I have just finished the book "The Design Of Everyday Things".
It's a great book written by Donald Norman. The guy who wrote "The invisible computer", who worked for the Apple Computer's Advanced Technology Group.
In this book he talks about many-many interesting things:
-The constraints and strength of our short term & long term memory.
-The slips and mistakes our brain makes, while we do things.
-How can we make use of our cultural knowledge and knowledge in the world while design.
-The importance of natural mapping between controls and our actions.
-Interpretation of a system state, and our mental model about the system.
-The (missing) evolution of product line. The evaluation of the already selled products and the importance of debriefing then evolving the product to a better one.
He also describes how primitive were the computers at time of writing.
And he gives us some hints how he imagines the mobile phones should easy our everyday tasks. I had the impression the he was envisioning the nowadays iPhones. He also describes how a graphical user interface would help us to be more effective with the computer interaction. I often had the feeling that he was describing a vision which is very similar about nowadays iPads, iPhones or Microsoft Surface.
I was also symphatizing with him because I remember times when I needed to setup my Mouse and CD driver in the config.sys in order to use those devices. Nowadays everything is much more easier. Especially that, I am a Macintosh user I can spend my time focusing on relevant tasks, without even realizing that I am working.
I finished the book yesterday. After I put the book back onto my shelf I started to browse the new Apple products... They are just amazing. I was especially amazed by the new Siri feature in the iPhone. It remembers me to the "Computer" from Startreak. It is a good example that if we can imagine something then we can sooner or later achieve it. Another feature I imagined even myself and waited a lot is the iCloud. I tried the beta version by downloading Ethics from Aristotle on my Macbook and the book instantly appeared on my iphone too. :) Definetely it enhances our usability experience.
The next day, other news were expecting me. Sad news. The founder and main dreamer, envisioner and technology pioneer Steve Jobs died. So good journey Steve and rest in peace.
