Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!hybrid!scifi!bywater!uunet!vtserf!cohill
From: cohill@vtserf.cc.vt.edu (Andrew M. Cohill)
Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: A newsgroup for HCI/UI?
Keywords: human-computer interaction user interfaces
Message-ID: <1344@vtserf.cc.vt.edu>
Date: 26 Feb 91 14:18:00 GMT
References: <1991Feb25.164210.14599@rick.doc.ca> <1991Feb26.014734.16220@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <41138@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Organization: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA
Lines: 31

In article <41138@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Thom Gillespie) writes:
>
> ......you tend to wait till the end to call in the artists,
> which is about how interface design has been done to date. I realize that
> there are exceptions, but ... 
> 
 I have to agree.  I would go even further and argue that what passes
for "design" in computer systems design is really a corrupted form of
engineering.  Design has very little to do with trying to completely
specify the system before building it.  Design, as understood in art and
architecture, is an exploratory process.  

The notions of "iterative systems design" and "rapid prototyping" are
attempts to address some of the problems with current practice, but the
industry is too hung up on methods.  It is a very difficult problem,
because most analysts and human factors people are encouraged in school
to use analytical methods to solve problems.  But systems of information
are not algorithms, and cannot be decomposed into functional modules as
easily as we would like to think.

The people that claim to be able to do this end up ignoring "exogenous"
factors like the physical environment, the psycho-social climate of the
workplace, formal and informal lines of communication, and the political
implications of systems.


-- 
|          ...we have to look for routes of power our teachers never       
|              imagined, or were encouraged to avoid.   T. Pynchon          
|                    
|Andy Cohill        cohill@vtserf.cc.vt.edu            VPI&SU