Comment by savolai | Hacker News Reader

Comment by savolai | Hacker News Reader

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Yes. Devs tend to want to scratch their own itch, instead of the itch of 90% of the population.

I’m a developer (fullstack, conceptual modeling, db, architecture, c++/qt, php, python, cs degree) who is trained in UX too and using windows and linux is painful because I never get to enjoy the customization part due the poor nature of default UX ie results of bikeshedding everywhere.

It is just too much work to get to basic ok defaults, to have any energy left to think about what I might want to customize.

The system forcing users to customize is just as much use of power as not being able to.

Of course the ideal is progressive disclosure i.e easy things easy (good defaults) and hard things possible (a configuration dialog).

(I’ve written a brief intro to progressive disclosure here: https://savolai.net/ux/ui-design-balancing-user-needs-with-p... )

But the line has to be drawn somewhere, as apple has. Being able to bikeshed and customize anything can easily become a multiplier of complexity and maintenance cost. It’s not any less opinionated than wanting to keep things reasonably simple.

For some it’s a reasonable tradeoff, for others not. For me the value of apple consistency and aesthetics far outweigh the costs. Sure, there is a learning curve and change resistance I had to go through coming from win/linux, but I wouldn’t say macos has any significant barriers to what I can do. Quite the contrary with M class cpus.

Iphones are another story, but eventually the tradeoffs outweigh android ux illogical nature and inconsistency there too.

I respect the personal opinion, but I personally find unbearable the number of times Apple devs demonstrate to think to know better how I should use my machines. Having sane defaults and customizing basic things (like not using a docking bar, or moving icons on the window on the other side) is something that I don't think requires any maintenance, or at least nothing that a trillion dollar company can't afford.

> For me the value of apple consistency and aesthetics far outweigh the costs.

For me this has ~0 value. I use a device multiple hours every day, muscle memory that makes sense for me is 100x more important that an abstract consistency for things that do not make sense for me. I know that different people have different priorities, though. To make a similar example, I use routinely two keyboards, a TKL and a split 58-keys keyboard. I use 2 layouts (one en-US and my native language). I have absolutely no trouble switching from one to another, and from one layout to another, it requires no effort or concentration, it's all muscle memory and context awareness. The same is with devices or programs for me. Consistency is for what _I_ decide is important to stay consistent, otherwise it doesn't have an absolute abstract value.

> It is just too much work to get to basic ok defaults, to have any energy left to think about what I might want to customize.

I have used Linux for about 10 years before I became even aware of all the things I could do with it. For everything I had to do from high-school to university I never touched more than the basics (Ubuntu and Mint, at the time). I think the defaults were totally OK, and nothing _needed_ to be customized. When I started working I started having additional requirements and the flexibility allowed me to customize and make more efficient the aspects of my workflow I considered important. All of this to say, while this is my experience, I can't relate at all with what you are saying.

> Iphones are another story, but eventually the tradeoffs outweigh android ux illogical nature and inconsistency there too.

I can't comment much on this. I find iOS UX to be completely a mess, full of hidden interactions (on this topic, see https://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/july-august-2025/s...), but I use my only iPhone minimally just for my work phone, so I concede this is a matter of habit (as it's probably the opposite - given 90 yo tech illiterate people can use Android phones).

Thanks for your respectful response.

To me it seems that developer/tinkerer types strongly live in an echo chamber. Of course we are both speculating here, but to me it seems that's exacly where apple derives its market value. By emphasizing the needs of designer types and "ordinary people" in contrast to techies.

The former don't necessarily derive lots of value from, say, having real file systems, which tinkerers often want.

I would claim ordinary people buy android mainly due to price. (Ofc there are also premium android phones where change resistance and pure marketing on both sides of the fence may affect decisions more)

I would propose that those strongly committed to learning tech, rarely see the amount of work they have put into learning and tweaking the system. They do not perceive it as work but as a) having learnt "general knowledge" and b) something they want to do as a matter of fact.

Product/framework thinkers is another way to think of this: https://savolai.net/ux/product-and-framework-thinkers-when-d...

Those people often, unsurprisingly, are also developers.

So those who want to focus on multitude of other things in life and don't want to invest so much in dev tech, don't have their voices heard in dev communities. I have always felt very marginalized here. (Please don't read this wrong, tinkerers absolutely also enjoy a "multitude of things". The emphasis is just perhaps more specialized in a specifically weighted way.)

The "hidden controls" link you provide is interesting, as it could easily be used as an argument against the original linux terminal copy paste issues too. Terminal use in and of itself is of course an example of everything being hidden by default.

It seems in touch interfaces no one can completely avoid this, or at least the industry has strongly moved away from complete visibility/affordances. Which is kinda fascinating, in such visual medium. I would love a physical keyboard but can see why that didn't pan out.

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