Mike Swanson:
What if your car worked like so many apps? You’re driving
somewhere important…maybe running a little bit late. A few
minutes into the drive, your car pulls over to the side of the
road and asks:“How are you enjoying your drive so far?”
Annoyed by the interruption, and even more behind schedule, you
dismiss the prompt and merge back into traffic.A minute later it does it again.
“Did you know I have a new feature? Tap here to learn more.”
It blocks your speedometer with an overlay tutorial about the turn
signal. It highlights the wiper controls and refuses to go away
until you demonstrate mastery.Ridiculous, of course.
And yet, this is how a lot of modern software behaves. Not because
it’s broken, but because we’ve normalized an interruption model
that would be unacceptable almost anywhere else.I’ve started to think of this as backseat software: the slow
shift from software as a tool you operate to software as a channel
that operates on you. Once a product learns it can talk back, it’s
remarkably hard to keep it quiet.This post is about how we got here. Not overnight, but slowly. One
reasonable step at a time.
If that lede pulls you in, like it did for me, you’re going to love the rest of the essay. This is one for the ages. It’s so good.
