Super Normal Software

I stumbled across an old Robin Sloan article recently. The entire thing is worth reading, but this section stood out to me:

you are always a step removed from the object of attention. You are not the deal, you are not the Lil’ Wayne video, you are not the flirty text message. You are the facilitator, you are the mediator, you are the vessel… What’s the relationship between a toolmaker and a tool user? I wonder about this a lot.

He argues that maybe we do have too many toolmakers. And why would you want to do such a thing when you could be the artist / author / writer directly connecting to an audience on the other end? But if we make tools, better in service of some creative goal than general consumption. More Pixar, less Apple.

My first thought in reaction is somewhat defensive. Tools can be art. Entering into my current thing (still unsure) from Industrial Design, I think of the Barcelona chairs, KitchenAid Standing Mixers, and Rams’ Universal Shelving Systems which have entered into the collection of various museums and art galleries. And most importantly manifestos like “Super Normal” from Jasper Morrison and Naoto Fukasawa on the beauty of objects designed so well as to fade into the everyday. There’s something beautiful there for toolmakers in being forgotten.

Admittedly, there is something fundamentally different with software. More often the goal of toolmaker here is to “leave a stamp” on the world. To create a Hub from which to direct all traffic. And yet no one puts onboarding flows on display at MoMa–except that one time. We certainly don’t cherish apps, like they would a well used drill or cast-iron skillet. Except sometimes people do. What’s going on here?

Scrolling a bit further into the comment section led me to a similarly titled post, Bless the Toolreaders. There the author describes this “lack” in software as “walls between tech culture and, well, culture.” With this the exceptions make a bit more sense. Tech and software are generally described in opposition to culture and society. “Those pesky Silicon Valley bro, so distracted by disruption they forgot to question if they should!”

It’s difficult, perhaps impossible, to be Super Normal in a field constantly engrossed with The New. But if there is an interest in dissolving these barriers, in nurturing the cultural value of software, perhaps the solution might be to fade away more often. Rather than facilitator or mediator, to disappear altogether.