Computer apps are not to be judged by what they do or how well they do it. Rather, it is more important that they feel natural to normal humans and they are led to the right actions.
This statement makes me sad... but I cannot articulate exactly why.
Edit: I like the essay in general. It's very motivating. It would have been great advice when in highschool.
Its because like many nerds, you love to program, and you love THE program.
I find that many technical people actually find that while they keep solving technical problems, the people problem never goes away with their software.
We treat people as idiots and act in condescending manners because we think they are too dumb to use our software or computers in general, but the truth is our software is dumb and a lot of us dont want to change it.
I don't think that's it... Woz talks about internalizing and owning his own thoughts throughout the article, then implies that computer programs (that presumably the student could / should build) ought to be tailored to everyone else's mental models. It seems contradictory. I'd much rather hear something like, "Build something you love using... that's easy for you to use."
This statement makes me sad... but I cannot articulate exactly why.
Edit: I like the essay in general. It's very motivating. It would have been great advice when in highschool.