Reading Response #10

In Chapter 6 of Norman's The Design of Future Things ("Communicating with our Machines") there were a few salient points that I wanted to discuss here on the blog. One of the key quotes that I took out from Chapter 6 was on page 141, where Norman states that, "as we move toward an increasing number of intelligent, autonomous devices in our environment, we also need to transition toward a more supportive form of two-way interaction. People need information that facilitates discovery of  the situation and that guides them in deciding how to respond or, for that matter, reassures them that no action is required." I selected this quote because it ties into themes that Norman explores in his book, that communication between man and machine needs to be continuous, non-intrusive and effective, and it also ties into elements of what Kim Vicente discussed in his book, The Human Factor. People need continuous feedback and communication from their machines whether it is a smart home, a smart car or a nuclear reactor, people need information that is "informing without overburdening" the users (p.149). The other quote that I found appealing in Chapter 6 was the last paragraph in the chapter that states that, "for effective communication with machines, the machines must be predictable and understandable. People must be able to understand their state, their actions, and what is about to happen. People need to be able to interact in natural manner." Ultimately, we're not there yet with our design of smart computer systems that interact with people. Even simple word processing programs often have their quirks that leave the users puzzled at times.

In Chapter 7 "The Future of Everyday Things", I have selected one really good quote from page 156, where Norman writes, "smart technologies have the capacity to enhance pleasure, simplify lives, and add to our safety. If only they could really work flawlessly; if only we could learn to use them." This quote to me, is one of the great "take away" quotes from the entire book because it encapsulates the potential benefits of technology in our everyday lives, whether it is at home, in the cars we drive, or where we work, but also the potential problems that can arise out of smart technology not being all that "smart" in communicating with people. Or perhaps it's just that the people who are designing our smart devices are not all that strong in communicating with actual people either and the flaws of the designer are passed on to their designs.

Reading Response #9

Norman discusses the potential design of future homes, or "smart homes" in Chapter that are made up of neural networks and have pattern-recognition, and learning ability. In other words, the "smart house" could recognize activity patterns and anticipate behaviors (p.119). According to Norman, smart homes seem to be of two main types: ones with intelligent autonomy (systems that attempt to infer the intentions of people) and ones with intelligent augmentation (providing useful tools, but letting people decide when and where they are to be used). I prefer the latter type of "smart home". Whenever Norman talks about these "smart homes" in this book I also seem to think of a Ray Bradbury short story called "There Will Come Soft Rains" in which a "smart house" goes about its business as if the occupants are still alive but there's been a devastating nuclear war that has killed everyone, and yet the house continues through its programmed routine. It's worth a read.

Reading Response #8

Once again, I'm assuming that I need to post a response to Norman's The Design of Future Things. This time, I'm looking at Chapter 4 called "Servants of Our Machines". One of the first quotes that stood out for me in this chapter was that "people have become slaves to their technology, servants of their tools" (p.94), which seemed to be a fair assessment of modern life. Many people seemed tied to their machines, for some people its their computers, for others their communication devices. I recently saw pictures of a wedding on Facebook (I'm friends with one of the people in the wedding party) where I counted at least 4 or 5 people with their bluetooth earpiece in the photos. In some cases, they were even wearing the silly thing in their ear in the official wedding photos. It seemed a little silly to me for the father of the groom to be wearing the bluetooth headset throughout the wedding, but maybe I'm being judgmental.

Norman also discusses cars (again) being a "computer of wheels", soon to be able to communicate with other cars around it on "ad hoc" networks for cars. Norman talks about the future potential of cars that drive themselves and that these "swarms of cars" might potentially not even need traffic signals since they'd be able to signal their intent and path and other cars would just go along with it and not hit them.