- as in: just because something has to represented this or that way in your software system doesn't mean that mental model should be pushed onto the user.
-
or: the best way for how to map a feature﹖ is likely completely orthogonal to the way you represent the problem internally
-
- come on, LibreOffice — I'm sure these are all different from a technical perspective, but how am I to guess where "as HTML" is?
-
I think that this is a kind of software evolution; representing something as people (not computers) think about is hard, if only because representing things in tech is hard in itself. Some examples:
- ~ calendar software misrepresents how people think about meetings
- ~ django is for making apps that look like the business domain was an innovation — only now we can move towards software that looks like how people think about the domain
-
on the other hand: ~ give meaningful error messages (not
:( something went wrong) — which may mean exposing some inner workings; I guess the point is to be aware of designer vs. user mental model differences, and keep communication in the world of the user -
see also: swimming duck