Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!vtserf!cohill
From: cohill@vtserf.cc.vt.edu (Andrew M. Cohill)
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: Human Factors or also called Ergonomics
Message-ID: <1906@vtserf.cc.vt.edu>
Date: 13 Jun 91 12:41:43 GMT
References: <1991Jun12.091705.2823@actrix.gen.nz> <31211@hydra.gatech.EDU> <1991Jun13.000119.4664@cs.UAlberta.CA>
Organization: Fire in the Mountain
Lines: 43

In article <1991Jun13.000119.4664@cs.UAlberta.CA> cdshaw@cs.UAlberta.CA (Chris Shaw) writes:
>In article rc7@prism.gatech.EDU (Richard Catrambone) writes:
>>...research by psychologists in this area has had at best a
>>relatively modest impact on interface designs and the design process. 
>
>I think mainly because the research concentrates on designs that are largely
>out of date. Some people think that window-based interfaces are new. 
>They are not. If you're going to do a study on window interaction using
>mice to manipulate text in some constrained circumstance, then forget it. 
>It's like fishing for minnows. Ditto for keyboard layout. 
>Ditto for command-line interfaces.
>
>Ergonomicists also have a bad habit of getting into the design loop way
>too late. Perhaps this is because early involvement is viewed as being
>methodologically impure, and because ergonomics is viewed as a product
>testing discipline. Both of these views work against design effectiveness
>simply because it's too late in the game.
>--

Now you've hooked me on one of my pet peeves.  My own view of the state
of HF *education* in this country is that many of the classes are
taught by people who are still uncomfortable with computers.  These are
professors who acquired both their education and their reputations in a
pre-digital world, and have never really embraced the new technology. Or
they cling to the old mainframe, command-line paradigm of computing,
which explains why so many studies seem irrelevant or microscopic in
scope.  Human factors labs are filled with old stuff like PDP-11s, VAX
11/730s, and 3270 display terminals.  Off to one side, you'll find one
or two six year old pcs with CGA displays.  

Human factors won't begin to have a serious impact on HCI design for
another ten or fifteen years, when some of the old fogies start to
retire from their academic chairs and the digital-era faculty are able
to have a real impact on education and research.

Andy Cohill


-- 
|          ...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