A while back I posted this spicily-phrased take:
I appreciate that someone else understands that being a GUI has some basic requirements and “draws to the screen” is not the interesting one. The bar is about 20cm off the floor but everyone forgets to jump.
Despite mostly not working on GUIs in my career, I have strong opinions about consistency and about affordances for beginners and power users alike. So today, let’s take a simple case study: a button.
I have a friend who switched to Linux because they didn’t want to pay for a new license for Windows and thereby end up running modern Windows. They’re not very computer-minded, so troubleshooting doesn’t come naturally, and anything that requires dropping down to the command line is something that has to be done by rote. And on one occasion, when I asked them to run something, they asked where to type it in.
I’ve been thinking about different sorts of internet communities, and how they can feel pretty different based on their primary medium. By “community” I mean a group you specifically choose to be part of, a group where you can recognize other “regulars”…a group that feels like a “place” that feels comfortable. Sometimes this is going to be a closed group of friends; other times it’s friends-of-friends that come and go; still others it’s people oriented around a common interest. But as far as text-based online media go, I think they fit into five main categories: Messaging, Chat Rooms, Livestream Chat, Comment Threads, and Forums.