In praise of the boring interface
The best tools disappear. A case for interfaces that do their job and then get out of the way.
The most-used software in your life is almost certainly the most boring. The light switch. The elevator button. The humble text field. None of them are trying to delight you, and that is precisely why they work.
Delight is a tax
Every animation, every clever interaction, every moment of personality is a small tax on the user's attention. Sometimes it is worth paying. Usually it is not. The interface that respects you is the one that lets you forget it exists.
The disappearing act
Good tools have a disappearing act. You think about the sentence, not the keyboard; the destination, not the steering wheel. Software should aspire to the same invisibility.
Boring is hard
Making something boring in the right way is far harder than making it flashy. It requires knowing exactly what to leave out, and the confidence to leave it out. That confidence is the whole job.
