[Sigia-l] Applying Information Foraging Models

[Listera]

> The idea that we should *ignore* and pay zero attention to user-goals in
> favor of some control-matrix...

I used to know a terrific cook who had in his kitchen on a wooden rack nine
different knives, each with a distinct purpose. He was a pleasure to watch
while wielding his knives with alarming efficiency. One of the knives (a
small pairing knife with an ivory handle and a sharp, slender tip) he used
sparingly for a single purpose: picking his teeth. I don't believe the
(German) designers of this knife ever took into account my friend's needs,
but there it was.

Lessons to learn:

1.  Don't pick your teeth with a knife.
2.  If you're going to do it, pick an appropriate knife.
3.  It's OK to not know (or pretend to know) the entire scope of what your
users may end up doing with your design.
4.  Build an infrastructure to allow for #3 to happen intelligently.

A glaring example of this is AppleScript in Mac OS. As a developer/app
designer, you provide the core functionality for your app through its fixed
GUI. You accept the fact that your users will end up using the app in ways
that you can't even begin to preconceive. So expose your app's internal
objects to external AppleEvents. This way any other app can access and
manipulate your app's objects, pass data back and forth, as if your app was
doing it internally. So you can have a database app manipulating a layout or
a jukebox or a chat app seamlessly, as though it is an integrated plugin.
This allows users and integrators to create workflows hyper-customized to
specific needs and change them as needed, without ever touching the code of
your app. (Though AppleScript has been around for nearly two decades, the
new buzzword, webservices, is an iteration of this idea, albeit over the
Internet.) 

Building robust systems where non-preconceived uses can be efficiently and
widely exercised is (technically) often very difficult. Given our obsession
with short-term gain, I'm not overly optimistic.

Ziya
Nullius in Verba