Imagine if a company offered a new piece of editing software that said had that claim ‘You’ll be able to make edits between shots that are precise to down to the second.’ Media professionals would find this sort of claim ridiculous. “You need to be much more discerning when making an edit. A frame either way makes a world of difference.” However, to the majority of those who would like to make films, down to the second is ‘good enough.’

This is the sort of feature Apple have introduced into the newest version of their consumer editing software, iMovie 08. They decided to limit the amount of control people have by getting rid of the timeline metaphor. In How much editing does the average person need? Steve Cohen talks about this.

Now think of the other applications that you use every once in a while. The ones that don’t help you in your career, but the ones you sometimes need to carry out a quick task with. Maybe there are some other features and metaphors that need to be thrown away to make your usage of that software that more intuitive.