Thinking About Products

GenAI is just another source of “raw footage” (albeit a unique one) that is used to craft a story. But the “craft” part (the editing, the taste, the precision of timing and style) only becomes more important with the abundance of content and every brand flooding the zone. The “Hollywood vs. AI” narrative is a red herring. The world’s greatest... See more

Unless it is enjoyable or educational in and of itself, interaction is an essentially negative aspect of information software.

Information software, by contrast, mimics the experience of

reading

, not working. It is used for achieving an understanding—constructing a model within the mind. Thus, the user must

listen

to the software and

think

about what it says... but any manipulation happens mentally

Quality of Life features such as better logging, debugging and error handling

The main cause, I believe, is that many software designers feel they are designing a machine. Their foremost concern is behavior—what the software does . They start by asking: What functions must the software perform? What commands must it accept? What parameters can be adjusted? (In the case of websites: What pages must there be? How are they... See more

Many current designs center around manipulating a database of “appointments,” but is this really what a calendar is for?

New editing experiences: from Copilot to Director’s Mode . As we advance from zero-shot to ask-and-adjust (h/t Zach Lloyd), generative AI companies are inventing a new set of knobs and switches that look very different from traditional editing workflows. Midjourney’s new panning commands and Runway’s Director’s Mode create new camera-like editing

... See more

Although manipulation is the focus, good manipulation software must provide superb visualization as well. This establishes the feedback loop that is critical for all creative activity—the manipulator must see the effects of her manipulation.

Even more graphically challenging is manipulation of abstract objects, such as music or financial data, where the graphical representation must show not only what can be done with it, but

what it is

in the first place