”The Big Regressions”

John Gruber (reflecting on a post from Jason Fried):

smart switches might seem like an improvement because they make possible hard things that were previously impossible. Making possible the impossible is surely a win, right? But not necessarily. Making possible the heretofore impossible isn’t axiomatically a win. It’s a loss if it comes at the expense of keeping the easy things easy, consistent, reliable, and intuitive.

Spot on if you ask me (which no one did).

Related: John’s follow-up post quoting Fried again shows how “obvious / easy / possible” can be a good lens through which to critique a  design.

You have to make tough calls about what needs to be obvious, what should be easy, and what should be possible […]

This isn’t the same as prioritizing things. High, medium, low priority doesn’t tell you enough about the problem. “What needs to be obvious?” is a better question to ask than “What’s high priority?”