http://cognitivelens.com the psychology of engineering design Thu, 26 Jun 2008 03:35:31 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en 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! http://cognitivelens.com/2008/06/design-changes-with-jquery/ 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 ... http://cognitivelens.com/2008/05/downtime/ 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 ... http://cognitivelens.com/2008/04/uwc-guidance-counseling-conference/ 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 ... http://cognitivelens.com/2008/04/simulating-user-experience/ 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) ... http://cognitivelens.com/2008/04/the-human-sciences-in-tok/ 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 ... http://cognitivelens.com/2008/04/cellphones-third-world-and-developing-nations-poverty-technology-new-york-times/ To any academic reading this blog who senses that their research interests are in any way related to mine: Leave a comment, I'd love to hear from you and know what you're doing, and how your research is going. Check out the NSF funding for Engineering Design, and the projects that have ... http://cognitivelens.com/2008/04/engineering-design-and-government-funding/ 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 ... http://cognitivelens.com/2008/04/cl-plans/ 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 ... http://cognitivelens.com/2008/04/downward-spiral/ 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 ... http://cognitivelens.com/2008/04/thinking-with-your-hands/ cognition [,käg' . ni . sh . ən] noun - the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. Cognition and its underlying principles are powerful tools to use in understanding and interacting with the world, and Cognitive Lens is my attempt to explore ... http://cognitivelens.com/2008/04/what-is-the-cognitive-lens/ 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 ... http://cognitivelens.com/2008/04/designing-verbs/ I just received notification from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program that I have been accorded an Honorable Mention! I do actually feel honored by this honorable mention, although clearly the fellowship itself was the original aim of my application. To those of you who are not aware, the ... http://cognitivelens.com/2008/04/the-right-honorable-nsf/ After a few esoteric posts, I would like to take a small step back and clarify what I am writing about and who I hope to connect with. First, a little background (which I will eventually put into an "about" page). I am from Wyoming, but am currently living in India, ... http://cognitivelens.com/2008/04/this-one-goes-out/ If there is one take-home lesson from perception research, it is that humans wildly distort and simplify sensory input when attending to the world around them. In the past few years, research into change blindness has shown some stunning failures of our ability to identify changes in our surroundings - ... http://cognitivelens.com/2008/04/the-blindness-advantage/