Analog In, Digital Out: Brendan Dawes on Interaction Design

28. Bending the Rules

I always find it gratifying when a new technology or system comes out and then users distort it into something else, usually for their own means or to make it much more useful than the makers ever envisaged. The classic example is mobile phone text messaging, which is huge here in the U.K. and across Europe. Short Message System, or SMS, was originally invented so engineers could send quick messages back and forth. It was never meant for mass public use—nobody thought that ordinary people would use it. But then the public found out about it and guess what? Ordinary people do find it very useful. So average users ended up ...