The Balance of User Agency and Software Design

Geoffrey Litt (Website, X) is a designer, engineer, writer, and researcher at Ink & Switch, where he champions malleable software: the idea that ordinary people should be able to mold the digital tools they rely on every day.

Ink & Switch is an independent research lab focused on how computers can help us think and work. While researching and writing, Geoffrey and team also build products and prototypes to explore how their ideas can exist in practice. Geoffrey got his PhD at MIT CSAIL, where he built on his inspiration around computational media like spreadsheets, hoping to push more software toward the ethos of end-user programming, but without the technical complexity. In a sense, why should using software and changing it be any different? Previously, he built software for teachers at Panorama Education, which he joined out of school as one of the first employees.

Geoffrey and collaborators recently published a definitive piece on malleable software and we discussed it in detail. We dig into why most modern apps feel like sealed boxes rather than flexible tools and environments, and what changes when your app, document, or workspace, feels more like Lego than machinery. Geoffrey makes his case that we want software tooling to feel like a chef knife, not an avocado slicer, and we talk about how the best designed tools help users up a smooth slope of learning and ability. He argues in favor of deeper understanding, illustrated by one of my favorite ideas: The Nightmare Bicycle. We talk about how LLMs are enabling malleable software and how local tinkerers might be able to build systems for themselves and their team or communities that understand their needs more deeply than any professional designer could. Finally, Geoffrey lays out a call to arms for founders: build products that treat users as co-authors who understand their own needs, not just consumers.

On one level, this is a conversation about software and design. But it is really about agency. I hope it inspires you to pop open the hood on various aspects of your life, look at what's inside, and trust yourself to tinker. As Steve Jobs said many years ago, "the minute you can understand that you can poke life, and if you push in, then something will pop out the other side; that you can change it, you can mold it—that's maybe the most important thing."

All links and transcript: https://dialectic.fm/geoffrey-litt

---

This episode is brought to you by Hampton, a private, highly vetted membership for founders. Hampton surveyed over 100 members with net worths of $1M-100M to create its 2024 Wealth Report. They asked about financial goals, spending habits, how much founders themselves, investment portfolio breakdowns, risk tolerance, estate planning and philanthropy, and more. Visit https://joinhampton.com/community to access the report.

---

Timestamps

• 2:12: Agency in a Digital World and Geoffrey's Creative Medium: Software
• 12:17: Intro to Malleable Software
• 20:42: "Popping Open the Hood" & The Nightmare Bicycle: A Case for Understanding How Systems Work
• 27:47: Computational Media, Spreadsheets, and Digital Informality
• 34:01: Legos and Home Cooking as Metaphors for Software
• 42:30: Two Types of Malleable Software: Modular-by-Design and Hacking
• 48:35: Hampton
• 50:13: Designing for a Smooth Slope
• 58:20: Unbundling Apps into Environments and Tools
• 1:17:58: Why Do the Work at All When AI Can Do It? When Should We be in the Details?
• 1:29:22: Empathy & Design: Enabling "Local Developers" Who Know Their and Their Community's Needs
• 1:38:23: A Case for Optimism About Human Agency
• 1:51:09: AI's Impact on Malleable Software
• 1:59:03: Commercial Incentives and Ecosystem Change
• 2:04:17: Research and Ink & Switch
• 2:11:46: ChatGPT as a Muse
• 2:15:34: Working at MUBI and Solving the "Too Many Things to Watch" Problem
• 2:18:27: Japan's Culture of Care
• 2:22:15: Mastery and Variety
• 2:24:34: Joy and Clarity as a Parent
• 2:25:30: Expressing Care Through What we Make