I design complicati sono migliori

Di tutti i pesci d’Aprile arrivati ieri, considero il migliore l’articolo pubblicato dal Nielsen Norman Group titolato “Difficult Designs Are Better“.

Migliorando l’usabilità di un’interfaccia, spiegano, costringiamo gli utenti ad essere mediocri e a non impegnare le loro meningi:

There is something else that limits our deep thinking: too simple interfaces. It is time for designers to question the effect that universally easy designs have on humans and society. Consider, for example, when a web search returns top results that include helpful information that the user wants. Is the search engine really doing people the best service? Would a teacher just tell a student the correct answer if the student did not get it on the first try? Would a coach give a point to a novice basketball player when the shot bounced off the basket’s rim? If they did, their students would never learn.

In short, easy designs encourage people to be mediocre users. What’s the solution? Designers should not be so universally motivated to make interfaces easy. Instead, they can make the designs more difficult and thus, provide stimulation for people to think harder, exercise their brain more, and become the next Galileo or Einstein.