Ah, technology...
Sep. 18th, 2014 08:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blatherskiteHow come Scotty never had this problem on the Enterprise? (Search Youtube for "Elevator Voice Recognition Technology Disadvantage" if that link breaks.)
I've done a lot of reading on product and interface design over the decades (John Norman, Alan Cooper, Jared Spool, etc. etc.), and I still can't figure out why people ignore the experts -- not to mention basic common sense -- and insist on technologizing things that clearly work much better as analog devices.
This subject seems to be something that is drastically underexplored in SF/F. Most writers just tend to assume that hardware and software engineers will figure out how to design future devices that work well and ergonomically*. People who make this assumption seemingly haven't actually met an engineer or (shudders in horror) a product design manager.
* Although there are obvious exceptions. Consider Star Trek, for instance: It makes no more sense to control a starship by pressing buttons on a touchscreen than it does to control an online avatar using the QWOP keys on the keyboard. The fact that you *can* do something bears no relationship to the question of *whether* you should do it.
I think I need to make this dysfunctional technology the central point of a story. I can imagine a plot that revolves around the ship's engineer tearing out the entire Apple-designed interface and replacing it with accelerator pedals and a steering wheel. *G*
I've done a lot of reading on product and interface design over the decades (John Norman, Alan Cooper, Jared Spool, etc. etc.), and I still can't figure out why people ignore the experts -- not to mention basic common sense -- and insist on technologizing things that clearly work much better as analog devices.
This subject seems to be something that is drastically underexplored in SF/F. Most writers just tend to assume that hardware and software engineers will figure out how to design future devices that work well and ergonomically*. People who make this assumption seemingly haven't actually met an engineer or (shudders in horror) a product design manager.
* Although there are obvious exceptions. Consider Star Trek, for instance: It makes no more sense to control a starship by pressing buttons on a touchscreen than it does to control an online avatar using the QWOP keys on the keyboard. The fact that you *can* do something bears no relationship to the question of *whether* you should do it.
I think I need to make this dysfunctional technology the central point of a story. I can imagine a plot that revolves around the ship's engineer tearing out the entire Apple-designed interface and replacing it with accelerator pedals and a steering wheel. *G*