Computers vs. Creativity

The most baffling critiques of Apple’s upcoming iPad went like this:

Hey, plenty of my first-look reactions have been wrong too. For example, when the iPhone first came out I thought the touch keyboard was totally unworkable. Another time, I spent years and years being a Windows user. Crazy right?

Anyway, it was interesting to me that so many techies and coders immediately jumped on this “the iPad is for consuming, not creating” bandwagon, even in the face of various iPhone apps for making music and art.

Putting on my armchair psychologist’s hat, I think what’s going on is that coders can have an understanding of creativity that’s circumscribed by typing lines of text into a computer.

I don’t fault coders for that. It’s just how their medium works. And for the foreseeable future computer programmers, writers, CAD people, and web designers alike will all practice their craft on a traditional computer, using a pointer device and a physical keyboard.

However, I submit that for most of us computers are better for editing, not creating.

Natural human input

Have you ever noticed that when you sit down at a computer to write something, it’s hard to start and hard to maintain momentum? Meanwhile, you get in the shower and it’s like the hot water unclogs your brain and you need a soap crayon so you don’t lose any ideas.

I’ve come to believe that the root of all creativity is improvisational: noodling, doodling, broad strokes… the surfacing of ideas. The best tools for this are tangible: index cards, whiteboards, spiral bound notebooks, weathered guitars, and long walks with a tape recorder.

Meanwhile, computers are for correcting, reshaping, pruning, polishing, and generally making art production ready.

Here’s why: Drawing is hard enough without Adobe software abstracting away the physical pleasure of drawing. Writing is hard enough without word processors forcing you to create and edit at the same time. (The best writing software would be a plain text editor with no backspace button.)

The assumption that computers are primarily for editing text documents runs deep in the design of today’s computer hardware and software, and that assumption makes computers less fun and less useful. A subtle reason why the iPhone, Nintendo Wii, and Guitar Hero are successful is because they accept natural human input. They work the way we do, instead of forcing us to adapt to them. That’s good for UX, good for learning, and good for creativity.