I’m not disagreeing with you, but rather suggesting that the ceiling for how much the average user can/will leverage customization is surprisingly low.
If we’re looking for levers to pull to help more people become advanced computer users, I believe progressive disclosure combined with design that takes advantage of natural human inclinations (association, spatial memory, etc) are much more powerful. Some of the most effective power users I’ve come across weren’t “tech people” but instead those who’d used iMac for 5-10 years doing photography or audio editing or whatever and had picked up all of the little productivity boosters scattered around the system ready for the user to discover at just the right time.
With that in mind, I think the biggest contributor to reduced computer literacy is actually the direction software design has taken in the past 10-15 years, where proper UI designers have been replaced with anybody who can cobble a mockup together in photoshop, resulting in vast amount of research being thrown out in favor of dribbble trends and vibes. The result is UI that isn’t humanist, doesn’t care to help the user grow, and is made only with looking pretty in slideshows and marketing copy in mind.
> I’m not disagreeing with you, but rather suggesting that the ceiling for how much the average user can/will leverage customization is surprisingly low.
The average person is also a crappy writer, bad musician and lousy carpenter. But a notepad and a pen don’t tell me how to use them. They don’t limit my creative capacity. Same story with a piano, or a hammer and chisel. I wish computers were more like that.
Your point stands. Most notebook users never use it to write a bestselling novel, or draw like Picasso. But the invitation to try is still in the medium somehow. Just waiting for the right hand.
I agree with the rest of your comment. As software engineers, we could build any software we want for ourselves. It’s telling that we choose to use tools like git and IntelliJ. Stuff that takes months or years to master. I think it’s weirdly perverted to imagine the best software for everyone else is maximally dumbed down. Thats not what users want.
Rather than aiming for “software that is easy to use” I think we should be aiming for “software that rewards you for learning”. At least, in creative work. I’m personally far more interested in making the software equivalent of piano than I am in making the software equivalent of a television set.