In 2003, Quicksilver introduced me to the striking notion of "wu wei" as applied to software—effortless action, doing without doing, no decisions or cognition required; creates a feeling of speed. Can be a powerful design property! (e.g. iOS scrolling)
Conversation
Replying to
Relatedly, I think checklists and playbooks access a weak form of this feeling—submission to a process, "becoming" the process. It can be really powerful to take something that normally requires decisions/will and to turn it into an "executable strategy."
3
4
48
It's one thing I like about spaced repetition as a mechanism. Say that you’d like to study cell metabolism. Without SRS, you need to make a plan ("I study cell biology on Tuesday"), set up some trigger to help you remember the plan, and summon the will to execute it repeatedly.
1
4
21
But if you have an active SRS practice, you can throw some prompts into your library and be confident that you’ll engage over time. You don’t need to decide how often you’ll study or to exert willpower to study those particular prompts—only to show up for daily SRS practice.
1
4
24
This is very unlike the feeling one has when, say, maintaining an inbox, which is full of weighty decisions! Extremely un-"wu wei."
2
1
24
One odd tension: SRS involves both effortlessness & diligence. You show up to your session w/o specific expectations, but you engage attentively with what's there. It's ultimately a tool for serious people; it’s about deepening your relationship with whatever you care about most.
4
1
30
(For those who never saw Quicksilver, it originated (I think!) the now common "command palette" type-ahead pattern: Cmd+Space, A, M, Return to launch Activity Monitor; Cmd+Space, W, Space, bagel to search Wikipedia for "bagel"; etc)
qsapp.com/about.php
3
16
Ah, apparently LaunchBar got there first—in 1996! twitter.com/JivaDeVoe/stat
I enjoyed QS's interface approach more but eventually switched to LaunchBar after Quicksilver stopped being actively updated.
Quote Tweet
Replying to @andy_matuschak
I think LaunchBar originated that on NextSTEP.
2
19
Replying to
I think all the time about the realization that a trip through a user's meat will cost you 250ms. I think that's why CLI interfaces feel fast -- they're designed to support zero-observation interaction for experienced users.
1
2
13
Tools like Quicksilver really got this right. With some experience, you can reliably no-look navigate your computer and by the time the eyes catch up to the fingers, the work is already done.
2
9
Replying to
is responsible for inspiring much of my software development over the course of my career (as are you, Andy!). I feel lucky to have been young and impressionable at a time when you were both honing your craft 😍
3