A la Mode

OK, this made me laugh (quietly but out loud), so I thought I’d share. First, a tiny bit of background. A mode is when you hit the Caps Lock key or the insert key on your computer and start typing in all caps or typing over your text. Modes are not recommended in interface design because people forget they are on, which can lead to frustration.

Here’s the funny part (from Wikipedia if you look up “mode”): Interface guru Jef Raskin, in his book The Humane Interface, came out strongly against modes, writing,

“Modes are a significant source of errors, confusion, unnecessary restrictions, and complexity in interfaces.” Later he notes, “‘It is no accident that swearing is denoted by #&%!#$&,’ writes my colleague, Dr. James Winter; it is ‘what a typewriter used to do when you typed numbers when the Caps Lock was engaged.’”

OK, perhaps just funny to me, but ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!