The Myth of Intuitive software
Its been the marketing pitch catch cry of near countless software developers and, in particular, creative software developers of NLEs, compositors and DAWs - the verbose proclamation of 'Intuitive Software'. The broad interpretation of this terminology might be simply that the software in question is "user friendly" and that it "makes sense". But the term is bandied around with such gay abandon and seemingly invoked by all and sundry to refer to just about anything that it runs the risk of being rendered useless.
APPLE = "Start working quickly with intuitive tools"
ADOBE = "a set of powerful
and intuitive tools"
AVID = "Avid's intuitive UI"
So let us for second look to a definition of 'Intuitive' - what does this ever present moniker actually mean? And do software tools deserve the descriptor at all?
Intuitive; definition: "Obtained through intuition rather than from reasoning or observation", "Understanding reached without support of any argument","Perceived immediately by the mind" Now really, does that sound like any software you've ever used?
What concerns me with the idea of software being labelled 'intuitive', particularly creative software tools, is that it inherently implies that there' no need for a learning process - That the tool works as everyone thinks. The very concept is farcical and fosters a culture with a profound lack of respect for craft and knowledge. And moreover can drive a software tool ever into 'lowest common denominator' territory of functionality.
Of course a software tool should be 'easy to learn' and 'user-friendly' but both those desirable elements are about as far from any definition of 'intuitive' as its possible to get. Ease of use comes out of a clearly defined set of conceptual parameters - parameters that are easily understood but from within such a frame work complex things are possible. BUT the parameters themselves are NEVER intuitive; they must be learned.
We can view this in the same context we do Sci-Fi or Fantasy films. What will an audience believe as 'real'? Anything, absolutely anything IF right from the very beginning of that film the parameters in which that 'reality' will operate are clearly defined. Software is the same, what we might label as 'intuitive' is simply the ability for a software tool work within clearly defined parameters. And its the parameters that must be learned and cannot under any circumstances be 'intuitively' acquired.
We can refer to this as an internal logic; a logical progression and flow certainly but one that only presents as logical within those set and learned parameters. Once the internal logic is established clearly then the simple modality that defines what might otherwise be mistakenly referred to as 'intuitive' may be seen as twofold:
One one hand, the ability for a software's design to bring as close to the surface all those functions required most readily by the user. This is very much akin to the mantra of a good website design; that no page should be more than 1 or 2 clicks away from any other page in the site. Deep linkages to access a feature or function make for a painful user experience and a clumsy, inefficient process.
The other is that the tool might be seen to best operate when each function is directly associated with the object it pertains to - an object-orientated model of functionality.
Now the great irony of this is that a great many of the software tools that most readily bandy about the term 'intuitive' in their marketing are those who are guilty of not evoking these simple tenets. And in this context im looking squarely at traditional NLE's.
The strange absurdity of the way computer NLE's work is that their whole conceptualization is built and derived from tape-to-tape, linear and non digital systems. The reason the big three, Avid, Première and Final Cut Pro, all have a near identical interface based on 3-point editing with a Source Window and Output Window is because this is a near exact replication of how Tape-to-Tape editing worked with a Cue monitor/deck dubbing to an Output monitor/deck. What must be remembered is that in the early days of digital NLE's their major task was convincing old-school editors to come on over to the digital world - old habits die hard and this was no easy task. The closer the designers could make their digital NLE's reflect the conceptual mode of linear editing environment the easier that transition would be.
But can such NLE systems be even remotely 'intuitive' to a newer digital generation who have no concept of those legacy parameters?
What is also interesting in this question of 'intuitive' design in NLE's is how distinctly they generally lack an object-orientated model of use. Take for example the simple common task of adjusting the volume of an audio event on a timeline audio track. In the internal logic of an object-orientated paradigm adjusting and audio object would involve (surprise surprise) going to the audio object itself or the track it sits on. But not so in the major NLEs. Adjusting an audio level involves opening/viewing that audio object in a different window in a different part of the interface and making changes there that relate back the object itself. Its a mode of access that is fundamentally at a disconnect from the object itself and not orientated on the object at all. Rather it is effectively mediated through and focused on an secondary or even tertiary stage.
In this simple example, which is common to all manner of functions in traditional NLE's and representative of a range of audio and video processes, we see both the notions of object-orientated control and core processes being at the surface, broken or ignored. How could this possibly be conceived of as 'intuitive? When spelt out like this it can seem positively convoluted and ill-logical. Of course the conceptual process is logical when viewed in context of its origin in linear editing modes but in the digital age it seems like an appropriated internal logic enforced on a digital system without any real consideration of whether its paradigm is the 'best' fit for the digital domain. In short, NLE's work this way simply because 'that's how its always been done' and the only way this paradigm becomes functional is when a user becomes well versed and fluent in the specific internal logic of the system. From the outside it is about as illogical and un-intuitive as is possible to imagine...
You can compare this to a production tool that has no equivalent in the non digital world - a compositing/motion graphics system such as After Effects -and really see the conceptual difference. After Effects, as a tool, is purely of the digital age and aside for some small connections to video editing works in largely inside a paradigm unique to digital production. There is no analogue legacy for After Effects to follow, no old-school system to emulate or re-mediate. As a result After Effects works nothing like a traditional NLE and this is seen in its directly object-orientated process. The propertied, parameters and functions of each image layer in an After Effects composition is accessed directly on the object/layer itself with a cascading flow of chained properties. This object processing is also engaged by a node-based system, common to all major compositing systems, where objects are arranged and connected to other in an array. Again there is nothing intuitive about this but it is a distinct set of parameters within which object-centred manipulation can occur. After Effects most certainly fits that duopoly of specific object-based manipulation along with a shallow access layer where very function is but one step away from any other - the major features being all at the surface of the tool. After Effects is not an easy tool to learn but it arguably has a much stronger internal logic than traditional NLE's. This is most readily attributed to the fact that After Effects was never seeking replicate analogue linear systems in the digital world but was conceived from the outset as a uniquely digital tool.
Aiming to make an intuitive software tool, let alone naming a software deliberately as intuitive, is an absurdity and a fundamentally misleading aspiration. Instead what more software designers should be aiming at is a clearly defined and consistent internal logic. Sadly too many digital tools are still carrying a great deal of baggage from their analogue linear forefathers and whilst they continue to do so they will continue to fail to deliver a internal logic with clarity.
This notion will be obvious to anyone who has experience with teaching digital production to young people where the distinctions and paradigm constraints from old thinking methodologies just seem foreign and pointless.
I hope over the next 5 years we finally start to deliver tools which embrace the Digital new rather than Digitally replicating the old. And I believe we will only be able to do that when we forget absurd ideas of 'intuitive' and instead embrace 'internal logical'.
Posted at 12:00AM Sep 09, 2007
by Mike Jones in general |
