RE: criticism on cognitive approach to Interface Design

Cynthia DuVal (a-cynduv who-is-at microsoft.com)
Thu, 28 Jan 1999 10:02:43 -0800

Hello Olga,
Here are references to books that reflect the effort to move from cognitive
approaches to context sensitive research in support of technology design
(not specifically interface design.) All excellent. Sylvia Scribner was not
a technology designer but I consider her research and thinking to be
foundational to the ethnographic/psychological research I am doing here in
support of technology design.

Things That Make Us Smart By Donald A. Norman
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1993

Bringing Design to Software, Edited by Terry Winograd (with Bennett, De
Young and Hartfield)
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company,

Usability: Turning Technologies into Tools, Edited by Paul S. Adler and
Terry A. Winograd
Oxford University Press, 1992

Mind and Social Practice, Selected Writings of Sylvia Scribner, Edited by
Ethel Tobach, Rachel Joffee Falmagne, Mary Brown Parlee, Laura M.W. Martin
and Aggie Scribner Kapelman
Cambridge University Press, 1997

I hope these will be helpful to you.

Cynthia DuVal
Interaction Design Team
Information Appliance Group
Microsoft Corporation

-----Original Message-----
From: Olga Marchenko [mailto:olyam@rtsnet.ru]
Sent: Thursday, January 28, 1999 7:10 AM
To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: criticism on cognitive approach to Interface Design

Dear colleguess,
does anybody have references on the papers or books concerning criticism on
cognitive approach to Interface Design? I am preparing an article for our
former Soviet magazin " Psikhologicheskij zhurnal" on the ethnographical
practice in developing new systems since year ago I started to work as
ethnographer withing Research group of one of the biggest and exspierenced
Technical Center here. Always at the urgent interest on popularization of
qualitative methods and techniques in the same time I could not find
information to make meaningfull remarque on the special phase of cognitive
psychologist's participation in improving saftware systems.

Thank you in advance -
Olga Marchenko,
Institute of Psychology,
Russain Academy of Sciences
Moscow,