TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Robert Hoekman on designing user interfaces for “experienced” users and adapting them for unexperienced users:

Now comes the part that too few people who make design decisions realize: while John and Jane have different problems and are different types of users, their needs are identical. In short, they both want to get the hell off this screen. John is unconfident, and Jane has other things to do. They both need the screen to make sense. They both need the task flow to be obvious. They both need to just get past it.

In large part, I think this underlies a lot of Apple’s success. The Mac has been derided for years as a toy because it’s simple to use. There’s this idea that for something to be useful and powerful, it has to be complex and confusing, and that because the Mac isn’t (at least in comparison to Windows), it must not be a serious tool for serious people doing serious work.

But by being simple—by making interfaces that are, for the most part, approachable by regular people—Apple’s made for a more enjoyable experience for power users, too, because they don’t have to fight the computer. Instead of spending time getting everything set up precisely how they want it and cleaning their computer of junk and navigating complex interfaces and all of the other pain Windows causes, they just work, and the computer gets out of the way. That’s a big deal.

Of course, these kinds of users find new ways to fiddle (to-do applications, for example), but it’s a useful frame for analyzing how to design interfaces. Designing so it’s easy to use for the less experienced isn’t necessarily at the expense of power users.