[Sigia-l] Human-Centered Design 99% bad

[Anne Miller]

SD: What I think is being hinted to is creating an environment where there
are many tools to do a job and the user descides the way the want to do that
job - using tools for tasks the original disigner could not forsee but had 
created it in an open enough way so it could be done.

AM: absolutely correct.

SD: The environment approach I would call bottom up as the activities are 
created by the users, not the application designers.

AM: Not quite. The activities are created by the interaction between
elements and possibilities in the environment and the capacities of humans. 

Look at Google from an ecological perspective:
1. The environment: information out there. The environment has elements
(individual pieces of information, species of information and sub
ecologies); is dynamic (these elements change non-linearly over time) and
interactive - sub-ecologies in particular aren’t fixed - its constituent
elements interact creating periodic dominances.  
2. Google as a technology: Google is a conduit through which people interact
with the information environment. Google is making visible in some
rudimentary sense at least some of the elements in that ecology e.g. Web,
images; some of the species e.g. News; and some of the sub-ecologies are
perhaps declaring themselves e.g. Groups. It would be useful if Google could
make visible the information resources that these groups use. 
3. Users are assumed to be part of the ecology. Their capacities are taken
into account. Physically we know that people can use computers; we know they
can develop goals and intentions - it doesn’t really matter what these are;
we know they can develop plans/strategies for achieving goals and intentions
- again it doesn’t really matter what these are except if their activities
threaten the ecological viability of the environment e.g. creators of
viruses (every ecology has its pathogens); we know they can learn from
mistakes etc... 

The ecological message in this is that design should not constrain - this
leads to specialist niches that are subject to extinction. Design that
promotes flexibility of interaction supports responsiveness and adaptation.


Cheers
A




Dr Anne Miller
Group Leader
Patient Safety Research Group
Key Centre for Human Factors
University of Queensland
Ph: 61 7 3365  4543
Email: amiller at humanfactors.uq.edu.au


-----Original Message-----
From: sigia-l-bounces at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-bounces at asis.org] On Behalf
Of Stewart Dean
Sent: Thursday, 4 August 2005 12:16 AM
To: sigia-l at asis.org
Cc: Jonathan.Baker-Bates at oyster.com
Subject: RE: [Sigia-l] Human-Centered Design 99% bad



>From: "Jonathan Baker-Bates" <Jonathan.Baker-Bates at oyster.com>
>To: "SIGIA-L" <sigia-l at asis.org>
>Subject: RE: [Sigia-l] Human-Centered Design 99% bad
>Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2005 13:56:36 +0100
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: sigia-l-bounces at asis.org
> > [mailto:sigia-l-bounces at asis.org] On Behalf Of Anne Miller
> > Sent: 03 August 2005 01:23
> > To: 'Listera'; 'SIGIA-L'
> > Subject: RE: [Sigia-l] Human-Centered Design 99% bad
> >
> > Z: No, no, no. These unintended consequences were *not*
> > inherently part of the design and, as you say, were not
> > intended by the designer. They just happened.
> >
> > A: Utter nonsense! Of course they're part of the design. Just
> > because the designer didn't *intend* these uses to be there
> > but a user/observer found them any way doesn't make these
> > uses any less part of the design - they may be opportunistic
> > or fortuitous but so what - such is good design. Design that
> > represents the only designer's *intent* belongs in an art gallery!
> >
>
>Wow. I thought I'd seen a pretty wide spectrum of opinion about IA/UX
>design issues on this list, but that's got to be the most extreme
>interpretation of "design" so far. Making no distinction between usage
>and design is rather brain-scrambling in my opinion.

I'm trying to make sense of this myself. I think what the discussion is 
breaking down into is 'top down' and 'bottom up solutions'.

When 'Z' says stuff 'just happens' then it sounds like the users are finding

their own way to do what they want because the system designed doesnt quite 
work they way the want to.

Top down systems require the user to conform to set ways of doing things - 
much like many microsoft product do unintentionaly.

What I think is being hinted to is creating an environment where there are 
many tools to do a job and the user descides the way the want to do that job

- using tools for tasks the original disigner could not forsee but had 
created it in an open enough way so it could be done.

The environment approach I would call bottom up as the activities are 
created by the users, not the application designers.

To use another anology bottom up is like letting a tree grow - whilst top 
down is almost like making it out of steel and concrete.  It differs 
slightly from how others think of top down and bottom up IA (which is closer

to information science) in that his is related to function rather than 
content.

I'm a big believer in bottom up design but it can be it's very hard to 
impliment due to our nature to want to build things rather than grow things.

Stew Dean


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