's no more unreliable than that. You can find the truth on the street if you work at it. I don't think of the Internet or the virtual as being inherently inferior to the so-called real.
I think long-term, Bitcoin is a currency of the Internet. So, even if humans don't use it, routers will use it. Web browsers will use it. Web servers will use it.
Technology causes problems as well as solves problems. Nobody has figured out a way to ensure that, as of tomorrow, technology won't create problems. Technology simply means increased power, which is why we have the global problems we face today.
The rate of human invention is faster, and the rate of cultural loss is slower, in areas occupied by many competing societies with many individuals and in contact with societies elsewhere.
Over the last ten years, technological advances have dramatically lowered the financial bar for starting a new company, but the courage bar for building a great company remains as high as it has ever been.
In digital era, privacy must be a priority. Is it just me, or is secret blanket surveillance obscenely outrageous?
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