The design of human interfaces and the design of stage magic have a fascinating common quality:
They both engage with the brain’s capacity for internalizing stories about the link between cause and effect.
When designers of either kind do their jobs correctly, they control that story in a way that delivers value to the people they serve.
The main difference between these two areas of design in this context comes down to what delivering value means.
In some sense, good interfaces are the inverse of good magic.
While human interface designers aim to make things easy to understand. Stage magic designers attempt to do the opposite.
It’s simplicity and utility versus wonder and awe.
In both cases, the designer’s responsibility is to deliver a clear and useful story about cause and effect, regardless of how complex the underlying mechanics may be.
A quality levitation illusion implies that some force other than a steel rod is responsible for the assistant’s ascension.
A quality clock app provides the illusion that you’re adjusting the time by scrolling on a physically circular dial, when in fact you’re providing a computer with a form of input that’s triggering some 1s and 0s to swap places.
Misdirection (the art of explaining phenomena with false but useful stories) is a tool. Most responsible designers default towards honesty, but there are times when getting creative about the way we link cause and effect may present an opportunity.
Designable.blog 