---
title: "On intuitiveness"
description: "“Our design philosophy is to design software for morons”."
author: "Ghaith Ayadi"
site: "Verbatim"
collection: "Hokum"
url: "https://verbatim.ayadighaith.com/hokum/on-intuitiveness"
date: 2023-02-26
updated: 2026-09-16
---
# On intuitiveness

“Our design philosophy is to design software for morons”. 

That’s the current design creed that I have to live with. Don’t say your team doesn’t think like this. If you’re reading this, I probably worked with you or with someone that did. 😂

“In needs to be intuitive, like Apple software”; “People don’t read”;  “Users give you 15 seconds before they try the other SaaS solution”. “We conducted a usability test and people didn’t get it”. Nonsense. Absolute garbage. 

Here’s some non-garbage

- Intuitiveness is a must. Intuitiveness on the FTUX is not. It’s a conversion and activation tool. It’s a dangerous tool that needs to be used carefully, by adults. 
- Intuitiveness is built. To a first-time user, Figma is not intuitive, Notion is not intuitive, Uber is not intuitive.  Give it to someone who has never used it and see them get stuck immediately. Immediately for Odin’s sake. Wake the hell up.
- You feel like you need to make things so mind-numbingly intuitive because your software doesn’t provide enough value for people to bare with it or your marketing didn’t do a good job of convincing them. Inability to accept this basic analysis is immature. 
- Product leaders are becoming more like product reviews. Johnny spends 2 minutes with a car’s infotainment system and declares it not intuitive because it’s different than the one he has. Well, maybe it’s made to be intuitive after a week. That level of intuitiveness may be more profound and useful than some shallow, cookie-cutter copy paste patten. Again, no-brainer. 

The more you make a software intuitive, the more you risk diluting it. It’s like everything else. Books, TV, architecture. Don’t fear the rough edges. If they will make sense once you use it for a while, then so be it.

Let me say that again for the people in the back: Intuitiveness is not as common as you think. It’s a conversion and activation tool. The more you force a flow to be intuitive, the more you risk it becoming less productive (convenient for the long term user)