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04/05/2023

There’s No Such Thing as a One-size-fits-all Web

There exists widespread platform malaise

Of the many passages in Ellen Ullman's 1997 memoir Close to the Machine that stuck with me, one of the most memorable is about spreadsheets.

Ullman, a programmer, was describing her experiences working with end users in the early days of the web.

"When I watch the users try the internet, it slowly becomes clear to me that the net represents the ultimate dumbing-down of the computer," she writes. She describes the way users would click around, struggling to retrieve the information they needed—and when they failed to find it, rather than blame the tools, they blamed themselves.

Please select this link to read the complete article from WIRED.

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