The Human Factor

I remember in my first year, I was in an Engineering Design class, and a big part of that class was making design for the human factor. For example, A really bad design, that has surprisingly survived the years, is the USB. In my own experience, I have never plugged in a USB in the right way the first time. As a human factor, it isn't a design that is innately appealing to a person, and what I mean by this, is that it isn't something that makes sense to a person without anyone explaining it to them, or without a readme.

Throughout this course, we have talked about a lot of issues with computers and their relationship to issues in society. I think that smart design has a very large part in technology in society. The impact that good design has on a community is incredible. Think about the best designed cities in the world, and the correlation to the quality of living in those cities, or how art, technology, and innovation can affect us as humans emotionally.

Looking forward, I don't think that there will be a large jump in technology, as far as the hardware innovation will go. However, I think that the way that we interact with computers will be the focus of the coming years. As we strive to make computers more "human friendly", the possibility for good and new design is limitless.

I think this is really interesting for the designers out there in the world, and I wonder if we will ever reach a point where interacting with computers becomes a human instinct.