Comment by ps0161 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ps0161 | Hacker News Reader

> Take a pencil, for example. There’s the way that the wood, plastic or metal feels on your hand, the way it falls on your fingers, the feel of the graphite against the paper ... it’s all been thoroughly thought out and designed, each component a part of the experience of writing with a pencil.

To attempt to parallel the ergonomics of a pencil, good or otherwise, with some grand UX narrative feels inappropriate. If the 'interaction of graphite on paper' is to your liking that is very much an accident of design rather than a result of any pencil designer's intention. 3b, HB, or 3H madam? Methinks that the primary driver of the pencil factory of both yesteryear and today would be maximisation of production vs units of wood, lead, or rubber. The 'way it falls on your fingers' a consequence of resource constraints nothing more.

The experience of writing with a pencil is perhaps the better for not being messed with.

The pencil survives and has survived by being always useful, value for money, and fit for purpose.

Model those attributes and users will accommodate and grow to love your products UX regardless of its failings.

The pencil has been iterated upon countless times, by a huge number of individuals and organisations. They also have a huge variety of forms for different uses and contexts: carpenters pencils, steno pencils, charcoal pencils, pencils for users with disabilities, etc.

These factors are influenced by material constraints and opportunities, but don't discount the importance of design iteration in the simplest of objects.

And as someone who has spent a lot of time drawing, the feel and quality of different pencils (wood, graphite hardness etc.) is something people care an awful lot about.

Also: isn't the UX of a pencil very close to the UNIX philosophy of having little tools that do one thing and one thing well, and work together with other things?

In that sense most software today isn't a pencil. It is more like a fully furbished office where you are not allowed to use a pencil but you have to use a silly oversized rubber-ballpen with decorative feathers instead. Oh and the paper is made of plastic and you are not allowed to change it because the guy at the door will beat you with a stick. On the bright side the filing cabinet might be the best you have ever seen — but you really aren't enjoying it all that much because you feel forced to write on plastic with a goofy pen that changes colours every 4 months. Ah, and you are forbidden to take the plastic writings out of the room (again the man with the stick).

I cannot believe that it is 2020 and the best thing we came up with is still just a text based shell (nothing against those, they are great, but I'd love to see the same modularity in typical GUI applications).

If 2020 Silicon Valley had to invent the pencil, it would be shaped like a smartphone, include chat apps and "social," require special paper to write with, and send everything the user writes back to the company's server.

Something like these, perhaps?

https://www.thearchitectsguide.com/articles/best-smart-pen

(#7 includes saving to Slack)

something like these? https://bestjigsawguide.com/

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