In a link roundup over a month ago, John Nack from Adobe linked thusly:
How to make dotted borders in Photoshop. (Not hard, but we should simplify the process.) [Via]
And on Twitter, he said essentially the same thing, although not in the link roundup context:
How to make dotted borders in Photoshop: http://bit.ly/90bmx7 (Not hard, but we should simplify it.) (via @thinsoldier)
This didn't sit right with me, but I wasn't sure how to communicate what I was feeling. Sitting here today, with who knows what inspiration, it hit me.
In interfaces and systems, you should treat users like they're dumb. In conversations, this should never be the case.
Simplify your experiences, then simplify them some more. Provide simple assistance along the way. Any time users have to ask for help or misunderstand something, that's your fault, not theirs. Your experiences should aim to be intuitive and simple for anyone that you would like to use them.
This trick, shared by Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain, was making the rounds because it was a significant help to Photoshop users. No one at Adobe should write this off as, "not hard." Obviously, it is hard. And that's their problem, not the users'.
