>From a great article on metagaming at sleepoversf.com:
The more features an application has, the more uneasy a user can feel. This principal is one reason why Apple’s products tend to be so satisfying to use. The more limited a product’s functionality, the easier one can master it. And feeling like a master of your tools is a wonderful thing.
I would even say it’s simpler than that: more simplicity = less stress. It’s not so much the feeling that I’ve accomplished everything I can with my iPhone and its apps, it’s that it’s so easy for me to figure out how to do things I’ve never even tried before.
The rest of the article is about creating challenges outside of games to accomplish in-game. It’s form also follows the topic of metagaming, allowing you to hide areas you’ve already read.
Another nugget:
And like perfectly fit clothes, that feeling is
empowering. A paradox, then: the less you enable people to
do, the more they will do.
Matt
February 25, 2010 at 11:12 pm
>Now, the satisfaction of “completion” isn’t quite the same as “wholeness” but it’s related.I think it’s a significant reason why people get less out of reading for the web: there’s always more.Certainly. I haven't thought about it so much, but I will often avoid media that is long, tedious or difficult that I have little chance of completing…. I don't think it reflects well on me.
eriK
February 25, 2010 at 11:16 pm
>I'm not sure about it being a poor quality, I think that's the reality of living in age of endless info. I definitely like the feeling of a completed issue of Wired, but I would sometimes avoid reading it knowing that I'd be sucked in and have to finish it cover-to-cover.
Matt
February 25, 2010 at 11:24 pm
>Heh, I figure, I could be reading Dostoevsky or Nietzsche or the Bible, but no, I'm looking up message board forums. ;)
Matt
February 25, 2010 at 11:26 pm
>This David fella has me nodding my head an awful lot.