"For much of the history of software, users had to build a mental model of the system before they could use it effectively. You learned where things lived like which menu contained which action, which screen held which information, how different parts of the interface connected to each other. Interaction followed a structured pattern: navigate screens by clicking buttons, type into fields, scroll through content, use gestures, menus, or keyboard shortcuts to move between states."
"Every action required first understanding the system's organizational logic, then locating the right control, and finally performing the correct interaction on it. Users translated what they wanted into a series of UI interactions the system understood. While affordance was explicit, intent was indirect. When systems begin to understand intent As natural language based interaction to machine evolves, they didn't just change how we express intent, they fundamentally compress entire workflows into single expressions."
For decades users had to build mental models of software, learning menus, screens, controls, and navigation patterns before effectively using applications. Interaction followed structured sequences of locating controls and performing specific actions, making intent indirect despite explicit affordances. Natural language interactions compress those sequences by allowing users to express intentions directly, with systems translating single expressions into underlying actions. Search exemplified this shift by replacing directory browsing with query-driven retrieval. This change makes systems responsible for interpreting intent and executing workflows, transforming the user-tool contract so systems must learn users' language and act as agents that perform work.
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