Paco Hope #resist

I recently drove a car whose whole control and entertainment system was a gigantic iPad-like thing mounted to the dash. It caused me to have a realisation about the #Ui and #UX of touch screens.

There is no way to touch a touchscreen without it treating that touch as intentional. What I mean is: without taking my eyes off the road, I can grope across the dashboard, find a knob or button—by touching it—without activating any function. Touching the volume button or temperature knob doesn’t DO anything until I do it with more force and intentionality. Not so for a #touchscreen.

My mobile #phone (an #iPhone 13) has no dead space in its face. There’s no part of the phone face I can touch without it assuming I meant to do that and I wanted to activate whatever was under my finger. Old iPhones that had physical home buttons also had dead space to either side: a safe space to hold the phone without DOING anything.

Computer keyboard have little raised pips on the F and J keys so you can find them by touch without looking. I do this all the time. But I don’t type the letters F or J. Touch screens have no such affordances.

I look at the #blackberry keyboard in this photo and I see a raised space bar. It’s an #affordance that lets you orient your fingers, and orient how you hold the phone, without looking.

I miss buttons.

https://mobilesyrup.com/2025/02/15/blackberrys-expired-keyboard-patent/

How do you wake up most mornings?

I don’t care if you have a strong reason to wake up or not (eg work, school, caring for someone). In a normal week, how are you typically waking up?
Boost for reach. #poll #sleep #wake

25% An alarm clock wakes me
0% A phone alarm wakes me
0% Some kind of wearable (eg watch) wakes me
0% An animal (per) wakes me
0% Another person wakes me
50% Nothing specific wakes me (I sleep until I wake)
25% Some kind of light wakes me (sun, alarm light)

4 Stimmen, bis Sa 11.01.2025 05:37:38

Shoving #AI in users' faces is a symptom of a larger problem in tech right now. Until recently there was this idea that tech served its users. If you were writing #software, you tried to figure out what your user wanted the software to do, and you wrote software that tried hard to do what the user wanted.

Today huge swathes of software and online services have pivoted to doing what the owning companies/shareholders want it to do. In bygone days, software developers used to see how they could get the user's experience down to the least amount of friction. Hell, Amazon even patented "one-click" shopping.

Today #Google is literally trying to INCREASE the number of clicks before you get what you want because each time you click, they earn a bit more revenue.

Look at any #smartTV or video streaming app. If you're willing to watch whatever they put in front of you, you can do THAT with just a click or two. But if you're specifically seeking one particular thing because it is what YOU WANT to watch, the minimum number of clicks skyrockets, including ads, previews, and suggestions that you need to take action (like clicking "skip") to avoid.

Software and services are prioritizing what THEY want as the lowest-friction result and are making what YOU want the highest friction result. #LLM crap is just one of the many things they want you to interact with, and so they abandon any pretense of listening to you and just force it on you.

Are you celebrating #JohnMastodonDay this weekend? I have launched https://johnmastodon.me/ with a recommended way to celebrate. Please boost and spread the #JohnMastodon word!

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