This was a quick response to a blog post about boring magic which weirdly bugged me. Just to say, all power to anyone who's making the world a better place, I'm just working out my own thoughts here.

A colleague enthusiastically shared this blogpost in work recently:

https://visitmy.website/2020/01/08/boring-magic/

... and I thought: Hmmm… I'm afraid I feel more grumpy about this. I'd prefer us to accept and celebrate the "boring" than to try and glitz it up as a clever oxymoron. I mean, are we so desperate to see ourselves this way?

The "magic" part of this is entirely hidden from the end user. If it's hidden, it's not magic. The only people who are delighted when things are simple, and easy to use, are those who've been stung badly in the past. If the "magic" is only perceived by the people who can see behind the magician's cloth, that's not magic, it's self-congratulation.

The post says, "Our job is to make those tedious experiences a bit magical: simple, clear and fast," but no, simple, clear and fast isn't magic, it's the baseline. And it's just the shocking lack of that baseline which could ever lead someone to describing it as being "magical" when it's achieved.

So "boring magic" doesn't describe us meeting the "raised expectations of the internet-era" what it does is normalise the terrible state of things now by painting anything better as a supernatural achievement. I find that a bit unambitious.

For me "doing the hard work to make things simple" describes exactly the same process, the same motivations, and the same proposed outcome, only without the unnecessarily seeking to glamourise what we do, because what we do isn't glamourous.

There is something irritating about pulling back the curtain and saying, "Hey, see all these cogs? Look at how complicated it is! Isn't it magical how much effort we put in to make that simple for you?" I imagine a user thinking. Who cares? Do your job!

Maybe that's the thing. It's a phrase that seems more aimed at other people doing this work. Not at describing the work itself. At raising the status of those people, or making their work seem more exciting, or amazing. But there's nothing special about this stuff, nothing remarkable, it's just bringing things that are often really awful up to an acceptable standard.

The real potential of the work we're doing is not just to making some transactions surprisingly simple. It's to fundamentally alter the relationship that citizens have with government. To bring trust, reassurance and hope where there's currently distrust and despair. To help people feel informed and empowered as citizens and participants in the world, instead of feeling like victims of it.

To me, that's not comparable to pulling a rabbit from a hat.