Archive for the ‘Observation’ Category
Downtime
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. […]
Simulating user experience
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 […]
NYTimes articles on technology, usability, and design
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 […]
Designing verbs
It is sometimes difficult to keep up with what actually qualifies as design – what used to be a strictly professional pursuit has become the domain of anyone with a mild creative streak and a few spare moments on a computer. More and more people are being offered a way in, from amateur photographers eagerly […]
Qualified to speak
Reading today’s New York Times report about the increasing selectivity of America’s top colleges and universities, I was struck by the fact that not only was the author a Harvard alumnus, but so were the authors of the three books used as references in the article. It was a perspective from the selective group critiquing […]
Technology’s outgroup
The media regularly assert that the “younger generation” will comprise technical savants, fluidly emailing while watching YouTube while chatting with friends (on the phone and through IM, which increasingly overlap) while designing flying cars and nanobots. The claim boils down to the simple conclusion that new technologies are by the young and for the young, and only the young can understand it - cue the clichéd joke parents make about needing their four-year-old to program the VCR (that is so 80’s). Sure technology is rarely self-explanatory (’PC LOAD LETTER‘…). But that doesn’t mean it can’t be explained.