The dumbing down of UI has turned the mantra of simplification into an aberration of usefulness. This truly is the epitome of the saying “Being unique does not mean you are useful”. This is usually labeled on a picture of a set of forks with one of them bent into a unique shape rendering it useless or at the very least extremely ineffective as a fork. This is exactly how I feel about Apple’s Face Id technology.

The dumbing down of UI has turned the mantra of simplification into an aberration of usefulness

Mad Computer Scientist

Computers in the last decade or so have been trying to further and further simplify their UI to allow a wider range of people to use it. This simplification of interacting with a computer ushered in a new era of customers that would never have thought of using one before. Of course the profits from such a revolution is so lucrative that even the most well intentioned simplifications have turned into the un-necessary dumbing-down of it. All of this is done at the cost of actual usability in the name of simplification. Take for example Apple’s Face Id. There used to be a perfectly usable button that allowed for Touch Id to confirm the user’s identity. It was very robust and could cater to many use cases. You can unlock your phone without:

• Having to enter a code
• Lifting it from your desk
• Needing to set it upright on portrait mode

On top of these lost features, it also just makes it a lot less efficient when you need to quickly unlock your phone in situations where it is mounted on a tripod, charging on a wireless stand or when you’re simply lying down. I understand that the algorithm will eventually catch up to these other scenarios but why the need to push a technology to set your product apart from others at the cost of losing or handicapping valuable existing features?!

I have always known for years that computers in the current age will make the next generation of computer scientists less interested on how computers work and instead focus on how to make computers do more creative things for them. This is the true meaning of innovation. The change that allows for technology to improve our lives. Not the change that has no regard for the muscle memory that has been built by users over years for the sake of being unique.