The original promise of personal computing was a new kind of clay—a malleable material that users could reshape at will. Instead, we got appliances: built far away, sealed, unchangeable. When your tools don’t work the way you need them to, you submit feedback and hope for the best. You’re forced to adapt your workflow to fit your software, when it should be the other way around.

In this essay, we envision malleable software: tools that users can reshape with minimal friction to suit their unique needs. Modification becomes routine, not exceptional. Adaptation happens at the point of use, not through engineering teams at distant corporations.

Realizing this vision will require confronting many barriers. From programming languages to operating systems and app stores, every layer of the modern computing landscape has been built upon the assumption that users are passive recipients rather than active co-creators. What we need instead are computing systems that invite every user to gradually become a creator. Tools that compose into custom workflows, rather than siloed monolithic apps. Systems that support local groups in communal creation.

Fortunately, there’s a lot of inspiration to draw on—both research work and commercial products spanning the past several decades. In this essay, we synthesize ideas from that body of work, as well as lessons learned from years of testing our own prototypes. Whether you’re a software developer, a researcher, or any kind of computer user, we invite you to join us in striving towards a world of malleable software.

Continue reading at https://www.inkandswitch.com/essay/malleable-software/