Beyond the Computer Industry

Norman, D. A. 2002. Beyond the computer industry. Commun. ACM 45, 7 (Jul. 2002), 120

With computers becoming ubiquitous, the traditional computer business must be revisited with one main issue “ease of use”. In this short article, Norman explains the design trade off between simplicity in appearance and simplicity in use. Like Adam Greenfield (Ethical Guidelines for Ubicomp), Norman talks about the increasing risk of the ever-more present technology to be designed from deficient consideration of people, organizations, and cultures.

Relation to my thesis: I am interested on the challenges to integrate ubicomp technologies into people’s life. Recent projects like Philips’ Simplicity-Led Design seem to confuse simplicity in appearance and in use. I keep Norman in mind for his quote “It is time to make technology conform to the needs of people“. In ubicomp, this goal is very honorable, but utopian because of the complexity of the environments. Within human-centered development processes, technological constraints must be taken into consideration. Currently, sharing a part of this complexity to the user seems inevitable. In a discussion with the Ada (very controlled immersive interactive environment) project manager, he mentioned me that the system had many unwanted behaviors (which for him was great, but not for the visitors who were not expecting the unexpected).