Design is compromise

> strong decisions that WILL alienate people, but will better target your intended audience. That, IMHO, is a great thing

That's supposing you have a well defined intended audience. Many people see it as a prerequisite, that's also how we ended up with the personas during research.

I'd argue there are many designs that should go beyond a specific intended audience and allow for larger reach and minimize alienating people. My reasoning is that in part we're just not good at properly analyzing requirements (it's just hard) and people's needs are also volatile. Trying to design the perfect things for a narrow target often results in something just really bad.

As a concrete example, mouse makers targeting specific hand size and shape for specific actions usually end up with a worse product even for their intended audience. Having more leeway to hold it differently, change the way you use it e.g. depending on the time of the day or task at hand is just more comfortable. The best mouses on the market are pretty forgiving and flexible. Heck, the most clamored pointing devices (Apple trackpads and Kensington style trackballs) are completely hand agnostic.

Ah, I didn't originally read what you said as promoting a distinction as much as arguing that the distinction already exists, which I think is where some of the disconnect is. Looking back at the comment that spawned all of this discussion, I think I put more weight on the initial opening that to me reads as stating the distinction as a categorical fact already than on the conclusion with the quote you mention. If I had to guess, I'd say that how carefully people will read each part of a comment is probably inversely related to how much content in the comment has come before the point where they're reading that part, so people who disagree with the first parts will weight later parts that convey more nuance less and less as they continue to read. Since you're happy with the outcome you got here though, fair enough that changing what you might say the next time isn't appealing!

The idea that there should be a semantic distinction certainly is more interesting than my original interpretation of what you said; I'd need more time to figure out whether I agree with it or not, but this type of philosophical discussion is definitely the type of thing I enjoy (and I suspect you're right that it's also something that a lot of people here would similarly be interested in discussing).

Without the details of what the compromise is, this article is mostly tautological.

Of course, _some_ things require compromise. But many things do not. Assuming false dichotomies is a fairly common fallacy that no one is immune from.

Design is tradeoff, a similar thing I often observe is:

Creativity came after limitations

People often mistake thank freedom grants creativity

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