Human Usability

I've been looking for an opening for my writing quite a while now, somehow it seemed like I had more on my mind that needed to be aired when I was "lower". Although, I hadn't completely gone off writing, it just hasn't been visible here, as most words came out in private letters and mails. (And as any with an interest in literature knows, the genre of The Letter is a rather complex and fascinating one, but also problematic. An illustrating example is the correspondence between Héloïse and Abélard which took place in the Middle Ages. In a rhetorically highly embellished style the love letters also refers to historical events, but they were presumably not meant for the public. However in the years to come they have undoubtedly been regarded as literature, and have been read as such by many people.)

Back to the subject. If there ever was one, I'm not sure.

One of the courses I'm attending this semester is about "User Interface", and that involves a vast amount of disciplines. To understand how people behave, and to know how to design well functioning interfaces we have to study a little bit of both psychology and learning theories among other things. (I might consult you on that later, Toril) This is a very interesting field; practically everything we do is about communication, and in this case with computers or computer based technology. Needless to say perhaps, but this course is mainly about Human Computer Interaction Design, but to explain the concepts of it our lecturer used some metaphors. She's a dog lover and therefor she referred to the dog as an example of a reliable user interface. Sure, there are some seriously messed up dogs around the world, but basically they sound the same, and give the dog a biscuit and he wags his tail. Wagging tail = happy dog. Comforting to know some things are persistent.

What we have to do now for this course is to come up with a prototype for a design, either something new or an improvement for something poorly designed already existent. You'll probably see by now where I'm heading, 'cause with the dog in mind I came to think of something similar, but yet so frustratingly different in its inconsistent behavior. Yes, that's right. The Human. Very much in need of an update in its user interface. Just think about it.

I could go on for pages and fill volumes with this subject, so I'll just leave it up to you to ponder upon it and fill in the blanks. But for starters: Why is a simple hug so difficult to handle for some, while others respond immediately? (Luckily I've found one who is quite good at that...) And a well designed interface would never answer YES when it meant NO. And where's the bloody OK button?