A collection of 12 posts

Naomi Miyake, a brilliant Japanese researcher, a close friend and colleague, and one of my early PhD students, died this year (2015). Here are my reflections on her carer, published in the japanese Cognitive Science Society's journal: Cognitive Studies, 22(4), 1-38. (Dec. 2015) ...

From the very beginnings of time, Ben Shneiderman has been busy photographing all that he sees. Ben was active in the pre-history days of the folks who tried to understand the newly-developed computing machines, especially as they moved into people's homes, offices, and schools. Eventually, that ...

Steelcase celebrated its 100th anniversary by asking 100 people to write essays about their dreams for the next 100 years. It is an impressive list of people and i am honored to be one of them. My essay, my dream is "the rise of the small." Here is the start: I dream of the power of individuals...

Published as: Norman, D. A. (1997). How might people interact with agents. In J. Bradshaw (Ed.), <em>Software agents</em (pp. 49-55). Cambridge, MA: AAAI Press/The MIT Press. Probably all the major software manufacturers are exploring the use of intelligent agents. Myths, promises, and reality a...

In developing an understanding of how humans interact with robots, we can draw our lessons from several disciplines: 1. Human-Computer Interaction 2. Automation in such areas as Aviation 3. Science fiction, e.g., Asimov's 4 laws of Robots 4. Computer-Supported Cooperative Work 5. Human Consciousn...

Chapter 7 from The Invisible Computer ? 1998 ? We are analog beings trapped in a digital world, and the worst part is, we did it to ourselves....

Part 2 of a three-part essay on the fact that people are analog, hence fundamentally mismatched with contemporary requirements of digital devices (e.g., the computer)....

Part 3 of an essay on the fact that people are analog, hence fundamentally mismatched with contemporary requirements of digital devices (e.g., the computer)....

April 2002: modified in June and August, 2002. ? When we remodeled our house, we put in dual-paper toilet roll holders so that we would always have a new roll when the old one ran out. Oops, they both ran out together. We discovered the algorithms of toilet paper use....

Jef Raskin, a remarkable person, died recently (26 Feb., 2005). He led a rich life. I first met him when he was a professor at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in the early 1970s, and although his degree was in Music, he was a professor of Art, doing computer science, and art, and m...

<p>Draft version of Chapter 1 of my new book, tentatively titled <em>The Design of Future Things</em>. (In press: Basic Books. Expected publication: 2007.)&nbsp; This chapter is called &quot;Cautious cars and cantankerous kitchens.&quot; Posted December 9, 2006 as a Microsoft Word file.</p><p>...

<p class="MsoNormal">I've been spending a lot of time in hospitals recently. No, not as a patient, as an observer &mdash; following doctors and nurses on their grand rounds, watching patients get admitted, nurses doing shift changes, pharmacists filling prescriptions, and then watching nurses act...