Design6 min read
The interface as an instrument
The best software interfaces feel less like applications and more like instruments — tools that disappear into your hands and reward practice.
The hand and the tool
There is a quiet difference between using software and playing it. A drawing app you use. A keyboard shortcut you learn. The first is consumption; the second is rehearsal. Software that asks for rehearsal almost always rewards it.
I notice this most with terminals, modal editors, and music software. The learning curve is steep on purpose, because the ceiling is high on purpose.
What this means for product design
Most product UI optimizes for the first five minutes. That's correct, often — onboarding matters, and not every tool is for power users. But the cost of always optimizing for the first five minutes is that you build software that no one gets fluent in, because there's no fluency to attain.
- Keyboard shortcuts that match no one's mental model
- Settings pages that hide all the interesting controls
- Menus that flatten the state space until everything looks equally important
An instrument is a contract: I will be hard to learn, and I will reward you for it.
I don't know how to build instruments yet, exactly. But I know what they feel like, and that's where I want my work to live.