The touch generation

I grew up on a Mac, was live on the web with NCSA Mosaic from 1992, and it wasn't until at least 1996 that I owned a windows-based computer. (Win95)

I remember learning to use the Mac from my father, and I perfectly aped his learning style. The coolest thing about the Mac user interface, especially Apple's interface guidelines, was that everything you could do with a Mac or any application running on a Mac was easily discoverable. The more you wanted to do, the more you could find, in the menus, based on the type of controls, etc.

Being from the Mac generation that is what underlines my entire technological experience: I discover functionality as necesary, without fear that I might make mistakes or do something bad. Even more than that, I don't bother remembering complicated secret ways to access functionality. (It's kind of the modern day equivalent of Einstein's not remembering his own phone number for efficiency reasons [source])

I came back to Mac half-heartedly in ~2003 (iBook G3) and more seriously recently (MacbookPro 13in) in order to do iOS development. Since OSX, the Mac has taken on a number of completely non-intuitive not very discoverable controls. Which means that there are entire parts of the interface that will continue to feel uncomfortable to me.

Contrast that with the iOS. Everything is boiled down to essentials, to naturally intuitive and easily discoverable functionality. (The only caveat is that perhaps all preferences should be in the 'Settings' panel, being split half and half the way it is now is confusing.) I'm loving the fact that we're (as Users with a capital U) returning to a smooth human-computer interface that simplifies both the clutter of the desktop OS and the absolute lack of predictability and consistence of the web.

I think you had to be born in the Mac generation to appreciate what computing without arcana really feels like. Or you could just be part of the Touch generation where mice and keyboards don't even get in the way.

I truly hope my kids and all their peers never have to remember complex instructions to access features. Computing can and should be fluid and organic.

iPad as a good omen for users

There is a sea change coming, at least in some subset of the user-aware development community. As of now people are examining the computer and computer software finally through the lens of "how confusing is this to the user?"

I don't know if everyone remembers, but the personal computer was only the first step in an inexorable journey to the internet and more recently the social web.

Every one of the realizations that are currently hitting the hardware and software markets of personal computing will hit the internet and social network markets as well, in a year or two max.

Twitter is about as popular as it's going to get, it's way too user-unfriendly. Heck, even facebook is a pain to use.

We are going to see the rise of insanely intuitive social networks in the near future, and if nobody pays any attention to users and interfaces that are actually useful Apple will be one of the few (if not the sole) attendees of that party as well.