In yesterday’s post about URL literacy a little debate broke out in the comments about whether it’s worth it to add usability features for novices if they make life more difficult for experts. On that note, last month’s Dwell had an article on universal design, a school which argues that designers should be trying to create designs that work for everyone, regardless of their level of experience or capabilities. This is the position I was arguing in the comments, and is an approach I’m fond of. I generally reject the notion that experts and novices require wildly different interfaces or devices, although obviously there are outliers in any group whose tastes may differ.