1, #132 - It feels obvious.
Estimated Read Time: 58 seconds.
Nothing is inherently obvious. This was one of the first 1 editions, and I still think about it all the time: What seems obvious depends entirely on your context.
Which made me particularly interested in a recent observation from design legend Julie Zhuo on what makes a magical experience with a technology product:
What makes for an exceptional user interface?
The most powerful rule of thumb is merely this: it feels obvious to use.
Something obvious needs no explanation. It’s as if the instruction manual has already been downloaded into the user’s brain.
And in a way it has, because the most obvious user interfaces are the ones that tap into what users already know.
What’s interesting is that Julie doesn’t stop there—she points out that the difficulty of creating this kind of deeply intuitive design has to do with a more fundamental challenge:
The bittersweet reality is that we humans are desperate to express ourselves and be understood, yet we speak different languages even if we share a native tongue. Too bad we haven’t invented mind-reading yet.
The next best thing? Effective translation.
Effective translation is the designer’s Holy Grail.
The entire design discipline can be distilled into the craft of translating a creator’s intent into a user experience that fulfills the desired intent.
Just like Douglas Hofstadter has said: We’re all struggling to translate ourselves to each other. Only by understanding someone’s context deeply enough can you make something so intuitive that it feels obvious—something that feels like we’re being spoken to in our own language.
Insight inspired by: & her latest essay.