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Comment by stelonix | Hacker News Reader

There are many ways to mitigate these issues. The one I like to believe will be the most used would be a entire new way of using computers. Just like Google uses complex algorithms in order to try to give you better search results, I see no reason why Excel can't try to "learn" your usage. I'm quite saddened that it's 2013 and few applications try to learn more about the user's usage patterns.

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Overaggressive learning algorithms can in some cases be more annoying than well thought out defaults. Especially since they won't be consistent (at least at first). Its not an easy thing to do right. For things like spreadsheet formatting, you want to have consistent behavior that you can rely on.

Us humans are insanely proficient in adapting to weirdness and suboptimal environments, and plain retarded when it comes to coping when others mess with what we're used to. Classic example: the QWERTY keyboard.

If you want to do a fun experiment, try and watch the pain in two subjects faces. One who has never used predictive text trying to use it for the first time, and one who has used it for years and is trying to use an old phone without it. Now imagine a scenario where every predictive text implementation had tailored itself to the user.

Build a system with what seems to be a good, logical set of usage assumptions and you will find that once it's out in the wild, you will get people trying all kinds of different ways of using your system. It defies your own logic, but humans aren't that logical (usually). Being too clever with your assumptions usually backfires.

I guess the difference is that what google does is already somewhat fuzzy, when you search for something you're not necessarily even sure what you want the search engine to return. We also don't expect the results to necessarily be perfect which is why the search engine returns more than one result.

On the other hand when you're trying to do some specific task you already know in most cases exactly what you want to happen, so if it does something else then that is very frustrating.

Well, that's the trade off I'm hoping people are willing to make. Just like we did it for search back when Google was new, for example: we had to learn how to use Google compared to whichever search engine we were using before. It's just like trying to learn a new application. I do believe unless the whole computing system/environment works in this new paradigm, the effort wouldn't have as much impact as I'm picturing in my mind.

Google is good for searching immensely vast troves of information simply because there is no other way you could really do it. A categorical index of the entire internet would be fairly un-feasible.

OTOH when we have smaller and more focused collections of information such as programming documentation or catalogues of similar products we tend to find it easier to navigate with categorical listings or simpler search algorithms.

I've heard this idea encapsulated in a neat phrase: 'Control interfaces should not be intelligent'. I think I first read that after Wolfram Alpha was launched.

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