THE ARCHIVES.

Long-form writing, interaction studies, and essays on craft, software design, and digital experiences.

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Nobody reads the tutorial. Here's what they do instead.

Latest EntryN° 04 · 2nd August 2026

Nobody reads the tutorial. Here's what they do instead.

In 1987, researchers John Carroll and Mary Beth Rosson documented something every designer eventually learns the hard way: people consistently skip instructions in favor of diving straight into a task and learning through trial and error — even when that's measurably slower.

WRITTEN BY: HET RAJYAGURUREAD ARCHIVE →

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Your users don't remember the experience. They remember two moments of it.

N° 03 · 21st JULY 2026

Your users don't remember the experience. They remember two moments of it.

Daniel Kahneman's research on memory found that people judge an entire experience almost entirely by its most intense moment and how it ended — and barely at all by how long it lasted. That has a strange, specific consequence for how digital products should be designed.

WRITTEN BY: HET RAJYAGURUREAD ARCHIVE →

The best interface is the one they've already used a thousand times

N° 02 · 17th JULY 2026

The best interface is the one they've already used a thousand times

Jakob Nielsen's observation is almost embarrassingly simple: users spend most of their time on products that aren't yours, so they arrive already expecting yours to work the same way. Every deviation from that expectation is a small tax, charged before your actual idea has been judged.

WRITTEN BY: HET RAJYAGURUREAD ARCHIVE →

Why a beautiful interface feels faster, even when it isn't

N° 01 · 1st JULY 2026

Why a beautiful interface feels faster, even when it isn't

In 1995, two Hitachi researchers tested dozens of ATM interface layouts and asked people to rate how usable each one felt. The best-looking screens won by a wide margin — including several that were objectively harder to operate than the plainer ones sitting next to them.

WRITTEN BY: HET RAJYAGURUREAD ARCHIVE →

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