The trouble with technology
"We who inhabit the modern times of the twenty-first century have to adapt to digital technology moving at light speed. More and more technology is being foisted on us at a faster rate. We walk around with electronic leashes--pagers, cell phones, personal digital assistants and pocket PCs--that tie us to our work. At home, we have the latest electronic consumer products--each with its onw remove control and heft user's manual. All these gadgets are supposed to make life easier, but the often make it more difficult instead. And before we learn to use the latest technological 'convenience', there's a new one of the market with more 'advanced' features. No matter how many user's manuals we read, we just can't seem to keep up."
Kim Vicente, The Human Factor, pp. 13-4.
"More and more we're being asked to live with technology that is technically reliable, because it was created to fit our knowledge of the physical world, but that is so complex or so counterintuitive that it's actually unusable by most human beings."
Kim Vicente, The Human Factor, p. 17.
"In the information age, as computers invade our lives and more and more products contain a chip of silicon, we find that what lies between us humans and our devices is cognitive friction, which is something new and something that we are ill-prepared to deal with. Our engineering skills are highly refined, but when we apply them to a cognitive friction problem, they fail to solve it."
Alan Cooper, The Inmates are Running the Asylum, p. 92.
"None of our current crop of software based products is capable of delivering power and pleasure to people outside of the techno-smitten minority. The engineering community says merely that users will have to become 'computer literate'. I believe history will view that phrase in the same way that we treat Marie Antoinette’s famously condescending phrase, 'Let them eat cake'. The French Revolution gave food to the masses, and the coming design revolution will give technology to the masses."
Alan Cooper, The Inmates are Running the Asylum, p. 244.
"Most digital products today emerge from the development process like a monster emerging from a bubbling tank. Developers, instead of planning and executing with their users in mind, end up creating technological solutions over which they ultimately have little control. Like mad scientists, they fail because they have not imbued their creations with humanity."
Alan Cooper, About Face 2.0, p. 5.