That’s a Skill Issue
It’s interesting how AI proponents are often like "skill issue" when the LLM doesn't work like someone expects.
Whereas when human-centered UX people see someone using it wrong, they're like "skill issue on us, the people who made this"
This is top of mind because I’ve been working with Jan Miksovsky on his project Web Origami and he exemplified this to me recently.
I was working with some part of Origami and I was “holding it wrong”. I kept apologizing for my misunderstanding and misuse. And Jan — rather than being like “Yeah, that’s a skill issue on your part, but you’ll get there” — his posture as tool-maker was one of introspection. He took the time to consider that perhaps the technology he was building was not properly aligning with my expectations as a user (or human-centered factors more generally). And he graciously explained that perspective to me, making me feel — well, not like an idiot.
My inability to find the results others claim with AI often has me saying either 1) “these claims are obviously BS”, or 2) “I guess it’s a skill issue on my part”.
And it kinda sucks to be saying (2) to yourself all the time, regardless of the technology.
A tech-centered approach treats the technology as a fixed point: if you don’t get what you want, you’re not using it right. The burden is entirely on you, the user, to learn the technology’s language.
Whereas a human-centered approach flips that: the technology exists to serve people as they actually are, not as we wish them to be. Confusion is allowed to be seen as a design failure, not a user failure.
What’s interesting is I think a lot of __insert technology here__ advocates would likely claim they’re “human-centered”. But when the response to failure is “learn the tech better”, it introduces a skill ceiling which naturally creates a priesthood of people who are “in-the-know” on how to make a technology work with the right incantation.
I’ve used AI as an example in this post, but it’s not really about AI specifically. This seems to be generally applicable, AI is just the current flavor.
I don’t have a big takeaway here. Just reflecting.
I love human-centered technology and technologists.