Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Its also interesting how much of what we consider an "easy to use UI" actually just means "Its what I already know".

I have been using linux with gnome for years and I recently had to use a macbook. I wanted to change the sound settings so I opened the global app search thing and typed "Sound" got nothing so I searched "Audio" still nothing so I tried to find the settings app and tried "Settings" still nothing until I remembered the settings app is called "Preferences"

The OSX UI is not hard to use, its just not the same as what I had been using for years so even simple interactions seem difficult.



How long ago did you try this? I just tested and searching for "sound" gets me the system preferences sound window. Searching "settings" returns system preferences.

There was a time where apple and windows both seemed pretty stubborn with their semantics (trash vs. recycle bin, both do the same thing, solely for brand identity), but I think that must have died a couple versions ago.


This was last week but I haven't used this macbook since about 2017 so its quite out of date.


Jef Raskin wrote about this 25 years ago: https://www.asktog.com/papers/raskinintuit.html


Thank you for posting that, its nice to see an "authority" validating something that I've often felt the need to point out: people tend to misattribute to ease of use what is merely familiarity.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: