Humanity: Computing's Biggest Problem is a nice little piece in today's ZDNet, which looks at how some of the larger international IT companies are dealing with HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) issues.
While many companies don't take HCI seriously enough, the folks at Intel have pushed the envelope by hiring anthropologists to evaluate how their technologies are used in various cultures.
| Intel anthropologist Genevieve Bell made the case for leaving the office to do firsthand, in-person research.
"You have to go there and hang out," said Bell, who has racked up a fair number of frequent flier miles travelling to homes in India, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia and China as part of her study of cultural differences within the emerging middle class in Asia. If she hadn't gone to these places, Bell says that she would never have known that in some areas, people are buried with paper versions of their laptops so they will have technology in the next world, while in other spots, people have monks bless their cell phones. Sometimes, Bell said the findings are disturbing, such as the mobile phone faceplates in Malaysia that show a plane crashing into the World Trade Centre. |
I can't decide whether this reinforces or challenges the "global village" paradigm!
Intel are to be admired for taking such a bold step but HCI doesn't have to be sophisticated; you can learn a lot about the usability of your design through testing just a handful of "ordinary" users.
| "We don't like to do focus groups," said Marissa Mayer, director of consumer Web products for Google. Instead, Google prefers to first ask employees what they think of potential changes and then throw those alterations out to either a test of customers or, in some cases, just try the change on its live Web site.
Sometimes, that's how the company realises that it has a bad idea on its hands. That was the case when it offered broadband customers a thumbnail picture of each Web site with its search results. Of those who got the thumbnails, 5 percent of Google users went to the preferences page and turned off the feature. That's a pretty big thumbs-down, considering that typically only 1 percent or 2 percent of people ever view the Google preferences page. |
Ahh ... so that explains where the with-thumbnails version of Google originated.
Comments
0 comments