[Sigia-l] Summer Reading - User Behavior Drove Phone Design

[John Benjamin]

I thought that was a good question. So I googled and came up with this:

http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/frequently_asked_questions.html#keyPads

Turns out to be a rationale similar to that which resulted in our
beloved QWERTY keyboard layout, a story we've probably all heard
already:

http://home.earthlink.net/~dcrehr/whyqwert.html


J



On 8/10/06, tOM Trottier <tOM at abacurial.com> wrote:
> Dear Katie,
>
> So why did the phoneco choose a number button setup diametrically the opposite of calculators?
>
> tOM
>
> On Thursday, August 10, 2006 at 9:46,
> Katie Ware <kcoleware at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Interesting article on phone design in the '50's, and how it led to
> > features we see today. Check out how issues surrounding wrong
> > numbers affected design. Warning - longish, but worth it.
> >
> > "Idealized Design: How Bell Labs Imagined -- and Created -- the
> > Telephone System of the Future In their book, Idealized Design: How
> > to Solve Tomorrow's Crisis...Today (Wharton School Publishing),
> > authors Russell L. Ackoff, Jason Magidson and Herbert J. Addison
> > build upon a simple notion. They argue that, "the way to get to the
> > best outcome is to imagine what the ideal solution would be and then
> > work backward to where you are today."An excerpt, based on Ackoff's
> > experience, shows how the process worked at Bell Labs in the 1950s.
> > "
> >
> > http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1540