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Avoid the nightmare bicycle

geoffreylitt.com · 280 words · saved by 1 readers

In my opinion, one of the most important ideas in product design is to avoid the “nightmare bicycle”. Imagine a bicycle where the product manager said: “people don’t get math so we can’t have numbered gears. We need labeled buttons for gravel mode, downhill mode, …” This is the hypothetical “nightmare bicycle” that Andrea diSessa imagines in his book Changing Minds. As he points out: it would be terrible! We’d lose the intuitive understanding of how to use the gears to solve any situation we encounter. Which mode do you use for gravel + downhill? It turns out, anyone can understand numbered gears totally fine after a bit of practice. People are capable! Along the same lines: one of the worst misconceptions in product design is that a microwave needs to have a button for every thing you could possibly cook: “popcorn”, “chicken”, “potato”, “frozen vegetable”, bla bla bla. You really don’t! You can just have a time (and power) button. People will figure out how to cook stuff. Good designs

March 2025 Avoid the nightmare bicycle In my opinion, one of the most important ideas in product design is to avoid the "nightmare bicycle". Imagine a bicycle where the product manager said: "people don't get math so we can't have numbered gears. We need labeled buttons for gravel mode, downhill mode, …" This is the hypothetical "nightmare bicycle" that Andrea diSessa imagines in his book Changing Minds . As he points out: it would be terrible! We'd lose the intuitive understanding of how to use the gears to solve any situation we encounter. Which mode do you use for gravel + downhill?

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