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> passing the work along to your hapless users.

Is it really fair to your users to presume the are clueless? Is it a good idea to take all decisions from them, and rob them of the ability to become a designer?

I have a suspicion that this is a self-fulfilling prophecy: take away agency, and you'll end up with a demographic which never wanted any.



Hapless means unlucky (i.e. suffering due to tragic circumstances outside of their control), not clueless (ignorant or incompetent).


> Is it really fair to your users to presume the are clueless?

The more charitable interpretation is that we should assume they're overloaded; they're using our application because they have to get something done, and they need to get it done as quickly and easily as possible so they can get on with their day. This doesn't always apply; if you're developing an application that will be the primary tool for some line of work, something that people will live in for hours every day, then it makes sense to give them the freedom to make it their own. But when developing something that will merely be part of someone's workflow, possibly imposed on them without their choice, then it makes sense to impose as little as possible on them.


Good. If you take away something and users don't care, it wasn't important or necessary. Perfection is achieved when there's nothing left to take away.


My point is rather: how can you be sure that you're not alinating those who care? Unless you don't care about them. Then you've reached your goal.


You measure. You measure how often that setting was used, you analyze behavioral changes before/after, you measure retention changes, you measure complaints & feedback.


I agree that you can get momentary insight into changes, but that doesn't help you understand if you are indeed alienating potential users, for two combined reasons.

First, you can't measure the preferences of those who never were your users, or those who already dropped out.

Second, software is not static, and whenever you apply changes to it - including those not related to UI - its utility to different demographics changes. And you can't know how much of the new demographic would be your users if your software had a diffrent UI.

So while you can measure the impact of UI changes on your userbase via behaviour analysis, you can't find out whether you're excluding potential users this way.


> rob them of the ability to become a designer?

I mean, that's not a bad idea when it comes to job security.




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