Like all normal people, I have an OCD about sidewalk tiles. I have to step on the seams the same number of times with each feet. Or, if I step over a drainage canal with my left foot, then I have to step over the next one with my right foot. I take delight in balance and harmony in my life.

When I was running today, the peculiarities in the tile pattern occurred once every ten meters or so. It goes without saying that my feet should have had an equal share of them. But who would intentionally mess up their running pace just for that? I want everything to be smooth and natural, otherwise it’s hardly balance or harmony.

To my surprise, I didn’t actually have to think or analyze anything. My body perfectly adjusts the stride length so that everything flows seamlessly (no pun intended). As I see another strip of red tiles seven meters away, I somehow know how to run so I can step on the next one with my other foot. Turns out, balance and harmony come easy to me.

Here is an example of a dumb user interface. You can’t just enter your full phone number, you have to select a country from the list first:

It is especially tough when you have +44 number. I don’t know what to look for: UK? United Kingdom? Britain? Great Britain? England...? Even if there is a correct answer to this question, it is not necessarily the case that the authors of the form have the same idea.

To make thing worse still, it’s a custom dropdown instead of a system one, which means — of course! — that nobody bothered to implement keyboard support, so you have to scroll back and forth in this tiny area.

Notifications often appear at the wrong time: while I am trying to finish a sentence or to listen to my colleague on a call. However, in many cases there is no reason to be notified at a certain time to the exact second. The reminder to take a pill this morning popped up while I was running! Clearly, I’m not going to take it while I’m running, so why not hold the reminder until I finish?

In real life, there is a way to notify without interrupting: by raising your hand. The interface actually has different degrees of “intrusiveness” of notifications as well: red badges, temporary banners, modal windows, sounds. But in real life, if I’ve raised my hand and I don’t get noticed, I can raise it higher after a while, then wave it, or even stand up. If nothing helps, I can say “Excuse me!”

Notifications in the interface lack this kind of progressive persistence. Given the urgency of the message itself and how busy I am, the interface can either tell me everything right away, or start with a little neat dot in the status bar (“raised the hand”), then animate that dot (“waved the hand”) and only if I am not paying attention for very long, bring up a full interface.