Cognitive Lens

I’m currently developing a new theme template for the site, so it’s not going to look all that great for a while. Hopefully I can get most of it sorted before I start school in September!

Unfortunately, my laptop was stolen during my trip, and I’ve been busy with catching up on work and recovering from the lost information so I haven’t been able to update the blog. I may be able to get thing going again soon, but otherwise it will be another month before I can do anything significant. I have started looking into what it will take to fully customize the site, so hopefully that will happen within the next couple of months as well. No promises at the moment since it’s nearly impossible to have a daily rhythm at the moment.

I’ll be heading to the States tomorrow for a UWC guidance counselors gathering at College of the Atlantic in Maine at the end of the week. I’ll also be getting the chance to visit Brown University, Colby College, and possibly a short visit at Bates College on the way up to Bar Harbor from Boston, and will be staying for a night at Wellesley College on the way back. Should be a good trip, but I may not be able to update much while I’m gone. For the four people who read this, come back in a week for more posts!

Since the 1950’s, the Human Sciences (in the broad sense that includes design) have embraced a user- or human-centered approach to research. This usually takes the form of ubiquitous user experience surveys, observation, and other methods of getting ecologically valid feedback. Many “experts” in these fields, however, still insist that users doesn’t know what they want, and therefore claim that extensive user testing is the path toward banality at best, and miserable failure at worst (e.g. the Ford Edsel). So how to reconcile the two views and maintain the practical advantages of each? A recent article at Reuters (via the Two Minds blog) describes how engineers and designers at Nissan have formulated a solution: the designers handicap themselves using a constrictive body suit in a Harrison Bergeron-esque attempt to experience the lowest common denominator of user abilities, namely the physical impairments associated with old age. (more…)

This is an outline of a presentation that I recently gave to a group of students at the Mahindra United World College of India as part of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program’s Theory of Knowledge course, which investigates various ‘Areas of Knowledge’ and ‘Ways of Knowing’. The Human (or Social) Sciences provide a great synthesis of many other areas of knowledge as I’ve discussed before, and because secondary school students are taking only their first few steps into the related fields, it is critical that they understand the relationship with the natural sciences and the humanities.
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Heads up on a couple of great articles in the New York Times today:

The first article, “At a Certain Age, Simplicity Sells in High-Tech Gadgets“, closely relates to a previous post about how one of technology’s outgroups - the baby boomers and older - sometimes convinces itself that it cannot understand new technology. The column emphasizes the importance of “simplicity”, although it sounds like the author (Alina Tugend) has been convinced that dumbing down technology is the answer to making it appealing to her age group and older. I still take issue with this perspective, but it’s a good read nonetheless (except for the 1-sentence-per-paragraph style!). Hopefully as new approaches to developing technologies for this group appear (e.g. retaining complexity, but making function more intuitive and valuable), this particular group will feel much more catered to by the cutting edge.

The second article explores exactly this kind of alternative approach to design, as it profiles the work of Jan Chipchase, author of one my favorite design blogs, Future Perfect: “Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?“. It offers some excellent insight into how telecommunication is may provide millions/billions of people in developing countries a way to more effectively enter and compete effectively in the marketplace at many different levels. Look out for observations from Mumbai (Bombay), where I have marveled at digital satellite dishes poking above the densely packed corrugated iron roofs of the slums since I first arrived in India. Also consider the human-centered design issues raised, and how they differ from popular/Western conceptions of what effective/good/appropriate design entails. Good stuff.

To any academic reading this blog who senses that their research interests are in any way related to mine:

1. Leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you and know what you’re doing, and how your research is going.
2. Check out the NSF funding for Engineering Design, and the projects that have been supported in the past.

I’ve mentioned the NSF before, and have taken my first steps toward learning more about this branch of the government, which supports a wide range of research in the natural and social sciences. My sense is that it is quite a competitive, but supportive, agency that is regularly the first stop for grant applications in cognitive science and related fields. This makes sense, as it is officially a non-political and non-commercial funding agency, unlikely to impose ideologically-motivated restrictions on what and how to research. Of course, the funding is usually offered toward research in particular areas of interest (and the question is, whose interest, exactly?). I may be nai¨ve in this, and no doubt once I start doing my own research and apply for grants, I will re-evaluate my benevolent view of the NSF, but at the moment I’m generally pleased that it exists and is “fighting the good fight”. I will likely investigate the NSF funding website more in-depth at some point in the future and give a more thorough appraisal.
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Just to let everyone who is interested know:

I will not be actively advertising or promoting this blog until I do a major visual and structural refresh, which likely won’t come until later this summer, when I have a new laptop, software, and upgraded internet connection. Currently, I’m on a 3 year old iBook G4 that is starting to really show it’s age. Perfectly adequate for word processing, but not for graphic design or web development. So, as soon as I can plug into education-discount Adobe CS3 and a blazing new Macbook Pro equipped for the long haul in graduate school, I’ll put my all into making this site look and act the way I want it to. Hopefully by then I will have enough content to pull in more readers as well, so with the perfect storm of an effective interface and quality content, I’ll be golden.

Till then, feel free to browse the (quite limited) archive!

-Mike

When Thomas Friedman wrote last year that the introduction of the Tata Nano “people’s car” was a Bad Thing, many interested parties quickly came to defend the project, claiming that Friedman and others concerned about deploying thousands (perhaps millions) of inexpensive cars into India were being elitist and insensitive to the needs of a developing nation on the brink of superpowerdom.

Although Friedman may indeed be a little too simplistic in his bold claims about the world being flat in general, the specific problems he highlights about the Nano are quite real, and claiming that he doesn’t know what he is talking about because he is American, or because he is not Indian, or because he is relatively affluent avoids discussing the issues in depth. While Vivek Sharma’s popular response attempts to cover the main criticisms, he ends up accepting the truth of the Friedman’s argument with the added qualification that other contributing factors should be addressed as well. Without any defenses that stick, we (or the Indian government, or Tata itself) are stuck with some very real problems that need to be addressed. (more…)

One of my favorite scenes from “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” is when the title characters move to Bolivia and apply to be armed guards at a (coal?) mine. The mine’s owner tells Sundance to stand and shoot a stone tossed about 10 yards away. Sundance attempts to do so, but repeatedly misses, and the owner starts walking away, clearly unimpressed.

“Can I move?” Sundance says. “I’m better when I move.” The owner, confused, ultimately grants permission for Sundance to move when he fires, and with a quickdraw, ducking action, Sundance shoots the stone repeatedly dead-on.

It’s an entertaining scene, but it also connects with newly-developing theories in cognitive psychology about the relationship between perception, action, and cognition. (more…)