Mike writes:
>Isn't the process of design one of creating affordances (and learning
>what you didn't understand because of the unitended consequences of
>the implementation!)? What did you folks decide in the parallel once
>upon a time discussion?
I am not sure wether we reached any conclusion. What is clear to me
however is that the lessons I have learned from reading Don's work have
been very useful (to a point) especially in the physical and visual design
of systems. I am minded of a quote from a UK Design educator "Design is
the act of seeing the future before it exists", and that fits quite well.
However were I bump into limits, and where I find CHAT useful is that it
provides a framework for thinking through systems into wider systems and
their settings, which is where I think Bonnie Nardi's work is helpful.
I think it was Yrjo who makes a story about the changes in the social
relationships in hotels by changes in door opening technology. Once upon a
time in small hotles you were restricted in getting in and out of the
building. Gradually the hotels/guest houses would issue keys to guests.
Forgetful guests, like me, would wander away with keys in their pockets
(no doubt making work for locksmiths). Soon key fobs became so huge that
people like me didn't make mistakes. However this changed my relationship
with the hotel, and the hotel had to provide a member of staff , a
location and a protocol for depositing and collecting keys, and even small
hotels had receptionists. In this day of electronic plastic card keys with
low replacement value there is no need for a key keping function. The
cubicle still exisits and it s usualy occupied by someone, but clearly
they have evolved a different function and my relationship with them has
changed as a consequence. This are simple changes in a common place
technology however they induce changes in the relationship between hotel
and guest and result in different patterns of division of labour.
(I may be wrong) I do not recall Don's work addressing the sorts of issues
that are raised by this example. I think the difference is having a
comparative focus on the object in one case, and focussing on the
transformation you are trying to achieve in another. The effects are
obviously not all forseeable (my asparagus note this am).
I have been looking at a company which in itse effort to introduce
"training on demand", and a culture of "self promoting staff" wisely did
not spend all its investment of computer based training, but spent a
significant ammount on advertising the change in culture to their
employees (although the Pavlovian methods they used is another story).
Designing technological solutions with the "right" surface affordances
whilst may be necessary is not sufficient.
I would add however, it has yet to be found to be "necessary", because
millions of people use less than satisfactory tools to do effective jobs ,
humans are amazing learners_ and they call Bill Gates a genius!
Martin
MArt
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Feb 01 2000 - 01:02:45 PST