Chris_1_I
I liked how the chapter discussed that the main focus of practicing interaction design was to rid products and services of the small annoyances. The book cited a quote about how 'its the small stuff in life that drives you crazy'; and its quite true. Interaction design helps to make sense of the products we are using and in some cases makes them enjoyable. The author also mentions how humans have an incredible tolerance to inconvenience and how we don't really notice this until something better is created. The example of phones and having an operator route the calls is used to convey this concept. We now take for granted how convenient and even fun (depending on your phone) it can be to communicate with anyone at any time.
Labels: Chris Richardson
posted by Chris Richardson @ 12:37 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
I like this post.
I would include the "tolerable inconveniences" concept here mentioned under the philosophy of "just one more." As soon as we adapt to a convenience, it's time to look for ways to make it even more convenient. Not a horrible idea; I suppose the only concern about this "tolerable inconveniences" notion is this: at what price do we make things more convenient - are we prioritizing well? (You could ask this question at any scope, but I was thinking nationally.)
What is convent to one person may not be convent to another. For instance, many people prefer laptops over desktops these days because they are convent and can be traveled with easily. Yet there are some people who need a desktop in order to complete there work, or maybe they want all the power they can afford and a desktop is the best way to afford that. With these two totally different choices interaction among devices and programs must keep both in mind. Having a laptop is great for portability, but can a user set the key board and monitor to their preference? Not yet they can't. Just an example that while we will get used to new technology it wont always replace everything and designers will have to keep that in mind.
This cycle of constantly removing inconveniences from a product is something that I think will never end. As new technologies continue to develop, there will always be a way to make a product better. How long will it take until computers, for an average user, will become obsolete due to the fact that everything they use a computer for will be able to be accomplished on a phone.
Another example of tolerance for inconvenience would be the person to person websites such as Facebook and Myspace. When Facebook was first developed as a college only site it had very few 'addons' and was very convenient and easy. Now that it has developed in to a world wide site we've seen the development of literally hundreds of new applications that just cluster up the site and kill the navigation.
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