I read about Alexander's Norwegian barns and their "quality without name" and how that perhaps should apply to software too. And surely it applies, but in practice is not practiced very much.
One reason this might be is that software applications are more complicated things than barns. And the kind of complexity that matters here is not really in the implementation but in the interface. To design great applications I believe you have to consider that user is just one part of the "system". It is not only software running on a computer, it is also software running in user's head and fingers and the protocols users can and will use to interact with the rest of the system.
When you design a software application you must decide how much and what will the system do and how much and what will the user do. That is a complicated decision and it is not easy to come up with the optimal choice. Possibilities are almost endless.
We don't usually consider the user as part of "software" but really they are, they are just parts in a bigger system with formal ways the user-part can and will interact with the computer-part of the system. Interaction with a barn is not trivial but quite simple compared to computer-based applications, I would think. But I agree the quality without a name is important to strive towards. It is, or would be, when everything seems to perfectly work together in different contexts and for different purposes.
One reason this might be is that software applications are more complicated things than barns. And the kind of complexity that matters here is not really in the implementation but in the interface. To design great applications I believe you have to consider that user is just one part of the "system". It is not only software running on a computer, it is also software running in user's head and fingers and the protocols users can and will use to interact with the rest of the system.
When you design a software application you must decide how much and what will the system do and how much and what will the user do. That is a complicated decision and it is not easy to come up with the optimal choice. Possibilities are almost endless.
We don't usually consider the user as part of "software" but really they are, they are just parts in a bigger system with formal ways the user-part can and will interact with the computer-part of the system. Interaction with a barn is not trivial but quite simple compared to computer-based applications, I would think. But I agree the quality without a name is important to strive towards. It is, or would be, when everything seems to perfectly work together in different contexts and for different purposes.