Magic Box Design

NOTE: I did not write this essay & I release the below transcript into the public domain.

Context

This is actually an email that the streamer Destiny read from a viewer on stream today. I thought it was really well-written and I wanted to share it, but I may have missed it if the author’s name was ever given. I did my best to transcribe the email, and then I sent it to ChatGPT and asked it to fix my spelling and grammar mistakes. It is within the realm of possibility that either myself or ChatGPT got something wrong.

I will update this post if I end up discovering the author.

Why People are Stupid: The Move Towards Magic Box Design

Hello, I listen to your stream, and while I partially agree with you about the effects of everyday systems and devices becoming more complicated—meaning that people need to place more faith in the operations of these systems—I think you’re missing an aspect of modern design. I’m calling this trend “Magic Box Design.”

1. Apple’s Influence: The massive success of Apple products has led to the widespread adoption of its design philosophy, which is based on maximizing ease of use for casual users. This involves abstracting technical elements, making them difficult or even impossible to access. Compare Windows to macOS as operating systems¹, for example. Abstracting how the system works reduces the fear of complexity, but it also a) creates an illusion of simplicity, and b) prevents users from passively acquiring intermediate-level knowledge about how the system functions. Most people won’t bother to fully analyze a black box if they don’t need to.

2. Revenue through Repair Monopoly: To capture more revenue, companies abstract their systems to the point where repairing them is very difficult or outright impossible. This can involve forcing the use of company-sanctioned software—John Deere tractors are an example that Louis Rossman talks a lot about—or making the system so opaque that 95% of people give up. The company then collects fees for repair services and can charge grossly inflated amounts so they have a semi-monopoly and the customers have no reference for the difficulty of the repair. Apple calling their tech support “Geniuses” seems like an attempt to mystify the repair process, making it appear beyond the reach of the layperson.

To use cars as an example: I don’t believe a mechanical transmission is much more complicated to grasp than an automatic transmission. But, you generally need to understand how a mechanical gearbox works to drive a manual car; this isn’t true for automatics. On top of that, looking at things like old car manuals² suggests that many people used to feel capable of fixing minor issues themselves. It benefited the manufacturers, then, to present their systems as ultimately understandable. Today, for various reasons including profit and software as a service, that’s not the case. Companies benefit if people think only they know the secret of the magic box.

So, these devices and systems that people spend hours and hours with each day train them not to think critically about or analyze the systems they interact with. Combine this with two things you’ve talked about in the past: the deluge of banal information on the internet obliterating context, and design focused around sanding off every possible inconvenience a user may experience. The end result is that people end up thinking problems must be caused by malicious actors. This is because they can’t understand how complex systems function and are happy to shift the locus of responsibility for understanding to third parties.