I think a lot about bugs or design decisions that make software appear dumb.

At some point in my career I started fitting everything against two principles: “don’t make your app treat your user as if they’re dumb” and “don’t make your app itself feel dumb.”

To wit:

This is, very obviously, my website. I have made it from scratch. I have visited it a million times. And yet, at some point my friend Noah shared a link of it with me, so now Safari occasionally announces that with glee when I check it out.

Me having visited something many times should outweigh someone sharing it with me once.

There is a close box here, although you have to hover over the bar to see it. (And, after closing, it seems to come back after a few days!) I can also right click and choose Remove which does… absolutely nothing.

I believe this whole feature is called Shared With You. Elsewhere, on occasion, I find it useful. But its tentacle right here makes Safari appear just… kinda obtuse.

Also, speaking of dumb: Can you spot a grave typographical mistake I made on this screenshot? (I already fixed it in production.)