Something to know about me is that I have always been obsessed with software user interfaces. I loved, for example, the not-so-subtle shadow on buttons in Windows 95-00 era operating systems. I found the stoplight buttons in Mac OS to be imaginative and evocative. Putting a little music player in my favorite color right on my desktop was the pinnacle of what I wanted out of personal computing.

Over time these excitements became baked into preferences, and I, like all people who age, lost my wonder for something. Don’t get me wrong, I can still become irrationally distressed over a wallpaper not looking just so, or a cluttered toolbar. But I attribute those more to my synesthesia and neurodivergence (which I might write about at another time).

Evaluation and interpretation of software as a visual medium - I think I lost my perspective on it, and therefore I am always so tickled to see the enthusiasm of a UX designer for form and line and color. Part of the reason for my loss is that platforms became less whimsical, as did hardware. I grew up in the time of jelly Macs and baby pink Zunes. Now everything has a chrome that is more suitable for the Death Star than for a manic pixie teen girl’s room.

One thing that remains with me is the idea that using software should be frictionless, and intuitive. I think we can all agree on that. Obstacle-ridden software generates frustration, and we are living in times where that ceiling of negative emotion is really quite low.

I want to push for the idea that using software should also evoke positive emotions. “Surprise and delight” has become so overplayed that we forgot the meaning under it - the joy that comes from something not only working right, but doing something unexpected and welcome.

I should put a disclaimer here: I am not going to talk about the merits or pitfalls of AI.

What I do want to talk about is the intention of making user interfaces.

Increasingly, I find that UI is just a way to wrap a backend. And, I would argue, that’s new.

ChatGPT’s web interface is the perfect example of this for me. Monochrome, but not stylish, animations that are not beautiful, subtle color-coding that is neither helpful nor decorative. The service is the point, is what they’re loudly saying. And that’s fair.

But do services inspire joy? Do they connect people? Do they make lives better? Even when they work well, that’s just expected.

And that’s how I get to my main point: user interface design is a way for the developer to reach out to the user and convey meaning. It’s a form of artistic expression.

Now, before you write me off for drowning in my own romanticism, hear me out.

There are two times that you think about the people making your software. The most common and obvious is when the experience is frustrating - when the software makes your life difficult. The other time is when that software gives you some sort of meaningfully good experience. The latter is so much harder to achieve as a developer.

How does that good experience arise? Usually not by accident. Menu items live where you expect them, workflows done automatically for you, fast load times, a useful animation - these things are the product of forethought and insight and craftsmanship.

In fact, you could say that the developer and designer created this experience in anticipation of you feeling some sort of positive emotion. They demonstrated care towards you.

I am not going to pick an artist to evoke, but think about your favorite visual or musical artist and the emotions that they attempt to convey through their art. It’s not enough for them to represent space and color on a canvas, or accurately reproduce sound in a recording, they want to transmit their emotions to you. They are attempting to communicate something about their human experience that you can interpret and resonate with.

When you make software, you also have the ability to convey emotions to your user. And you should - you should convey at the very least that you have empathy for them and their needs. You can convey even more - a respect of their time, an understanding of their constraints, even a moment of excitement or surprise.

We often focus so much on functionality and forget that there are people who have to take time out of their day to interact with the thing we built. They can leave their seat feeling angry or adrift. Or they can feel like someone many miles away thought of them for a brief second. I think the latter is so beautiful and essential to maintaining our humanity.

Software formation should be iterative, painstaking, and creative. Otherwise, how are we any different than the machines?