Thoughtful Chunk 2: Using Your Smarts!

Don Norman: the Design of Future Things, April 2008 from IIT Institute of Design on Vimeo 

“In the past, it was indeed people who made machines smart. But we’re getting over that now. Now it is machines that make people smart.” Donald A. Norman: The Design of Future Things, p.178.

Although the above quote is from an imagined machine character in conversation with Norman, I feel great disquiet at calling machines, “Smart.”  Several definitions of the word found on the Web include:

•                showing mental alertness and calculation and resourcefulness

•                bright: characterized by quickness and ease in learning;

•                fresh: improperly forward or bold; "don't be fresh with me";

We are becoming very accustomed to talk describing technology as ‘Smart’ and/or ‘Intelligent’ which implies a level of independent thought that includes emotional, critical, and personal reflection. Surely this can only be ascribed to humans? After all, it is the ‘people’ who have constructed the distinctive language that describe these very particular human attributes and capabilities. Using vocabulary that holds special meaning for humans to describe the attributes of machines tends to accidentally or deliberately mislead.

Thoughtful Chunk 1: What's the use?

 Microsoft Kinect

 http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/706283/microsoft-taking-kinect-on-the-road-for-national-tour.html


“This difference in usage circumstances means that consoles can rely less on having a self-explanatory UI, whereas a mobile UI must have extremely high learnability.” Jakob Nielsen in Kinect Gestural UI: First Impressions

Nielsen uses a comparison chart to demonstrate how issues of usability differ in levels of concern for the user depending upon the context of use. According to Nielsen, Kinect, a game console that employs human gestures as it’s user interface, does have several weak usability areas. For example the games rely on human memory for game instructions as no visual help is afforded during play. Related is the inconsistency of feedback. However, Nielsen takes this opportunity to illustrate the different levels of importance assigned to certain usability issues. These may depend on the goals of the user in a specific situation. An extreme example, he suggests, is the possible difference in consequences of user error caused by less than attentive design, development and testing of the product: “your avatar ‘dies’ and restarts a level” or you “lose your job and investments.” Jakob Nielsen

This concept has great transference value to my future teaching practice: the efficacy and value of including certain technological processes and products may need to be considered in relation to the specific learning/teaching goals desired. What may not be appropriate for one educational setting/student need(s) may be very acceptable in another despite perceived areas of usability weakness or imperfection.