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.
It wasn't very long ago when you wouldn't even think about there being health information on the smartphone. There's financial information. There's your conversations; there's business secrets. There's probably more information about you on here than exists in your home.
Apps or media who make money on advertising are never satisfied with 'enough' of your attention. They will always fight for more.
I believe quite simply that the small company of the future will be as much a research organization as it is a manufacturing company.
The invisibility of work and workers in the digital age is as consequential as the rise of the assembly line and, later, the service economy.
As Irving Good realised in 1965, machines with superhuman intelligence could repeatedly improve their design even further, triggering what Vernor Vinge called a 'singularity.'
Stationary storage will be as big as the car business long term. The growth rate will probably be several times what it is for the car business.
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