A ground proximity warning software system should absolutely not “convey a sense of calm”. An online PvP battle arena game should not convey “a sense of calm”. I’m not sure a sense of calm is necessarily appropriate for a chat app, an ad blocker, or a to do list.
Do you even want a sense of calm from your compiler?
> calmc main.calm
Compiling… please relax…
Okay, now, are you sitting down?
Y/n> Y
Okay, I have some bad news about line 27, but I don’t want you to panic
OK, so interpret the title as "the design goals should include conveying a sense of calm".
> A ground proximity warning software system should absolutely not “convey a sense of calm”.
In the sense of "convey a sense of calm" described in the article, it absolutely should. The user shouldn't be freaking out because of the software, thinking "oh shit did I click the right thing?" or being confused about what is being indicated. If they're going to freak out, it should be because of the aircraft's situation, not because of the software. Moreover, in an emergency situation it is important to stay calm; the software should not make that harder to do; it should convey urgency, but not a sense of panic.
> I’m not sure a sense of calm is necessarily appropriate for a chat app, an ad blocker, or a to do list.
Again, you seem to be ascribing a different meaning to what the author describes. In the first paragraph, they describe calm as "I, as a user, should know what I can do with it and what I can’t do. I always know what’s happening, where I am and what is next. Everything comes easily to me. I don’t get stuck, never feel lost or stressed out." Regardless of what's said in the chat app, the app itself shouldn't convey non-calm; you wouldn't say that the user should be confused about what the app is doing, or that the chat app should be hard to use, or that they should feel lost navigating the app. Conveying a sense of calm absolutely is appropriate for each of those apps.
I just find the entire post reductive and limiting in terms of its view of what software is or should be capable of. It is describing a philosophy applicable for software that has a particular purpose - mostly productivity desktop applications, it seems - which is just a very long way from all software.
"I, as a user, should know what I can do with it and what I can’t do. I always know what’s happening, where I am and what is next. Everything comes easily to me. I don’t get stuck, never feel lost or stressed out."
This is clearly not a reasonable design goal for a puzzle game. It’s not a good goal for a call center queue management system. It’s not even a reasonable design goal for a search engine!
Oh, but you’ll say the author only means within the bounds of the tool’s interface the user should understand what options they have, not be burdened with additional stress of trying to figure out how to interact with it, etc.
Which is just.. yes, obviously, you shouldn’t build software to just screw with people (oh, but… puzzle game?). But overall, taking responsibility for a user’s stress/calm and placing the burden on all software to try to “exude calm” into any situation is… it’s an opinion, but it’s not a particularly interesting one?
Software should meet its design goals.
A ground proximity warning software system should absolutely not “convey a sense of calm”. An online PvP battle arena game should not convey “a sense of calm”. I’m not sure a sense of calm is necessarily appropriate for a chat app, an ad blocker, or a to do list.
Do you even want a sense of calm from your compiler?