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Title: Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes in the Age of the Machine by Donald A. Norman ISBN: 0-201-62695-0 Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: May, 1994 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.22 (9 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Humanity for Dummies
Comment: Yet another tome about the greatness of human qualities and the belief that machines do not and will not achieve these? Yes but with a little more aplomb and erudition that most in the field. There is not a "we are doomed" mood to this book and the author seems to prefer explication over prophecies of a machine world.
But a lot of what is covered is not only known but well-known. Who thinks that Big Blue is actually "thinking" in his various chess tournaments? Norman talks endlessly about misconceptions concerning the computer world, beliefs held (he thinks) by a sizeable number of intelligent people. It is because the PC so aptly simulates human behavior that we hold such views in the first place.
And while such subjects as art, music, learning, ritual, satire, and recognition of such subjective qualities as good, bad, beautiful, ugly, and appropriate are today solely human qualities, who knows at what point in the future that humans may program their machines to simulate some or all of the above?
A majority of the book is spent explaining why this cannot happen.
A discussion of the difference in human associative brains and the mechanicsm of machine computation has been noted numerous times before. In fact, it makes perfect sense that the two shall never meet. Human thought is based on sensory perception with the real world - something a machine cannot partake in at the present. We require vision, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling in order to formulate a world view. Until machines can develop a mechanism for simulating these experiences, we will experience only what smartly programmed machines are told to do.
Rating: 5
Summary: Making Peace with Machines
Comment: What if we put aside worrying about how computers will replace human thought and behavior and focused, instead, on the fundamental differences and complementary strengths of humans and machines? Perhaps then we could make best use of the things that have the potential to make us smart. Don Norman, author of The Design of Everyday Things, takes the insights he is famous for, regarding the design of everyday objects, and turns these towards a thoughtful consideration of the high tech objects in our lives.
Norman contends that what machines are best at are memorization and calculation, and that part of our fears about them come from comparing ourselves mentally to computers with regard to these dimensions. This is a fundamentally flawed way to think about the relationships between humans and computers.
He encourages us, instead, to optimize the powerful potential of computation in order to liberate ourselves for more important ends, such as the time and capacity for deep reflective thought. In this way, and in other ways, he advocates for a human-centered approach to technology.
Humans make tools and build objects, or artifacts; and the artifacts we build help to make us smart. They remind us of important things and when designed well help us accomplish important things and provide "affordances" for desired behaviors and outcomes.
We need to develop better and keener senses of design. With regard to computers, the more we can unload, the more conceptual knowledge that we can convert into "experiential" knowledge through the use of such things as powerful computer-based data representations, the more we will free ourselves for higher order reflective thought and human judgment.
Norman convincingly argues that rather than locking ourselves in a battle of turf with machines, we should take advantage of the ways machines, like other human-designed objects, can, indeed, help to make us smart.
Rating: 5
Summary: Easy to understand eye opener
Comment: This book is easy to read - and should open most peoples eyes a bit more...
It describes how we (mankind) uses external representations to assist our brains - from writing, to diagrams, to maps, to the way we build our offices.
If you want a deeper psychological understanding with which you can do your own reasoning on different types of external representation - get this book. If you want clear-cut guidelines - get another book.
If you like this book - try Normans: The Design of Everydaythings as well. You might like Donald Schöns The Reflective Practitioner also.
Last word: Norman seems to prefer easy reading to structure - which means the book is best read end-to-end.
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Title: The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman ISBN: 0465067107 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 17 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Invisible Computer: Why Good Products Can Fail, the Personal Computer Is So Complex, and Information Appliances Are the Solution by Donald A. Norman ISBN: 0262640414 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 20 August, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Emotional Design: Why We Love (Or Hate) Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman ISBN: 0465051359 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 23 December, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: The Inmates Are Running the Asylum : Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How To Restore The Sanity by Alan Cooper ISBN: 0672316498 Publisher: SAMS Pub. Date: 06 April, 1999 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: The Psychology of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman ISBN: 0465067093 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: April, 1988 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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