Back in the mid-1990s I was using Windows 95/98 and running up against bugs, problems, driver issues, unexpected things happening. I would often end u

This behavior is by design

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2024-08-28 22:30:06

Back in the mid-1990s I was using Windows 95/98 and running up against bugs, problems, driver issues, unexpected things happening. I would often end up on the Microsoft Knowledge Base support web pages, where the issue would often be accompanied by the line “This behavior is by design”, which remains in use to this very day.

This mantra has stuck with me over the years, and it came to light in a recent discussion about the design of Lucas Pope’s Mars After Midnight for the Playdate handheld game console. It has a black interstitial screen between some scenes, which was enough to get me thinking about the intent behind the design of a screen that contains …nothing at all.

I’m as guilty as anybody in wondering why certain things are how they are in the software, apps, or games I’m using. It’s a fundamental truth about software development that often goes unnoticed by end users: every aspect of computer software is the result of deliberate human decisions, from the broadest feature sets right down to the placement of individual pixels.

This intentionality in software design has profound implications. It means that the user experience—whether frustrating or delightful—stems from choices made by developers, designers, product managers, and perhaps even the users themselves. How enjoyable or not the software is to use, the accessibility (or lack thereof) of user interfaces, and even the bugs and glitches we encounter are all products of the human decision-making process. This perspective challenges the notion that technology is impersonal, as there are human minds and motivations behind every aspect.