The abc of Xcrement
the Principle of Least Astonishment (POLA). Wikipedia “textbook definition” of POLA, and it’s pretty good:
People are part of the system. The design should match the user's experience, expectations, and mental models.
I actually think there’s a better way to formulate this principle that illustrates just how hard it is for developers to adhere to in practice:
Don’t do things that the user does not expect.
This awkward, double-negative variant of the principle foregrounds a few facts that remain implicit in other formulations. First, if a classical (non-LLM) software system is a finite state machine (FSM), then we can put every possible state into two overlapping sets: states the user expects (given context cues from the UX), and states the software system can represent.
A hostile xenomorph is loose?
REMAIN CALM
THIS IS FINE. BIOWEAPONS CRISIS IS OPPORTUNITY
NEXT SILLY QUESTION
CREW EXPENDABLE
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