Some UX modalities work at multiple levels of abstraction.

· Bits and Bobs 9/15/25
  • Some UX modalities work at multiple levels of abstraction.
    • A map works the same as you zoom in, with the level of detail changing.
    • Chat also has this characteristic.
      • You can cover high level topics, or detailed ones, and bounce up and down the abstraction layer.
      • Chat allows malleability, but in an annoying text-only form factor.
    • Use cases bounce up and down the ladder of abstraction.
    • But apps don't have that characteristic, so they can't come with us.
    • Apps are locked in a given level of abstraction.
      • The UI and data model is fixed in place.
    • As a result, we as users must do the climbing up and down the levels of abstraction.
      • Hopping across different apps.
      • Because each app is an island, the human has to bring the context with them.
    • This happens UI needs software to generate it, and software is expensive.
    • Infinite software might change that.
    • The answer is not "design an app on demand" because apps are isolated islands.
    • What you want is your context to come up and down the abstraction stack with you.
    • A system that allows you to fluidly and safely bring context to arbitrary UI would be amazingly powerful.
    • Any single example of a single screen would just be "X, but with data autopopulated".
    • But the real power would become clear in use cases that bounce across different layers of abstraction, as real tasks do.

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