[Sigia-l] Do Make Me Think!

[Ziya Oz]

(With apologies to Steve :-)

For sometime now the prevailing usability theme has been "Don't Make Me
Think." Lots of architectural/design directions emanate from that basic
assumption.

There's another interesting thread emerging now: direct economy:

"We're exiting an economic system based on the producer's know-how and
heading towards one centered on the customer's know-how," says Xavier
Comtesse, head of the think-tank Avenir Suisse.

Commenting on this notion, Bruno Giussani says:

"...the growing role of consumers in the creative and commercial process
have focused on the shifting value chain: people book their own flight
tickets (EasyJet), assemble furniture (Ikea), customize the computer they
want to buy (Dell), trade shares online (Swissquote), submit product ideas
(P&G and Muji and Nespresso), write articles (OhMyNews and Wikipedia) or
book reviews (Amazon), track their own packages (Fedex),
market/negotiate/sell/ship (eBay), and so on. These are different degrees of
interactivity and participation. But Xavier correctly points out that there
is another, crucial - and often neglected - dimension to this: in order to
interact and participate and co-create, people need to develop or acquire
specific know-how."

<http://giussani.typepad.com/loip/2006/08/direct_economy.html>

How the user acquires this "know-how" becomes our domain. Somewhat of a
subtle shift on the surface, but a very significant direction for design, if
you buy into it.

Do you?

----
Ziya

Usability >  Simplify the Solution
Design >  Simplify the Problem