[Sigia-l] Decent exposure

Arthur Fink arthur at arthurfink.com
Fri Jan 12 04:52:46 EST 2007


At 10:42 PM 1/11/2007, Ziya Oz wrote:
>As one of the remaining 17 people on the planet who can afford a cellphone
>but never owned one, I'm anxiously waiting for the actual availability of
>the iPhone.

And I may be one of those 23 people who do own a cellphone and am 
delighted to have it be just that.  It's a way for my wife to reach 
me as I'm walking for the boat heading home so that she can divert me 
to the fish market, for me to call a client when I'm lost on the 
highway, for a friend to find me at a crowded gathering.  I'm not 
wanting it to be an email client, a web browser, a camera, or anything else.

You may say that I'm acting the role of the Luddite.  Perhaps so, 
although I've plenty of hi-tech gadgets, and spend more than enough 
time with them.  But my life is ordered, and I don't feel that I have 
the emotional energy to deal with more than a phone in the cases I've 
described.  In fact, I'm sure that I could -- rationally.  But 
emotionally ... a certain distance from integrated connectivity seems 
refreshing.

What does this mean to designers (like me)?  If you're going to 
design a tool to integrate my technical connectivity, would you 
please also design some life patterns so that I can handle this new 
arrangement.  Give me some productive models that feel.

Recently I had dinner with an old friend -- now bluetooth 
equipped.  One minute he was with me, then his phone rang (silently), 
and he was with somebody else.  It was disorienting, to say the 
least.  I resist.

In my work, I welcome user resistance.  When it comes to the fore, 
it's usually expressive of real concerns, real fears, real issues 
that need to be addressed.  We ignore our users at our peril.  And 
when we address their cognitive ability but ignore their emotional 
state ... we're ignoring them.

Arthur Fink


P.S. I AM dying to see an iPhone, expecting another example of 
beautiful functional product design.

          ARTHUR FINK Consulting  arthur at arthurfink.com
          ---------------------------------------------
           Ten New Island Avenue  Listening to users
       Peaks Island, Maine 04108  Designing for people
              www.ArthurFink.com  User interfaces that work
207.766.5722  cell 207.615.5722  Progress training + consulting




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