I do not contest the details of the stovetop example.
However I do NOT agree with the conclusion that "good design" is about requiring the user not to think.
For a tool, I believe that "good design" is about giving the user as much power to "integrate" the tool as an external part of his thinking process, not to stop the user to think.
For example, what is "good design" for a blog post editor?
A big button with "publish" and an AI writing a random post for you (If you optimize for a minimum amount of user's effort) or a tool which gives you a text editor, and many ways to "augment" your thoughts and written words to be adapted to the blog/web format (internal linking, meta tags for robots, text formatting, ...)
I've added this comment, because I feel this sentence "good design = minimum amount of thought for the user (= effortless)" is currently a paradigm for many startups. And I'm not convinced that this paradigm is a benefit for the end-users.
A really well designed "musical" tool (violin, guitar, piano, which have gone through centuries of innovation) requires the user to think first to learn the tool. And it also requires a lot of effort. The tool then becomes an extension of the user thinking's process.
The really well designed tool to drive fast from point A to point B (Ferrari, ...) requires the user to know the car to drive it well. It's not effortless. You need to learn. And again this design has gone through many iterations. At the end, with this great design, you can go really fast from point A to point B. And in a way, the user has integrated the tool with his thinking process, to drive it, and to be able to reach a great speed.
The really well designed editing tools to write code (Vi, Emacs, ...) require the user to interact with the tool many times, it's not effortless, however, the good design ensures that with the learning, the tool has become an extension of the user's thinking processes.
Wrong axis. A good product is about empowering users. A good design maximizes usability with minimum effort.
Adjusting the temperature in a car: More than 1 tap through touch screens => bad. Immediate access knob => good. Yet the end result is the same. I guess someone out there will feel a smidgen smarter learning how to adjust the temperature via touch screens.... but why?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31638648 big discussion here.
It does not matter much what someone paying says because models of reality have to rely on a priori constants anyway.
A good example is a world atlas - it works very good even if there are no restaurants or similar on it.
Even KYC does sometimes not matter because companies cannot jump over their own shadow and the first sentence written in this comment anyway. This text (https://www.reuters.com/business/german-police-raid-deutsche-banks-dws-unit-2022-05-31/) underlines that opinions of customers make a huge difference.
Moreover change requests of simple customers can put in danger working data models, especially if these collide with a priori constants.
That´s why huge, established software solutions do not need too much end user input anyway.
Am I the only one not having a problem with the stove knobs? You look two, three times, and remember that. Easy.
"Requiring you to think is the opposite of good design." ????
Yeah sure. Designers are making everyone dumb and that's what good design is about ....
Good design is about empowering users, not making them feel stupid.
You are missing the point. Consider the stovetop example. Which knob represents which burner? Is the “thinking” required indicative of good design?
I do not contest the details of the stovetop example.
However I do NOT agree with the conclusion that "good design" is about requiring the user not to think.
For a tool, I believe that "good design" is about giving the user as much power to "integrate" the tool as an external part of his thinking process, not to stop the user to think.
For example, what is "good design" for a blog post editor?
A big button with "publish" and an AI writing a random post for you (If you optimize for a minimum amount of user's effort) or a tool which gives you a text editor, and many ways to "augment" your thoughts and written words to be adapted to the blog/web format (internal linking, meta tags for robots, text formatting, ...)
I've added this comment, because I feel this sentence "good design = minimum amount of thought for the user (= effortless)" is currently a paradigm for many startups. And I'm not convinced that this paradigm is a benefit for the end-users.
A really well designed "musical" tool (violin, guitar, piano, which have gone through centuries of innovation) requires the user to think first to learn the tool. And it also requires a lot of effort. The tool then becomes an extension of the user thinking's process.
The really well designed tool to drive fast from point A to point B (Ferrari, ...) requires the user to know the car to drive it well. It's not effortless. You need to learn. And again this design has gone through many iterations. At the end, with this great design, you can go really fast from point A to point B. And in a way, the user has integrated the tool with his thinking process, to drive it, and to be able to reach a great speed.
The really well designed editing tools to write code (Vi, Emacs, ...) require the user to interact with the tool many times, it's not effortless, however, the good design ensures that with the learning, the tool has become an extension of the user's thinking processes.
I see what you did there - a straw man argument.
Let me help you:
In the above context, which one is right?
A. Not having to think = Making everyone dumb
B. Not having to think = Effortless, intuitive
Wrong axis. A good product is about empowering users. A good design maximizes usability with minimum effort.
Adjusting the temperature in a car: More than 1 tap through touch screens => bad. Immediate access knob => good. Yet the end result is the same. I guess someone out there will feel a smidgen smarter learning how to adjust the temperature via touch screens.... but why?