Human-Centered Intranet Design
Tips for making HCI user friendly ...
Have you ever tried discussing Tolstoy with a vacuum cleaner? This is precisely how many users feel when trying to interact with their systems in a technologically driven work environment. And I do mean interact. Although the word is usually associated with social activity, interacting with technology is exactly what we're doing every time we sit in front of our computers.
There's an unfortunate disconnect between how humans naturally function and what a lot of technology delivers. Technology needs to function as an extension of our own abilities, but users are often left scratching their heads or pounding their keyboards in frustration. It's ironic that while intranets aim to bring workers together in collaborative effort they can also alienate individual users who struggle to decipher poorly developed or overly complicated systems. This makes about a much sense as creating more bureaucracy to eliminate red tape.
The human-computer relationship can be an uneasy one. But it doesn't, and shouldn't, have to be that way. Just as physical ergonomics is important to the health of the body, cognitive ergonomics is important to the health of the mind. Developers need to have a deeper understanding that regardless of what technology allows them to do, the end product must conform to the natural way in which humans work.
Human-System Disconnect - Users have always tried to reconcile the way in which they naturally work with how technology makes them work (or in some cases changes the way they work). For those not in a technology-driven field, or not used to working with computers beyond a word processor, this is not an easy task — especially when software is getting bigger; more elaborate; and consequently, more complicated." continued ... (Via Intranet Journal)
Have you ever tried discussing Tolstoy with a vacuum cleaner? This is precisely how many users feel when trying to interact with their systems in a technologically driven work environment. And I do mean interact. Although the word is usually associated with social activity, interacting with technology is exactly what we're doing every time we sit in front of our computers.
There's an unfortunate disconnect between how humans naturally function and what a lot of technology delivers. Technology needs to function as an extension of our own abilities, but users are often left scratching their heads or pounding their keyboards in frustration. It's ironic that while intranets aim to bring workers together in collaborative effort they can also alienate individual users who struggle to decipher poorly developed or overly complicated systems. This makes about a much sense as creating more bureaucracy to eliminate red tape.
The human-computer relationship can be an uneasy one. But it doesn't, and shouldn't, have to be that way. Just as physical ergonomics is important to the health of the body, cognitive ergonomics is important to the health of the mind. Developers need to have a deeper understanding that regardless of what technology allows them to do, the end product must conform to the natural way in which humans work.
Human-System Disconnect - Users have always tried to reconcile the way in which they naturally work with how technology makes them work (or in some cases changes the way they work). For those not in a technology-driven field, or not used to working with computers beyond a word processor, this is not an easy task — especially when software is getting bigger; more elaborate; and consequently, more complicated." continued ... (Via Intranet Journal)
Talking to a vacuum cleaner.
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