At first encounter as a grad student borrowing a friend's computer, I pushed the bright red button, and couldn't see anything happening. Pushed it a bit stronger, though the wobbling was manufacturing sloppiness.
This was something that I believed until I had kids. It turns out, even the nipple isn't fully intuitive—some babies struggle to breastfeed, and have to be taught how to do it properly.
Babies have a reflex (not even an instinct) to do it, but that reflex only works well if conditions are pretty close to ideal. Outside of the sweet spot, there can be all sorts of difficulties. That's the nature of reflexes.
Using a nipple isn't really intuitive. It's learned.
We get dangerously close to a semantic difference here, but this is how I learned the categories generally work. This is not my field, so I could be wrong, of course.
Generally, you can break things down to three categories.
There are reflexes, which are when your body reacts to something without your brain needing to be involved. The latching reflex in babies, for example, or the patellar reflex (tapping the knee to make the leg jerk).
Then there are instincts. Instincts involve the brain, and so generally don't appear in human infants immediately. Instincts are like pre-written scripts encoded in us, but require a level of development before those scripts can be executed.
Then there are learned behaviors. Things that are "intuitive" fall into this category. Something is intuitive if a behavior you already know well can be applied the activity.
Reproduction is instinctive (and it's an instinct that, in humans, doesn't really show up until much closer to sexual maturity). It's not intuitive. If you've never been exposed to or taught how to have sex, you'll still feel the desire to, and be able to, do it. Maybe not well, but you can get the job done.
I remember hearing this quote from a HCI prof in the late 90's. I repeated this to a person who was in nursing, and they replied that helping babies figure out nipples (i.e. "latching") is actually a common problem for new mothers[1].
It's worth considering that survivor bias plays a role in the perceived intuitiveness of nipples.
I have a lactation consultant in the family. She herself, despite her job, was unable to get her first kid to latch. It was embarrassing, traumatizing. I had no idea.
What's considered intuitive isn't intrinsic to the design. It's always relative to the previous preferred design, and there is no known base case to anchor onto.
The nipple comes well after lots of crying and grasping for other things, but why would first experiences have anything to do with best experiences anyway?
I think most designers are deeply aware of this already, so why do we keep talking about design this way?
As a dad, I think nipple detection is hardwired, but latching might take some work. Two additional considerations are user interface scaling and whether or not the backend is online.
Breast Tech (Boob Tech? Breast-Computer Interface?) is amazing. We now have wireless, heated, smart breast pumps (https://www.eufy.com/collections/breast-pump), which women from days of yore (aka 25 years ago) could have only dreamed.
I once read an account of an octogenarian woman in a nursing home. A new doctor was assigned to her. Looking over the medical records, she'd had chronic urinary infections her entire adult life, until her husband passed away. She had urinary incontinence her entire adult life. They never had any children, though not for lack of trying.
Turns out that her husband had been penetrating her urethra throughout their marriage. When the old woman was questioned about these medical issues by the doctors, she told him that though it had hurt the first time, she expected it to and never thought much of it. Nor had she connected the onset of incontinence and infections with the act.
So no, I don't think that this is necessarily true, either.
Yeahhhhhh. Thanks for this right before I go to bed lol.
In any case, with billions of humans throughout history, I don’t doubt it’s possible. Crazier shit has happened. But it also rings like a tall tale of the medical field. But hey, I’m not saying it’s impossible.
Many mothers and their children don't find it so intuitive at first. There are lactation consultants who teach mothers (and indirectly the children) what to do.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 23.2 ms ] thread(Obligatory: https://xkcd.com/243/ )
Is it true that “the only ”intuitive“ interface is the nipple”? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4412372 - Aug 2012 (23 comments)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_stick
Apparently the intended use is not as intuitive as the engineers had hoped.
Intended use is really not intuitive.
Using a nipple isn't really intuitive. It's learned.
Generally, you can break things down to three categories.
There are reflexes, which are when your body reacts to something without your brain needing to be involved. The latching reflex in babies, for example, or the patellar reflex (tapping the knee to make the leg jerk).
Then there are instincts. Instincts involve the brain, and so generally don't appear in human infants immediately. Instincts are like pre-written scripts encoded in us, but require a level of development before those scripts can be executed.
Then there are learned behaviors. Things that are "intuitive" fall into this category. Something is intuitive if a behavior you already know well can be applied the activity.
Reproduction is instinctive (and it's an instinct that, in humans, doesn't really show up until much closer to sexual maturity). It's not intuitive. If you've never been exposed to or taught how to have sex, you'll still feel the desire to, and be able to, do it. Maybe not well, but you can get the job done.
It's worth considering that survivor bias plays a role in the perceived intuitiveness of nipples.
___________
[1]https://breastfeeding.support/when-baby-wont-breastfeed/
In my experience, weekly trips to the lactation consultant had no effect except for a growing sense of shame.
The nipple comes well after lots of crying and grasping for other things, but why would first experiences have anything to do with best experiences anyway?
I think most designers are deeply aware of this already, so why do we keep talking about design this way?
Breast Tech (Boob Tech? Breast-Computer Interface?) is amazing. We now have wireless, heated, smart breast pumps (https://www.eufy.com/collections/breast-pump), which women from days of yore (aka 25 years ago) could have only dreamed.
It's pretty distressing to watch the desperation and the struggle of a baby screaming and a mom trying but unable to feed her baby.
Then the quote sort of turns from clever into a sign of a bit of real-life ignorance.
Turns out that her husband had been penetrating her urethra throughout their marriage. When the old woman was questioned about these medical issues by the doctors, she told him that though it had hurt the first time, she expected it to and never thought much of it. Nor had she connected the onset of incontinence and infections with the act.
So no, I don't think that this is necessarily true, either.
In any case, with billions of humans throughout history, I don’t doubt it’s possible. Crazier shit has happened. But it also rings like a tall tale of the medical field. But hey, I’m not saying it’s impossible.
In any case, it’s obviously not the norm lol
Any mammal hooks the bio-survival circuit to the first imprinted bio-survival object: the teat...
Baby can have unfixable latching problems (as commented elsewhere)
Breasts may not produce enough milk even with pumping
Nipples and Breasts can get infected and seriously endanger the mother