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more posts
Reclaiming My Life: A Declaration of Intent
The Revenge of the Dead Cow Cult
Updating Neighbors
The Ultimate Pun
The Obligatory Naked Mole Rat Advisory
Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder
And oh, by the way...
World Dominion and Other Pastimes
Two unsettling developments.
Why You CAN Teach an Old Dog New Tricks
No Birdbrains Here

Monday, October 14, 2002

The Problem with the Userland Approach
Here it is in a nutshell:

Thinking about thinking. That's the difference between outliner users and everyone else. They think about thinking. They're aware of their own process. Only people who think about thinking get to a place where they can invest in being more efficient in their thinking. Maybe "only" is too strong a word. Some people say they don't think in outlines. Yeah yeah. But hanging information on a hierarchy makes it easy to forget it and focus on new ideas and relationships. It's a good way to relax intellectually. ";->"

The problem is that Dave Winer thinks he knows the best way to think, and the best way to think about thinking. And so he makes software for that. Which is fine. Except if, in fact, most people don't care to do their thinking this way he'll either not sell enough software, or people will buy software that sort of does what they want. Or the interface will be perfect for people like Dave who've been working with this way for 25 years, but not so great for everyone else.

Dave Winer is his own best user. That's lovely for him. But it's a dubious proposition on which to develop consumer software. (And let's all just enjoy the breathtaking arrogance behind the notion that outline users are the only ones who think about thinking. Note the token back-pedal on "only." Everyone raise a hand who thinks that the wink means "just kidding, other people do just as good as a job of thinking about thinking as I do.")
2:08:10 PM    please comment []



© Copyright 2002 Pascale Soleil.
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