…control interfaces must not be intelligent. Briefly, intelligent user interfaces should be limited to applications in which the user does not expect to control the behavior of the product. If the product is used as a tool, its interface should be as unintelligent as possible. Stupid is predictable; predictable is learnable; learnable is usable.
Jeff Raskin calls this principle it monotony, and explains it comprehensively in The Humane Interface.
I’ve always felt a little uneasy about the idea. Computers are supposed to free us from tedium and repetition, by doing things for us. A fluid interface is unnatural yes, but the goal of computing should be to exceed what’s possible in the corporal word, not to copy it imperfectly.
But fundamentally, I think Raskin and Molbug are more right than wrong. Paradoxically, dumb interfaces beat smart interfaces most of the time.